Discolored FE pushrods

[Eljaro]

I have had to remove the edelbrock heads from my 482 KC sideoiler because coolant was seeping out of the head nuts and too much white smoke was comming out of the exhaust.
The heads have been taken to the machine shop where the head to block and head to intake surfaces have been shaved. 0.008 had to be taken off each head surface to eliminate the low spots.
I have ordered a SCE Titan copper head gasket with water passage seals and one of their intake gaskets, bacause I have mixed feeling about the felpro intake gaskets, which sooner or later leak oil into the intake.
So far so good, BUT several pushrods are yellow and blue at the cup end and I do not know how to interpret that. Is that normal?
Maybe to little oil for cooling going to the head?
I have a restrictor inside the oil passage. Should I take it out?

[Anthony]

I'm guessing you're not getting enough of oil to the cups. Check your rockers to see if there is an oil bleed hole on the back body of the rocker, above the cup, to oil that area. If you don't have these oil holes, you may need to take your rockers off, and drill small holes in the back of the rockers.

[Eljaro]

the holes are there.
I think that maybe with a sideoiler the oil restrictors to the heads are not so necessary. Maybe that was a fix for the top oilers.

[Anthony]

I read somewhere that if you are running bushed rocker arm pivots, you shouldn't use oil restrictors. If you have roller bearing rocker pivots, to use the restictors.

[Eljaro]

Anthony
the Dove rocker setup I have is plain aluminum on the steel shaft. If it is as you say I should take the oil restrictors out.

[ted]

If your rocker arm shafts have just the holes without any slots, you may not be getting enough oil through the rocker so the pushrod can oil depending upon how your rocker aligns with the existing oil hole. Simply grinding or cutting a diagonal across the oil holes can fix this if this is the problem.

Ted Eaton

[Hans-Olof Blom]

Eljaro

Prime the engine with the valve covers off. Then you can see if you get oil to all rockers.

When I assembled my engine I primed it before I mounted it in the car. I had oil to all Dove rockers except one.

The oil grove in the center of the rocker was not aligned to the hole. Part of the grove was too shallow. It was easy to fix with a Dremel.

[Anthony]

I was looking at my rockers today, and I may drill another hole in the back of the rocker, near the adjuster screw, the hole to exit just below where the threads end, to get oil on the end of the adjuster screw to then drain down into the cup. The holes that are present are lower on the body, about equal to where the upper lip of the pushrod cup is.

[Keithc8]

We have seen this with some of the restrictors. It is a thing that you have to play with sometimes on the size needed. To small and you may not get enough oil to the end pushrods or like what was mentioned earlier one of the rocker maybe not being drilled right. We have started using a pushrod with a hole in the center to send oil up to the cup area. The FE rocker system is just not very good at oiling.
We have gotten away from the damn Fel-Pro gaskets and gone to a Comtic or Edelbrock. Let us know how the new intake gaskets work. We have never had any problems with the head gaskets. Did you ever get the engine hot by any chance? I have seen this cause a head gasket problem. It does not hurt to re-torque them if the engine gets a little hot because it causes the head to grow more and can stretch the head bolts or studs and then when the heads cool of they lose some of thier torque.
Give me a call if we can help in any way.

Thanks, Keith

[Eljaro]

After putting together my engine with the new KC 482 pond block and my existing edelbrock heads, and on one of the first rides did I did see on several occasions cooling liquid oozing out from two head nuts. That was already worrying, but I didn’t do anything except retighten the head nuts, which did not move a bit.
At this point I would like to ask: to retorque the head bolts or nut do you have to loosen them up and tighten again?
Then a few months ago when I took the car out to break a speed record and hit 250km/h without problems I came back home and noticed white smoke out of one exhaust, blue smoke too.
I removed the heads and basically nothing was wrong, except the Felpro intake gasket not perfectly located where it should be and some deterioration of the head gasket around the water passage.
I did take the head to have the intake and cylinder surfaces shaved, the later needing 0.008" shaved off to remove the lowest spot.
To go safe I have decided to leave the Felpro intake gaskets hanging in my garage untouched, and have ordered from SCE their Titan copper gasket with water passage seals imbedded, and also their simple intake gasket.
I will get the parts sometime next week and will put all together again.
Since I mount Webers and there is always some gasoline dropping inside the intake, whichever silicone there is, like the beads around the intake and cooling ports on the Felpro gaskets just get softened up and out and I think that is the reason those intake gaskets end up leaking sooner or later.
I will stay away from the Felpro intake gasket. Too many problems related to that, at least in my case.
From SCE I also got the information that the ethyl glycol coolant normally used will eat at the silicone sealant and that it is advisable to use products like Redline or Evans instead to lenthen service life of the gasket with silicone beads.

As for the discolored pushrods I did not notice any discoloration when I used the center oiler block and the same edelbrock heads with the same restrictor in place and the same Dove rocker setup. I believe that since the sideoiler feed the crankshaft first, not so much oil gets to the heads now and the restrictor might be not necessary but rather inadvisable. The head gasget has a smaller hole for the oil passage and there is a restriction there anyway.
I will take the restrictors out and get more oil to the heads.

[lovehamr]

El, you might want to talk to Keith about their intake gaskets. I just used a set on my E-bock heads and they fit perfect.

