I just recently rebuit a 350 and it won't quit smoking it is very supratic sometimes it smokes and some times it doesn't.I had the block bored .40 over put in a rebuild kit new rings, rods,mians, ect... Had an old set of doulbe hump heads with no accesiory holes redone completly. It is a fairly high compression motor almost 10:1 and i don,t know if the rings aren't seated yet or what or what any help would be greatly APPERCIATED.

 

what color is the smoke, and where is the smoke coming from? Tailpipes I'm assuming.

 

smoke is white and coming from tailpipes

 

means coolant is being burned. Or condensation in the exhaust.

I'm guessing that you made sure there was no cracks in the block, or heads before you put them on, so I'll have to say it's a gasket, head gasket more than likely.

If you put the engine together yourself, did you use the standard star pattern to tighten the head gasket, and torque it all correctly (and double check the torques)?

 

Standard star pattern? Never heard it called that before. Looking at the diagram of the order, it doesnt look much like a star either.

 

I just took it for a 50 mile drive and it used 1 quart of oil and i pulled the plugs and there were covered in oil. I,m not loosing any coolant and there is no water in the oil. It eater has to be the valve seals in the heads or the rings are junk. Does any one have any suggestions on how to get the ring to seat.

 

Head gasket could be blown and pulling oil in only. Did you have the heads shaved? If so and it was alot, you could have a poorly sealed intake manifold and that's where your oil is going. If I were you, I'd do a compression check first to see where the rings stand. If you have one or more cylinders low, squirt a little oil in the cylinder and check it again. If the compression comes up, its the rings. If it stays the same, its the heads, head gasket, etc leaking.

 

It is not leaking any oil and i pulled the plugs and all of them were cover with oil and fouled. I,m not losing coolant so it think its the rings. Is there any special trick to getting them to seat propperly or am I gonna have to put in a new set of rings.

 

Is the smoke white though? Oil does not burn white. Oil burns blue. You may in fact be burning oil also, but if you see white smoke, that is steam. Steam = water.

 

Sorry ljnowell, by star pattern I simply meant that it wasnt tighten one - go to next bolt next to it, so on and so forth.... but more jumpin around. I cant remember the exact order right now but I do remember that it didnt go in a star shape, guess I should state things more clearly.

 

its a spiral pattern.

If you are burning that much oil the back bumper of your car would be covered with the sludge that comes out the pipes. if its just coolant the sludge wont be there.

 

YOu just had me lost I never can remember the right order. I always have a chiltons manual sitting in front of me when I do it.

 

try this,.. plug off the breather hose at the valve cover so no air can get into the motor there, then with the oil cap on & the dip stick in all the way start it up & pull the pcv valve out of the valve cover & put your finger over the hole in the valve cover, does it pull a vacuum?

 

I read this three times, and I'm wondering how any engine would pull a vacuum doing this test. Maybe I'm not understanding this test, not bashing...

Since all engines I know of all blow-by at least a little, wouldn't you see smoke pulsing out of the only uncovered hole in the valve cover - meaning pressure??

 

Intake gasket failed between runners and crankcase

 

Really? I know what you're saying RB, but enough of a vacuum leak to not only draw oil into the intake ports from the lifter valley - but enough of a leak to still to pull in all blow-by and actually create a vacuum on the entire crank case?? On all 8 cylinders too? He said all 8 plugs were black...

Wouldn't it run like crap, and have almost no vacuum at idle if this were the case? Just wondering since you didn't bring this up as a possibility - do you think that the scenerio above is likely?

Only reason I'm asking so much about this, is because I'm yanking my engine out for a problem simular to this right now, but I'm sure a leaky intake isn't causing my woes......I'll know more myself when I pull the heads off I think (or hope)...

 

I pulled of the intake last night and discoverd the cause of my smoking problem. There was puddels of oil on top of all of the intake valves. Witch leads me to belive the machine shop messed up when they did my valve job. Has any one ever had this simular problem or does any one know what they could have done wrong to make the oil puddel on top of the valves like that.

 

Confuzed1, i have seen this happen alot, they can run good as long as the plugs don't get oil fouled, vacuum assisted power brakes work normally, with no other complaints other than smoke & heavy oil consumption.

rustyZ28, it is possible the machine shop fubared your heads, no seals on the intake valves & loose valve guides, but i think it is unlikely that happened, i lean toward a problem with the intake sealing properly to the heads.
look closely at the bottom edge of the intake gaskets & the bottom edge of the intake. do the gaskets look like they have been compressed at the bottom?
when heads have been milled very much it causes the angle between the heads & intake to change & the intake will no longer seal at the bottom edge. also, when you put the intake on, did you use the gaskets for the valleys? also because of head milling & block decking they can cause the intake to sit too high on the block & not fit properly.

if you find your problem is the intake not sealing across the bottom side, you can have it machined to fit on that block with those heads.

 

I'd like to think it would be much more obvious if all 8 cylinders were pulling oil into the intake ports. Vacuum would have to be REALLY low at idle, that is if you could even get enough of a vacuum signal to the carb for it to idle in the first place....interesting. If it were only a small vacuum leak on a couple of cylinders, then it makes more sense to me.

Anyways, I figured I'd look at mine for this same problem since it could save me from pulling the engine out. But, when I pulled the intake off today and took a look at the gasket area around the ports, it was easy to tell there was a good seal all the way around each port. I then looked down each intake port on the heads, and nope - no oil puddles on top of the intake valves.

Looks like the engine will be pulled this weekend for a further look-see...

