I recently bought an '86 Z28 that was in a complete state of disrepair for $1100. Upon removing the intake manifold during the tear down process we found perhaps the best reason to change your oil on time, take a look.

Giant rocks of hardened oil sludge in the lifter valley, yuck.

 

Hmm, An 86 block with Roller Cam ?

Interesting

 

Yeah its an 1986 Z28 but its an 87 engine. I was talking to my uncle that works for GM in the Tanowanda (sp?) engine plant outside Buffalo, and he said some '86 Camaros produced late in the year got the 87+ block. Though its possible its not the original motor.

 

yummy, that looks good, looks like regurgitated diahhrea

 

Tonawanda.....Didnt know the made engines there, thanks for the tip.

 

My ole LG4 looked worse than that, specially in the heads area. I should have put it in cups when I cleaned it out to measure.

No wonder the new cam I had put in it, ruined the motor.

 

looks more like the egr ports were leaking in there

 

How can ya tell?

 

I doubt it. That stuff will coke just from the heated metal of the cross-over passage. Especially store-brand, 10W40 oil (or Pennzoil... )

If you look under the intake heat shield, you'll get another picture's-worth-a-thousand-words.

What it really is, is motivation to use AMSOIL. You'll get that stuff with petroleum oils (especially those with a lot of VI improvers, like 10W40's), even with the recommended oil changes.

 

when the exhaust leaks in up there it tends to leave deposits in the oil and kinda bakes it in there. also bad rings do that too!

 

How late in '86? Mine was slapped together in Van Nuys in July of '86, and it has flat tappets.

 

159,179 of 192,219 made that model year (September 1985 - August 1986).

Another odd this about the vehicle is that it is a Z28 and it has a third tail light when I read in 1986 only IROC Zs had the third tail light. However in 1987 all camaros had the third tail light as mandated by Federal law.

Here is the casting number



Mortec says this is a 87-95 Roller cam block with 1 piece rear main seal.

However the VIN decoder on thirdgen.com says this car should have the 85-86 LG4.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the engine block was missing the casting plate that is normally on the front passanger side of the block. So its possible someone swapped a later 305 into this car in the past 16 years.

 

five7kid: under the heat shield as in, once you take it off the manifold? the part inside?

 

Acid,

If the stamped numbers are not on the right deck, the block may have been machined. If it's a roller block, chances are it isn't the original engine. The rest of the evidence certainly points toward that, and it may not even be a 305.

AFAIK, all 1986 U.S. cars had the CHiST lamp by federal mandate. The '86 'F' cars were the only year to have this on teh outside of the read glass.


Pennzoil / Quaker State:




Mobil 1:

 

Its definatly a 305



However its a CHMSL (center high mounted stop light).

Thirdgen.org indicates all camaros had this light in 1986 and IROC-Z.com indicates "To distinguish a 1986 IROC-Z on the street, they had a third brake light on the rear hatch at the top."

However, i think thirdgen.org is probably correct. ::shrug::

Edit: Yeah, thirdgen.org is correct, found this national transporation safety board report about CHMSL devices, says all light cars had them starting in the 1986 model year.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/...te/808696.html

 

That's nasty. My 305 looked kind of like that after 14 years of regular oil, but not nearly so bad.

You should drain the coolant from your intake before you pull it so it doesn't end up in the oil.

 

Don't worry, that coolant was just some spillage during the tear down.

edit: though that oil provide some entertainment when we were "cleaning" the block.



Here it is back from the machine shop.

 

my old 305 engine looked like that...so i trashed it, that engine must have been beat so i just got a new 305, 8 miles on it from the factory and it cost me 900, with heads, TBI, intake, all the acc, A/C, water pump, Air pump, power steering, it came out of a 1990 caprice, but was in an engine stand all its unused life. runs like a charm...just need to get the LB9 heads and ZZ4 cam.

 

You mean Amsoil is the ONLY one to prevent that type of sludge? What you have there is strictly lack of maintenance. I have seen more engines apart in the 30 years my dad was at a dealer than I care to count. Regular oil changes with any decent oil syn or paraffin based will prevent what you see there. His problem is that the detergent/dispersant in the oil simply quit working, most likely caused by the lack of frequent changes as opposed to the brand or composition(syn/dino).

 

Yeah, but we're just having fun picking on Pennzoil/Quaker State. They've EARNED it, after all. The photo I had posted was not Amsoil, but a Mobil 1 engine since day one. Synthetics certainly will clean better, but oil change frequency, good filtration, a working PCV system, and type of vehicle use are major factors in producing that kind of goop.

 

I think I should add that the old 4.3 in my van had the oil changed right at if not before 3000 miles all it's life.

When I took it out with 107k miles on it it looked like the clean engine above.

...I wouldn't put Pennzoil in a stolen lawnmower

 

Yes.

 

No.

 

Are these for real? How much time was on each motor? And how dose Valvoline rate with you guys?

 

Where can I get a one of those lifter valley baffles (if thats what their called)?

 

I don't know about Valvoline, but...

Those are sorta for real. I'm going on assumptions here, so..

THe upper engine probalby used regular dino oil. But those results are more likely caused by neglect, not just the fact that they're not synthetic.

The lower engine is, I'm assuming, Vader's, from his transam, which, if I remember correctly, has about 45k miles on it now. Vader's an avid mobil-1 user (and with good reason), so he's always used that. Synthetics have better properties than dino oils do, one of them being that they clean a lot better. However, this isn't really a fair comparison, because Vader is a stickler for scheduled engine maintenence, far beyond MOST normal people.

 

Enkil,

Who you callin' "Normal"?

