so yeah, oil leak all to hell, dunno where its comming from, i blew up my batt cause the damn valve cover hit the alt terminal in the back --prolly worth the 30 bucks due to the hillarity of the situation-- ......so i slap everything on, everything was torqued correctly, done correctly, wires and 0plugs new, everything tripple checked, timing is correct, valves are adjusted to 3/4 after valve lash....fuel is getting there....whats the deal here.....any ideas? car idles and revs fine.....just no power, damn thing feels like stock.....yes im serious...Stock. ive checked everything....i dunno whats goin on here....how the hell did i LOSE power after putting on ported and polished lb9's....i used a rocker arm from my L03 heads....could this pose a problem?? like i said, car revs quick, ...idles great .....yet i take it on the road....no gained power...actually feels like i lost 20-30 hp instead of gaining it

 

I'm surprised it even runs, congrats...

 

heh....congrats nothing, it feels lieke it has 170 hp again...which is weird because it feels like a dead cyl ...no fire to one cyl...something, yet if that were the case, it would rev slow. which it doesnt, revs amazingly quick. wonder wtf is wrong. makes no sense.

 

Vaccum leak? Peice of intake gasket fold under on ya?
Look for em with a can of carb cleaner. Spray arrond the intake with the engine running when it stumbles you're close.

By the way did you do anything to anything elses? Exhaust, intake, Valves?

 

you name it i did it, gasket matched everything, polished the intakes and exhausts...well, ...i took out the burrs with a carbide tip on the intakes, shaved down the valve guides, lapped all valves til there was absolutly NO leaks...had to use an exhaust valve from the L03 heads....hope there isnt a height difference...one thing i did differently that a few people told me i DIDNT have to do, was ..i didnt put sealant all over the manifold...all i put sealant on was the coolant ports....gasket matched the manifold....took off the smog pump...new belt...new plugs and wires....yes they are in the right place lol. timing is at 8 degree advance.

like i said, its seriously weird, it idles real lopey all wah wah wah wah ....sounds like its supposed to basicly, revs REALLY quick. i dunno whats going on.

 

Actually, if it were running with a dead cylinder, teh RPM should be about the same. The ECM will simply step open the IAC until the desired target idle RPM is reached.

And yes, you only need RTV around the cooling passages on the intake. The regular gasket should seal the rest fine if you don't have alignment problems.

The rockers are the same. The stock valves should be the same length.

Have you checked compression on all your holes? Another thing you can do is to disable the IAC and perform a power balance test to identify the "dead" cylinder.

 

i thougt if it were a dead cyl, it would run rough no matter what, all uneven and rev slow like a burnt wire....engine ran fine before the head swap, doubt its a valve problem....anything i should look for other than compression??

 

What's the timing set at?

 

8 advanced. checked the wires 5 times, seriously, ..all plugs are new, ...wires are new....car ran fine beforeand when i got the lb9 heads checked they were flawless, all valves seated perfectly, grant it that it took 2 days to get them to seat properly after i had to lap the crap out of them....assembled the heads, poured alcohol in every port and looked under the heads at the valves, not a single trace of a drip. no valves were bent...brand new push rods...all springs are good....torwed the heads to 30, 45, then 60....in proper sequence. no leaks from any hoses...no vaccume leaks that i can tell....ill get some carb cleaner tomarrow and spray all around the manifold......see if it bogs any....check the compression....even though i know the valve are all adjusted properly and seating correctly.....any other ideas anyone???

 

Another common issue can be a piece of hair or old gasket is keeping the head gasket from sealing. The compression check should reveal that though.

 

What part# and brand were the head gaskets you used? What torque did you tighten the head bolts to, and in what sequence?

Given the head gasket problems you had, you should consider changing the O2 sensor as it may have been exposed to coolant which will "poison" it. Typical symptoms of a poisoned O2 sensor are engine running lean...O2 sensor failure causes it to output higher voltage (there's a tech article on the Internet somewhere) which makes the ECM think you're running rich, pulling fuel out and causing the engine to run lean.

edit: the article can be found here:

http://www.autoclassroom.com/straight/sensor2.html

In the back of my head, I'm thinking all the porting may not be adding any useable airflow on your engine. If the ports weren't the bottleneck before the porting, then opening them up more won't help...and may actually cost you hp as the airflow velocity drops and the cylinders under-fill.