Steve

[zrayr]

[quote=Eljaro;1033758 "................ but I didn’t do anything except retighten the head nuts, which did not move a bit.
At this point I would like to ask: to retorque the head bolts or nut do you have to loosen them up and tighten again? ..................." [/QUOTE]

yes.


Z. Ray

[Eljaro]

thanks Ray, so I have been doing it wrong all along.
Do you loosen them up and retorque them one by one or you loosen them all up first and retorque them all down as per specified order?

[zrayr]

Originally Posted by Eljaro

thanks Ray, so I have been doing it wrong all along.
Do you loosen them up and retorque them one by one or you loosen them all up first and retorque them all down as per specified order?

there may be more than one "right" way. The way I do it is loosen them one at a time to zero torque, then tighten to the first step. say 50 ft lbs. and then go on to the next one. When all the nuts or bolts are at that level then start your tighten sequence just as if you were putting on the gasket for the first time.

I am thinking about trying the SCE ICS Titan copper self-sealing head gaskets also, let us know how that goes.

Z.

[RICK LAKE]

Eljaro Lets start with the rockers, I have been through dove rockers and problems. The best I can tell you is this,
If you are running rockers with out bushings or grooves in the center of the rocker bodies, either go with no orifaces or .120" hole for oil control. This is with running the shields for the rockers. You have to remember that the valve springs product alot of heat and the oil is the only thing to cool them off. Also have 1 extra quart of oil in the pan. I ran the same rocker bdies as you without any bushing or bearing. This grooveing the center of the rocker body with a dremel tool worked the best to extend the rockers live. This is for a street motor, NOT a track motor. Line up the rocker to the holes in the shaft and cut a .030" groove all thge way around inside the rocker body. If you are looking for a little extra oil to the pushrod rocker contact point drill a .010" through the rocker body. I had broken shafts and rockers that where oblonged on the shafts from racing before I changed to FULL roller rockers ERSON. If you get some extra money this is one of the better ways to go.
Full roller rockers can get by with .060" orifaces in the oil port, but I have seen blueing of the pushrod ends from hard driving or racing. IMO this is good for 1/4 mile racing ONLY. The min for racing and street is .080" with Erson. Tjhis is what I have been running for 3 years and no problems. I also have a HVHP oil pump with 100 psi spring. The motor runs with 70-80 psi pressure after getting to operating temps. Startup can be 135psi cold. Just let the FI system control the idle and cold start. Go with an .080" oriface and get a bottle of Lucas oil suppliment for the motor. It has a clinging effect for all the internal parts and prevents dry starts.
As far as retorqueing head nut of bolts, I don't do this after assembly. This is for either a Shelby block or FE motor with 1020# felpro gaskets. I use HI-TAC on all my gaskets and have had no failures to date with 12 years of racing the same motor. The HI-TAC is a pain to remove from surfaces but prevents leaks. If you are running head bolts or studs into water holes in the block you need to have sealer on the threads of the bolts or studs.
The torqueing of the head goes from the center 4 bolts out wards. Go to 40 pounds to start and add 10 lbs until you hit the spec you are looking for. DON'T over tighten aluminum heads, they will crush around the bolt holes, even with washers to spread out the holding loads. If a nut of bolt is loose, it's possible that the threads have pulled in the block. I have gone through this and replaced helicoils with timeserts in my CSX#58 motor. No problem since this was done. Sorry for long wind. Once put togeather you should n't need to retorque the head bolts or intake manifold bolts, this is even after a couple of heat cycles to the motor. Recheck to spec but not tightening. Rick L.

[Dominik]

When torquing the heads make sure the correct lubricant is used, or rather the correct torque for the used lube.

The needed torque can vary dramatically!!

Does anybody use a torque + angle (in degrees) procedure?

[Eljaro]

So far the SCE ICS Titan copper self-sealing head gaskets have help up very well after abusing the engine, with no coolant seeping out anywhere around the heads.
Unfortunately I do have one problem, and that is oil leaking out between the head and the block, on three corners. I have checked if it is oil leaking out under the manifold gasket at the rear or where it meets the head, and except some oil exuding there, it is basically oil leaking out between the heads and block.
I do not know now if the stiffer copper gasket does not seal completely and return oil flowing down the heads seeps in between the gasket and head or block and travels down to the outer side of the heads.
What do you think the problem can be? any ideas what to check?
I have checked the torque on the outer head nuts (the inner nuts are inaccessible unless I remove the rocker shaft) and they did not move a bit.

[Excaliber]

Interesting comment on the ethylene glycol eating away at silicone. I recently switched over to propylene glycol (Evan's waterless coolant). I wonder if the propylene has the same impact as the ethylene.... ?

[Rick Parker]

Several years ago there was a lengthy discussion about various coolants and their effects on the sealing beads of the many head gaskets. Many of the players and participants no longer frequent the website but it might be time to reaquaint how the various coolants effect different head gaskets, it applies to SB as well as the FE's.

[Eljaro]

I am using Evans waterless coolant and in any case, if there were a problem with the silicone beads it would be the ones around the water passages and it would be coolant leaking out, but that is not the case.
I do not believe that oil is getting past those silicone beads around the oil hole to the heads but rather just migrating in between the rather hard copper gasket and head.
That is my theory. Unless the oil comes from somewhere else and travels along the unions to the lowest point and down the block from there.