Excessive oil usage/burning FE

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

My 428 FE is burning/using excessive amounts of oil. The engine has only 1400 miles and the oil problem seems to affect only the four rear cylinders. The problem has gotten worse since I installed a large capacity oil pan and pickup at 1200 miles. The heads are C8AE-H 69 cc's and do not have the stamped sheet metal oil deflectors installed. Could oil be getting past the intake gasket? Any other ideas?

[lineslinger]

Something as you describe, considering the mileage, usually indicates rings that are not seated or a leaking intake gasket...either way a progressive tear down is usually in order, good luck with it.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by ZOERA-SC7XX

My 428 FE is burning/using excessive amounts of oil. The engine has only 1400 miles and the oil problem seems to affect only the four rear cylinders. The problem has gotten worse since I installed a large capacity oil pan and pickup at 1200 miles. The heads are C8AE-H 69 cc's and do not have the stamped sheet metal oil deflectors installed. Could oil be getting past the intake gasket? Any other ideas?

Any chance you could have a runaway-PCV sucking in oil like crazy?

[Barry_R]

I'd be betting on an intake gasket on that one - or maybe the oil returns being blocked off with silicone sealer....

[convincor]

what intake gaskets were used?
Pull the valve covers and see if they look like these. Notice there not flat to the head.


They would then probably look like this around the ports.

[decooney]

Ever get any blue smoke out of the sidepipes upon heavy acceleration or upon hard cornering?

[RICK LAKE]

ZOERA-SC7XX A larger oil pan and pickup is not going to effect you problem any more or less unless you added a HV oil pump. You are going to need to pull the intake either way. The 2 major areas to check are where the gasket are sticking out and possibility of partly blocking the returns. Get the Flepro intake gaskets for your car and a can of HI-TAC. Spray both sides and let dry almost. Make sure that the return ports in the intake and heads is not partially blocked. Get another person to help you center the manifold on the motor. Torque down from the center out in 10 pound settings until you reach your spec. Put the distributor in it's hole before you start to bolt down the manifold. It will center it on the motor better. The other thing is which valve stem seals are you running? Can yo get a picture of them? They should have a small spring on the top part. This is a positive seal. If it is black without the ring, you will need the deflectors in the heads.
When your intake is off measure the angle of the head surface and the intake surface. It is possible that the heads where shaved. This will cause an oil problem too. The angles could be off. Looks fine on top and is 2-4 degrees off at the bottom. You would then need to have the manifold machine to that angle.

[Barry_R]

I just got in some new intake gaskets that should help this problem. They are cut just like the 1247 Fel-Pro - but have a laminated steel inner layer with a blue silicone bead on both sides instead of only one.

[Argess]

I suspect your help so far is right on track. I had this problem for a while, but no longer. Unfortunately, I am uncertain what the reason was, but here's the things that seemed related:

1/ Intake manifold needed to be planed. Angles were off and one port was higher than the rest (easy check with a straight edge).

2/ I used Sealed Power rings vs Hastings this time. Very different oil control expander. I credit this change to be the most significant.

Things that were not responsible (but could be):

1/ Oil flooding. I always had restrictors to the heads. If you don't, keep in mind the engine sits at a slightly raked back angle and the rear valve guides could be swamped with oil.

2/ Oil drip trays not installed. I have run with and without these trays. Smoking didn't change regardless.

3/ Detonation. This causes the top two ring gaps to align. I personally doubt this could cause enough oil to enter the combustion chamber, but others say otherwise.

4/ Type (brand) of intake manifold gaskets. I've heard about problems with one brand vs another, but if the angles are right any should work. I use Fel-pro, blue-seal towards manifold, gasket shellac on both sides around water ports.

[Nantucket427]

The head gasket would be the first thing I would check.

I never had a problem with the intake but I have followed some other threads where that was the problem.

I went thru the PCV value and yes you need one but that was not the problem.

I had someone rebuild the engine that did not know the difference between an iron block and alloy pistons. It smoked as it heated up because the expanision was different for the two metals. The rings never seated. A complete rebuild was the answer.

No problems for 5 years. Black marks whenever I want!

[RodgerH]

Originally Posted by Barry_R

I just got in some new intake gaskets that should help this problem. They are cut just like the 1247 Fel-Pro - but have a laminated steel inner layer with a blue silicone bead on both sides instead of only one.

Barry,

Have you had a chance to try these? I like the steel support but is the printoseal silicon bead the way to go? Seems like a history of problems with it? Do you install these dry, or with sealer?

Rodger

[sexzsn8k]

Barry_R - Don't keep us in suspense, who makes those type of gaskets ?

[Barry_R]

My concept.
Fel-Pro makes them.
Not in any catalogs yet.

[Argess]

I was thinking some more on this. Do you have restrictors in the head oil passages? As above:

"Oil flooding. I always had restrictors to the heads. If you don't, keep in mind the engine sits at a slightly raked back angle and the rear valve guides could be swamped with oil."

It's the easiest change to make at this point. First time I did it, I machined aluminum rod and drilled a hole through the center. Last time I used allen plugs with a center hole, but you don't want to do this with the engine installed as metal chips will get into the oil passage. All you really have to do is cut 1" sections of rod the fit easily doewn the oil passages. Enough oil will come up around the rods.

It only involces removing the valve covers and rocker assemblies. For testing, you can probably re-use the valve cover gaskets. If you still have problems, then it may be the manifold gaskets/manifold maching as a next step.

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

I'm thinking it's the intake gaskets, as it's only the rear cylinders pushing oil. I'll check the heads for restrictors, as they were supplied from a different machine shop than the short block.
Thanks for all the feedback.

[RICK LAKE]

ZOERA-SC7XX I run restictors in my shelby motor. .080" holley jets. There is nothing wrong with having the heads flooded to the push rod holes in the manifold as long as you are running a larger than stock oil pan. The valve springs product alot of heat at rpm going up and down at 40 cycles per second racing and about 10-30 per second cruising the car. As long as you have good valve stem seals ( positive ones) you will not be getting extra oil sucked in though the head. The valve stem and valve guides also need to be the right clearance. If the clearance is too wide, the stem will wobble and per wear out the seal. This could cause the oil issue you could have too. Did you heads have any port work done to them? Thin walls between pushrod holes and the ports in the manifold can also give you the same problem but blue smoke should be seen with the car running out the tail pipes. Rick.

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

Rick: No port work done, just larger (2.080) intake valves and slight resurface. This engine has only 1375 miles on it to date. The oil consumption happened from day one. Some local guys think the engine should be run for 2/3000 miles before this will clear up. Yes, we have smoke from the pipes (maybe less than before). What should my spark plug gap be? I use MSD RTR ignition.

[Tom Kirkham]

How much oil are you losing? How do you know it is the rear cylinders? from the spark plugs? How do they look? can you post a picture?

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

The rear plugs were fouled with burnt carbon after about 500 miles, one of which stopped firing (which caused me to pull them). Oil was also on the threads below the sealing surface on three of the four rear plugs. Once changed, I got another 700 miles or so before the same condition occured. Oil consumption is not as bad as when engine was new. I'm thinking plug gap will affect either burning the oil off the plugs before the plug finally fouls with carbon. My initial plug gap was .045 (should they be .050?). I saved the plugs but I didn't number them. I can probably identify the two or three culprits and post a photo tomorrow.

[ERA Chas]

You're probably good with .045 - I run .049 successfully. Really think you're taking oil through the intake gaskets and Barry's look really good for a fix. I've been good with the Victors for 5 years now but they may be hard to find.