I'd do the vacuum leak test, swap the O2 sensor, then take another test drive (to warm up the engine) before doing the compression test. As you pull the plugs to do compression testing, read them for color indications things are good or bad...should be nice and clean still, little tan on the insulator cones.

 

napa gaskets, not sure of the part number, as i used them for oil spash guards when i adjusted the valves ..tightened them in proper sequence as directed by the hayes manual. tightened to 30, 45, then 60, double checked all bolts. heads were super clean, as well as the block, ..no gasket material was left on them, heads were resurfaced. cleaned both with 4 cans of brake cleaner. nothing ever got on the 02 sensor however i will change it regardless. the heads i used were 416 castings. i heard from quite a few people these were the better ones to use *not best* because of their flow charactoristics to begin with. i didnt have the L03 and lb9 put on a flow bench to tell the better of the two.

i took my time on this job and didnt rush anything, double, even triple checked everything . its just not maning much sense to me. maybe i need to advance my timing to 12 due to the spark needing to be hotter to burn all the fuel thats going to the engine?

im getting no SES lights by the way.

 

how much did you port out your heads? did u loose just low end power? you could have lost so low end if you did a very wild port job on your heads. just a thought.


Josh

 

Like I said before check the compression. I have a feeling youll find your problem there.

When I bought my car It idles fine but had no power...Because it was missing a spark plug! It seriously had a plug completely gone. I installed one and it still ran crappy because my fuel pump was toast. But yeah a car can idle decent even with a dead cyclinder....

 

ok so, i drove it again, and, it seems to hit a brick wall after 3300 rpms, until then it seems fine....im assuming the car is running way too rich....filling up the cylinders so quickly that it bogs out...that or its not getting enough....now my batt wont stay charged with a NEW batt and a NEW alt. fuseable link fried? how do i fix it, splice in a straight wire?

 

unless someone slipped you an lt4 hot cam by mistake it shouldnt lope with that cam.... I dont know the exact specs of the top of my head but the lt1 cams probably have next to no overlap due to the fact taht they where used with the SD systems in the camaros/firebirds. As for the alternator, follow the wire to the terminal block/battery. You should find the link near there. Dont run a wire, make sure there is a fuse. Ive seen that one before. Someone runs a wire w/o a fuse and it along with everything near the red hot wire bursts into flames when the terminal on teh alternator is shorted out.

 

slowmero.... wtf...happened???

 

ok so i checked EVERYTHING 20 times.....and nothing helped...so i had a theory, i needed a super hot spark to ignite all the fuel....so after going against my theory, trying 0 2 4 6 8 10 degree advance...it kept getting better with more advance, so i said hey, lets see what happens if i hjack this mother up to like 18....well, i did it, listened for knock, ping, detonation, nothing...i was like well....ok....test drive?? get on the road and hit the gas...OMFG the power i got.....so either something is seriously wrong, or my theory is correct. i need a HOT *** spark to ignite the fuel....please correct me if this is wrong but damn....it feels so right lololol....my car has massive power now....well, not massive, but you get what i mean, ....is this safe? is my dist in one tooth off?? whats up with this ?? cause it seriously runs good like this...

 

Could be that your ECM isn't controlling the spark. That would account for the lopey sounding idle and the lack of power as the revs went up, all the advance it would be getting is the 8deg or whatever you cranked in manually.

Now that you have it cranked up to 18deg BTDC, that's enough to smooth out the idle and give you some cyl pressure at higher revs. Just a theory.

Whip out your timing light, leave the ESC connected this time, and watch the timing marks as the engine idles. If the spark stays at the 18deg when the engine's warmed up and the ECM is in closed loop, and/or it doesn't advance when you give it some gas, the ESC isn't working right.

Just an idea, maybe that electrical short also took out your ECM or it's fuse and you're running in limp-home mode. Try it out and report back.

 

heh good call, ..too bad this ecm is brand spankin new, 1 month old, that would suck *** if it got blown....question, is the fusable link wire supposed to be hot, i put 14 gause wire in its place and it melted.....literally melted the wire....soi just used the red wire before the platic houseing, and pulled it to the distribution block thing...maybe i need a new chip? i dunno ....all i have to say though, is tank *** its ACTING right and we now know its not a deal cylinder *i dont think* it seriously hauls a good bit of *** now, well, for a 305 its damn impressive.....ill go check the ecm crap.....can i rule out the whole *deal cyinder/no compression* theory yet or is it still possible????