 

Confuzed1, the first motor i saw this happen to was years ago on my ford pickup with a 360 big block, the vacuum at idle was around 10 - 11 inches which i didn't think was too low with the cam i had in it. at idle it had a normal lope for the cam, got pretty good gas mileage for what it was & ran great. but it would pour smoke out the right tail pipe on a right turn, a left turn would pour smoke from the left pipe. going in a straight line there was no smoke. it used 2+ quarts of oil every 100 miles, i drove it like that for almost a month. the only thing that was different after i fixed the gaskets was no smoke & it picked up about 2 inches of vacuum at idle.

i know your asking why i would drive it so long with it like that,... well,.. the intake weighed more than a completely assembled small block chevy head,... about 140 pounds, plus the rocker arms & push rods had to come off to pull the intake,.... ford & their "better ideal" , & people ask me why i hate fords

good luck with your motor job

 

DENN_SHAH- Sounds like you go way back like me! I remember they used to put 460's in the Ranchero's, talk about a torque monster! Don't get me wrong, I own a 95 Thunderchicken that burns oil too...it has the 4.6 "Modular" V-8 in it. Not as bad as yours though! lol It eats 3-4 quarts between oil changes....every 3K.

Started burning oil conveniently at 40K miles - 4K after the warranty ran out- Bad valve seals.

So, needless to say, not a big Ford fan either. I tried, they failed. Won't buy another even though I love the looks of the '05 Cobras.....

Thanks for the explanation on the intake gasket leakage. I wish mine was that simple...but I'm never that lucky. I suspect the shop damaged the engine when it wiped two cam lobes, which allowed metal shavings to screw up the oil control rings, and possibly scored the cylinders.

The builder says he'll do whatever it needs to make this right. We'll see....

 

I know that I said there was no oil sitting on my intake valves in the previous post, but I was looking down the ports as best I could with a drop light before I posted that and couldn't see it.

So today, I got a small pen light and looked down the ports. Turns out I was mistaken...I have oil sitting on 3 of 4 intake valves on one side, just on the lower edge. Oil on the other side too...

So - I guess me and RustyZ28 need to know if this is normal for an engine that sat a couple of days prior to pulling the intake, or are our valve seals and guides shot, and that's our whole problem????

The heads on mine are new, but the shop put in the Manley valves and springs (assembled them).

I'm now officially at a standstill until I find out for sure. I'll try and get a pic of mine if I can and post it up as soon as I get my camera back...

 

Well I asked around, did searches, and it's either the intake gasket not sealing (which I've elimated as the cause), or valve seal problem.

It's alot easier pulling the heads than pulling the whole engine - so heads come off tomorrow, and going to a different machine shop to get looked over. But the guy at the shop says he doesn't think the seals are causing the probs. I described.

And of course I'll be able to see if there's any scored cyinders too.

I'm open to suggestions on other things to look at while I have it down if anyone has any....

 

Started pulling heads today, and found out I have 3 pushrods shot. The ends aren't there.....I don't know what could've caused it.

I do have some light scuffing or scoring on each cylinder too, but I don't know if it's worth worrying about or not. I can feel it if I run my fingernail over the scratches, but should I pull the shortblock and get it honed, or let it wear in. Looks like it might but I don't know how long that'll take....

 

Here's a cylinder...

 

Intake gaskets were sealed nice - you can tell....I'm open to info on what may have caused the pushrod tips to break...

 

So c'mon guys....where would you go from here if this was your engine??

Here's what I need opinions on -

1. What caused the pushrod failure?

2. Could pushrods with the ends missing have caused too much oil in the top end which resulted in my oil burning problem?

3. Like said above, the cylinders do have some light scoring or "scuffing"......do you think the oil control rings could be fubarred, and it will need re-ringed and honed at least - or- do you think I should see if it will wear in normally??

- As you can probably tell, this is critical decision time in the disassembly...

 

Push rod failure: I'd look at the guide plates, and make absolutely certain that the slot is deep enough to where it doesn't force the push rod up out of its seat in the rocker at any point in its arc as it operates. If they do, use a 5/16" chain saw file to round out the bottom of the slots. Make sure that they're the right guide plates for the heads; Dart is pretty specific about using a particular Comp part #, 4808. I have a set of them but I don't see anything strikingly unusual about them. The slot depth might be why they call for that particular part. It may also have something to do with the guide spacing in those heads, which is .030" greater than stock IIRC. Also check to be certain that the rocker didn't reach the end of its slot at full lift.

Cyl wall: Looks OK to me, I don't see anything terrible about it. But stuff like that is extremely difficult to tell much about in a pic.

Are the valve guide seal intact? Were the rocker studs leaking?

I'd put it back together with Teflon valve guide seals, if that isn't what it already has.

 

Thanks for the reply RB!

I'll double check to make sure thier the right guide plates and look for interference. I should be able to file out the guide plates pretty easy. Thanks for the info! What's odd is that I heard no ticking at all from the valve train....maybe the lifter plunger made up for the missing end piece?

I know it's hard to describe the amount of scoring on the web, but I can barely feel the grooves with a fingernail. That's really only on three cylinders, about mid stroke down, and all the rest look good.

I'm taking the heads in to a local machine shop tomorrow. I know these guys do good work, and I've had other work done with them in the past. I couldn't tell if I had any leakage past the rocker studs or not, when I look from the intake port on the head, there's no sign of sealer on them. Valve seals look fine too - at least what I can see of them.

Oh, I already asked the shop I'm taking my heads to about installing teflon seals, and they say the regular seals should work fine, and I wouldn't see any difference. But I still may ask them to install them anyway.

If you mean getting the heads done and putting them back on the engine, then that's what I'm considering doing. I don't want to have to pull the rest of the engine and take it long distance to the builder to find out he doesn't think the cylinders are bad either and get nothing from them....just to re-install it....

 

And how about the other questions BTW?