You're not getting all the hints from the photo. My T/A now has 47,000 miles, but since it's an '86, it is a flat tappet engine, and has never been out of the cradle since leaving the factory. Besides, no factory LB9 even had intake ports that big.

The first engine was Acidtalon's 305. The second engine is the LT1 out of my '94 Impala. It was pulled at 110,000 miles after a lifetime of synthetic use. Long story short, there was nearly immeasurable wear on the engine, from the main and rod bearings to the ridge and taper. I was so unsure of my results that I had a buddy come over and mic the bores for taper and out-of-round again just to see if I was correct. The WORST bore had 0.0004" (that's four tenths) taper from top to bottom, and neither Helmut nor I never babied the engine as evidenced by the sets of rear tires it consumed. Compression ring gaps were still at a snug 0.022". If I didn't know better, I'd have thought it was a 15k engine.

You are absolutely correct about maintenance schedules. The first engine has likely been neglected over its life. I change synthetic every 3,000 miles. Adhering to the service interval is as important as the photos and measurements indicate, regardless of the type of oil used. Cheating with synthetic might be just as bad as cheating with mineral oil, although mineral oil does tend to sludge a bit more.

 

so mobile 1 synthetic would be the way to go? I used regular oil for my first 500 miles then switched to valvoline synthetic. Will be switching to mobile 1 now after seeing this. BTW motor has 1500 miles on it. I think Im gonna go ahead and change the oil again. Its already pretty dirty again.

 

What do you mean by cheating? Right now I'm running Val. dino oil (wish I had taken a better look at what I was buying) but I think Vader has sold me on using mobile 1 synthetic, I change my oil once a month (gives me somthing to do ) and sence we're on the subject of oil, what filters you guys run? I've been using fram, but am going to switch to AC delco filters with my next oil change.

 

As a generalization, all syntetics are better than dino oils. Amsoil and Mobil-1 are some of the better synthetics out there. While I don't have the numbers or dino runs to prove anything like this, there have been more than one person that runs cars on circle tracks that say they can notice a difference when running with mobil-1.

Edit: My IROC has about 95k miles on it. I switched from Havoline to Mobil-1 at about 85k, and the oil comes out looking like it did going in.

 

Cheating, as in.. "Oh... I can push the oilchange back another thousand miles or so."

Mobil-1 is a bit on the expensive side, around 5 dollars a quart, so perhaps once a month won't be happening any more, hehe.. The general consensus around here is that fram is poop. I've always ran AC-Delco filters, they're pretty cheap and from what I've heard, good quality.

 

You'll be fine with Valvoline...that's all I ever used in my '89 (bought new, oil changed every 3-4K miles, lots of stop and go traffic too) for the first 70K or 80K when I switched to M1.


Both under the intake and the valvecovers look brand new, hardly a flake of crust.

 

Cheating? Correct. Don't extend drain intervals with mineral oil. With synthetic, you can extend the intervals somewhat depending on your type of driving.

$5 a quart? I wouldn't pay that much if I could avoid it. I wait until I see the five-quart jugs of Mobil 1 at WalMart for $16.99, then stock up like there's no tomorrow. It usually easily gets me through until the next Wally-World visit.

"Poop"? You can't say that! Such filthy language will get you on the "naughty" list and all you'll get is a lump of coal in your stocking... "Defecation is a more apt term to apply to Fram filters.

 

8Mike9, if Valvoline is good then why did you change to Mobil 1?
I've been hearing all the dirty things that everyone has been saying about fram, thats why I'm switching to AC delco (hoping that'll drop the oil press. a little too)
I use those five-quart jugs too, makes containing the old oil much easier as well.

 

Those "lifter valley baffles" actually roller lifter retainers, on a hydraulic roller block they hold down small sets of plates that are above each set of lifters, the purpose of which is to keep the roller lifter oriented in the correct direction so the roller makes proper contact with the cam.

 

Well, when I bought a new house, my commute to work changed and I had about 50-60 minutes of pure idling in order to pay my 2 dollar toll...this was about the same time M1 began doing the commercials where they "froze" the oil and compared to dinojuice and poured it, as well as heating it up in a frying pan (along with dinojuice) and showed how the M1 still poured.

This is what peaked my intrest in synthetics...a few trips around the 'net showed that Amsoil and M1 were always at the top of everyones list. Being that M1 is more accessible, that's the route I went.


Guess I better not mention that I've been sitting on "Fram-time-bombs" for the last 25 years, though

 

I get a 20% discount on all my oil and everything so using synthetic isnt bad for me. I want to change the oil ~2500 miles everytime and use synthetic. I wanna keep this engine running good. and for awhile.

 

I'm guessing thats not a discount everyone can get eh?

 

I believe feces is the word you're looking for.

 

That depends upon whether we're talking about the "action", or the "product". But let's not split hairs - especially if they are in proximity to any of the aforementioned areas...

BTW - I like that signature.

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8Mike9,

Those Fram filters from 25 years ago aren't the same ones that you are buying today. Allied Signal has really cut costs since grabbing the helm, and the dissection of the products and comparison to the compettition certainly is educational: Oil Filter Study

 

Yeah...I know. I didn't mean to give the impression I was promoting Frams, it was more a tounge-in-cheek comment.

It seems like when I get the the time to change my oil it's always on a Sunday, only parts stores open carry either Fram or some generic filter with no name on them.

One of these days I promise I'll stock up on AC Delo filters

 

Thanks.

The best part is....... I stole it from a guy on a MAZDA board. :sillylol:

 

hey about that high center 3rd brake light, i have an 86 z28 and it has it on there, and my friend has an 86 sc parts car that had a 6 cyl. in it and it to had the 3rd brake light, so i dont think its just irocs...