 

ok checked all fuses, all are fine...unless theres one i dont kno wabout...even the fuse in the holder near the batt is fine....ECM was not hot at all, didnt smell like it got fried *trust me i know whatfried circuit board smells like* chip wasnt hot at all after running for awhile, no ses lights, ...ses light DOES come on when i disconnect the timing wire or whatever near the pass fender....so i know the ecm is working, just not too sure how well its working. seriously though, is my dist in wrong or something stupid? car still kinda runs like.......RRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrRRRRRRRRR

note this isnt like, short and lopey, this is like every 6 seconds itll fdrop and pick back up rpms....i have all the valves adjusted to 3/4 a turn after valve lash if that helps anyone figure anything out.....i still need to play with the timing to get it perfect.....but i was just curious

i know this isnt normal, or is it? cant be, something has to be wrong. maybe its time for a new chip? still wasnt to know if i can rule out a dead cyl/no compression/leaky head gasket. id be happier if i though/knew that the mechanical portion of this is running correct. just dont tell me the heads are bad or i have to yank them off. heh. that would SUCK...

 

Did you use a stock head gasket (.015thick) or a standard rebuild gasket (.039 to .041) thick? If you got the stock gasket then good, if not you have way too much quench (space between the piston and the cylinder head flat spot). Which will drop your power/compression/ and make you more likely to get engine knock.

Check for knock counts with a scanner.

 

i dunno, whatever gasket napa sells? not sure, it wasnt too thick..

 

the timing in the tbi computer sucks ***. Just keep advancing it as long as you dont get knock counts or the power doesnt fall off. I had mine set to 8 deg BTDC and it wouldnt even start. It would jsut flood out. I dont know what its at now but its waaayyy off the timing pointer. One way to check the ecm is to, with the bypass connector still connected, rev the engine and watch the mark with a timing light. The timing should advance alot, like 30 degrees or so when you give it some gas. Since you have power, theres probably nothing wrong with teh ecm, or your car, other then the stock prom.

 

as for that ocilating rpms. mine does that too. And so do others as well. Its not real pronounced but i can notice it when i open the throttle in neutral. It just ocilates every second or so about a mean rpm. Must have to do with the vacuum signal to the ecm or the setup in the prom. Another thing is that the ecm, in closed loop, doesnt give constant fueling but it sort of goes a little rich, then a little lean, then a little rich, etc. You can see this in the O2 output. The ecm just sort of bounces around the point where it wants to be. Maybe the small changes in fueling cause this effect. Jsut another theory.

 

if its getting better the more you advance the timing, and you now have a really high base timing, i would assume that the computer isnt adding any timing....


first check the connector that you disconnect to set the base timing... look to see if you messed up the wire or if it came loose or somthing....

otherwise, i would try replacing the spark controller thats inside the distrib.... they just sometimes go bad... theres no smell or anything to go off of. and no way to test them that I know of other then trying it in a diff working car and swapping parts.

 

I'd make sure the balancer hasn't slipped before I replaced anything.

Get # 1 as close to TDC as you can...pull the valve cover and watch the valves... or pull # 1 plug and use somehting through the hole as a fulrum..once you think it's pretty well centered, then look at the HB...tab should be close to "0".

Unless TBI ECMs act differently than my TPI's 165, you'll never see full advance when revving in park/neutral.

 

ok so, the wire definatly got plugged back in, ignition module is like maybe one month old...ill try swappin git with another tomarrow....as far as getting it on TDC on #1, well, the dist being off a tooth or so wont make you have to jack the timing up at all, just makes it to where you have to have the dist turned at a lil more of an angle...however im seriously open to suggestion and i will try anything. and yes, my car owuldnt start for crap when i had it set at 6 -8 degree advance. it flooded, as you said, i had to unplug the injectors and the car literally started and ran with the injectors not plugged in...ran for a good 15 seconds at that.

all this talk about my head gasket being too think and no compression scares me...when can we safely rule this out?? ill just be alot happier when i know i didnt mess the heads up in some way. im not getting any backfire other than the small popping on decelleration after a hard pull.

when you say balancer do you mean harmonic balancer?? i dont see how that thing could slip, its on there super tight and guided by a groove.. i havent touched the balancer since the cam swap 6 months ago.

i had brian write me a chip at tbichips.com a few months back before all the serious mods. im wondering if its time for a new chip. i put the stock one back in and it didnt seem to change much.

what should i be gapping the plugs to?? they were at 45, i pulled them to check them, and gapped them to 50. the plugs were barely even tan, ...no odd looking marks at all.

i just want to rule out this being a mechanical problem. if its timing thats cool, thats not hard nor expensive to replace. i just dont want to have to yank the heads back off.

also, i know this is rather normal after a port n polish, but i can barely spin my tires over from a dead stand still, but when i hit mid to upper rpms, omg. pulls you back into the seat like crazy.
i didnt know id loose that much low end..this normal?

 

Sounds about right for a serious port job. Making the holes bigger is really only going to help mid-top end and reduce velocity at low end.

Have you done a compression check yet?

 

Sorry to doubble post but when you lashed the valves did you tdc via the #1 piston or via the timing mark?
Did you ever remove the timing chain and gears?

 

well, heres the report....checked all plugs, perfect, barely even a tan on them, gapped them all at 50, ill check the compression later on after the car cools back down, i hooked up the timing light and checked to see if the timing would advance when i gave it gas, ...it advanced....i still got this weird idle that isnt even though... maybe its the air and fuel not mixing properly nd the tbi keeps changing the ratio?? that actually makes sense and would explain the weird RRRRRRrrRRRRRRR idle... i doubt i have any compression issues, its not acting like a dead cylinder at all.....i doubt id be able to bark the tires going into second with an automatic if a cyl was dead. there is no leaks, no smoke, no oil in the radiator. a tooth or two off on the dist wouldnt make me have to advance the timing like that. that doesnt really make timing change, it would only affect how it looked ya know...meaning it wouldnt be perfectly lined up.... but would still run the same after you set the timing, i still think this is a pure timing issue rather than compression but as again, ill check it for the hell of it.

the car does fly though, i can tell a good bit of hp difference, now i just gotta get the bugs worked out.

 

The HB is a hub with rubber vulcanized to the balancer ring.

The hub where is goes on the crank is keyed...you're correct, that part will not (in most cases) slip.

The outer ring will slip from age/loss of adhesion to the rubber.

You're also correct, being 1 tooth off, two teeth, 10 teeth off, does not matter, as long as you either have enough room to rotate the distributor or make up for it via plug wires....Bottom line is if the plug wires are routed correctly and you have the timing light hooked to #1 cyl, then what you're reading is what you have...assuming the pointer and ring mark are in the correct place.

Anyway, it's a quick check, could very well be everything with the HB is okay, but I'd rather test what I can, before replacing parts.

 

yeah, i mean when i did the cam swap 6 months ago, everything looked fine.....car runs great now, other than the occasional smell of burning oil...im thinking its oil just falling off from oil being everywhere after adjusting the valves. also, i keep hearing this damn ticking commin gfrom the #8 cyl, no matter where i put the timing ...it ticks, no i didnt forget to adjust that valve lol.....all valves are done to 3/4 a turn after valve lash. wonder wtf the ticking is? also, car *feels* like it runs a lil rougher, maybe just the extra hp? maybe my imagination? who knows. i can kinda feel it literally on the gas pedal, but like i said, might be vibration from some random thing. how Loud is detonation? like VERY noticable?? im just trying to NOT blow my engine..ya know? so yall fill me in on this stuff and what sounds to listen for.

oh and if someone missed it, i lapped the valves for 2 days and every one seated perfectly. i tested it byassembling the heads and pouring alchohol in them and looking underneath at the valves with a halogen light after letting it sit for 30 mins, not a trace.

the ticking still bothers me, scares me actually. oh well. ill keep poking around....see what comes of it.

 

Slow,

Great to see you bit the bullet and ported those heads

To get some of your low end power back, just advance the timing at the distributor about 4 degrees. If you hear it pinging, then back it off a couple degrees.

Since you are running TBI, the "Ultimate TBI Mods" (in the Tech Articles) are your next steps for even more power!

 

The ticking noise may be a minor exhaust leak, or a leaking plug wire. (yeah, even new ones leak.......) I spent an hour re-adjusting my valves because of the ticking noise, only to find out it was a plug wire. (and yes, they were new.......)

 

well ill be ripping the heads off tomarrow....i hjave yes, an oil leak, even though the surfaces were fully cleaned, and yes i checked the valve cover gaskets, im going to replace them tonight and see if that helps at all....heh.

how do you check for a *leaking* plug????

 

If nothing went wrong during the install...

Screw all that PROM tuning crap I don't need it. Raise the fuel pressure for a nasty, cylinder washing idle and bump the timing up so you can spark knock to all hell on hot days.

 

What will you be tearing the heads of again for? Id check those VC's again, this time make sure the gasket surfaces on the covers arent all out of wack because the VC is bent up. probably also want to check the seal between the intake and the block.

 

The "usual" leak in these situations is either the front or rear China Walls. If you used those wretched preformed rubber gaskets it is almost a certainty that one of those is leaking. If so, you have to remove the intake and replace the gaskets. But this time use the silicon in a tube stuff and squeeze a nice 1/4" high bead from head to head on both ends of the short block. Make sure you overlap a bit onto the gaskets, so as to get a good seal.

 

For your oil leak:

How about, take it to the quarter car wash along with a can of Gunk Engine Bright or other similar (diesel fuel in a spray can) engine degreaser; sterilize the engine; see where the oil is actually coming from; and direct your efforts there. The "maybe it's this, maybe it's that" approach is a little too much like work for someone like me.

 

yes its back near the firewall, i just went and threw away those damn cork vc gaskets and replaced them with the good felpro ones, see if it leaks now.....also, i used the good intake gasket set....and used the silicone with it, put it on the top and bottom of the rubber pieces and all arounf the water passages

 

Oh man I feel stupid from just reading this post. I think you said something that makes no sense just about every time you posted, slowmaro. Here is some stuff I cought skimming over it:

There's absolutely no way oil will leak because of the head gaskets.
Changing the timing doesn't give you a different spark, it just changes when the plug fires in relation to piston travel.
Don't work on your car with the battery connected.
Don't use new head gaskets for splash guards.
If you adjusted the valve lash and a valve ticks when it wasn't before, guess what the problem most likely is.
Just about any car can "chirp" second gear, that is a lack of traction, not an excess of power.

I think your harmonic balancer has slipped or your timing light isn't reading correctly. Hopefully the oil leak was just those cork gaskets, I never trusted them. You might want to check the exhaust gaskets to see if the ticking is coming from them. Pinging sounds like a loud tap or knock. Kind of like if you hit a piece of sheet metal with your knuckle(the tap sound, not the wobbling sound, heh). Hope everything works out.

 

man i have those crappy rubber gaskets. 12 am during a cam swap and i jsut had to have the car running the next morning and i ran out of RTV. Still waiting for them to blow out.

 

ok now when i gun it, its lost alot of power and smells like burning hair...wtf........

 

I think there is a gremlin stuck in your #3 combustion chamber!!!

 

Burnt hair smell is usually a burning gasket. It usually goes away after a few miles. You said you used silicone on the intake? Any chance some of it got into a cobustion chamber and is now getting cooked by exhaust gasses on the otherside?

A missing cylinder will not change the ability to chirp. I have done smokey 4 wheel truck burnouts running on 6 out of 8.
Looking at the plugs should tell you if you have a missing cylinder. The wet plug isn't firing.

A compression check will tell you if you have a cracked valve, leaking gasket, or burnt valve seat. This could cause your tick among many other possibilities. It is really a good idea to eliminate the worst case scenario before you go swapping parts and gaskets.

Sticking you finger in the #1 spark plug hole and rotating the crank will tell you where your real TDC is. When air starts blowing by your finger stick a plastic drinking straw in the hole and rotate the crank clockwise until the piston stops pushing the straw up. Then look at your timing mark. If it isn't on 0 degrees your timing mark has slipped.

If you checked the intake for leaks with carb cleaner and found none then why did you replace the intake gasket anyway?

 

???? i didnt replace the intake gasket ...i changed the VC gaskets

 

this is insane, i have to drop the y pipe and take out the headers to do a compression test......dammit

Edit:

So i dropped the y pipe, headers, checked the compression....all...150 ...weird thing is that it didnt shoot up to 150 instantly....it wqould like jump to 100 on one revolation then to 125 on the second then to 150 on the third....this norma?? is is it supposed to shoot up to 150 instantly

one thing i noticed out of the ordinary was some silverish looking crap melted onto my header....header gasket was flawless......head gasket blown??? car doesnt smoke at all...

 

I answered on your other thread also, but here's a question...when you set the lifter preload ("lashed the valves") what sequence did you do them in?

Did you follow the #1 @ TDC, then #6 @ TDC process, do each cylinder individually by spinning the crank, or just set them all zero lash + 3/4 turn without moving the crank?

 

set them all with the car running