well nearly 3000 miles on the new engine and a while back i noticed the oil pressure was lower than normal and dipped even lower when rounding a corner. seemed to be a sign of low oil... made it to my destination and found out i was 4 qts low. yes, 4. no leaks, no nothing. only on occasion it will blow a puff out the back like with leaky valve seals - not all the time. a friend told me it will take a long time for the rings (moly) to really break in and seal up good, and to just keep an eye on the oil level for a while... i'm ok with all that, but never thought it'd take this long. valve seals are teflon, too, so hopefully they're holding up. just some concern over the reliability of this thing now, that no damage has already occured, although everything seems normal. any other thoughts / opinions?

 

Rings should be seated in 10-20 miles if you follow the proper break in procedure.

 

moly rings should pretty much seat as soon as your engine fires. why don't you leak it or do a compression test, that might tell you a little something. my guess is you have an intake leak.

 

i'll ask the dumb ? here, but what is the proper procedure, not that it matters anymore with 3k on it... when i initially finished the rebuild, it just got some neighborhood street time, other than going to the shop for the tranny and i know those guys drove it probably with no regard to a new engine even tho they knew it, and then home from there on the highway... i did not assemble the guts of the motor - that was all done at the shop for me, i just put the heads on to the block and built up from there.

 

1. SAFETY FIRST! If the car is on the ground, be sure the emergency brake is set, the wheels are chocked, and the transmission cannot fall into gear.

2. Be sure to check the oil level in the engine and prime the oil system with an engine priming tool! This is the most important step! Your engine has most likely sat for a while and most of it's lubrication has drained back to the pan!

3. Quality 10W-30 or 10W-40 Oil is recommended. Most Stock Factory replacement engines use either 5W-30 or 10W-30 oil, but the higher viscosity oil provides more protection in my opinion. If you plan on running synthetic oils, I recommend that the engine be first broken in with regular mineral type engine oil.

4. Adjust the distributor timing roughly by hand for quick start up and smoothest idle possible.

5. Set the ignition timing after engine starts.- Starting point for most carbureted crate engines is 10 degrees Before top dead center with vacuum advance disconnected. Computer controlled engines with a distributor are generally set at 0 degrees before top dead center with the set timing connector disconnected (refer to your vehicles service manual for details)

6. Flat tappet hydraulic cams only- Run the engine between 2,000 and 2,500 RPM's, with no-load on the engine for the first 30 minutes. This is critical to break in the camshaft.

7. Roller Cammed engines do not need to follow the procedure in step 6 because roller cams do not need to be broken in.

8. Remember that the cooling system on a fresh engine swap will have a lot of trapped air, which will lead to wild temperature gauge readings and possible water pump cavitation (water pump not moving coolant due to trapped air) To help avoid trapped air in the cooling system, try to fill the cooling system up with a 50/50 mix of quality coolant and water a few hours before you plan on starting the engine. Leave the radiator cap off during this time. This will tend to help purge a fair amount of trapped air before you start the engine. Specialty fill funnels can also be purchased from Listle tools and Snap-On dealers that help alleviate this problem. Also helpful during break-in is to use a Lever-Vent type radiator cap on your radiator in so that you can manually purge trapped air while engine is running- (use extreme caution to avoid being burned by hot coolant) Your normal cap can then be re-installed after engine cools off.

9. Drive the vehicle with varying speeds and loads on the engine for the first 30 miles. Be sure not to use a lot of throttle or high RPM.

The following 2 steps generally are not necessary due to advanced piston ring sealing technology methods, but can be performed to help ring break in.

10. Run five or six medium-throttle accelerations to about 3000 RPM (40 to 50 MPH), then letting off in gear and coasting back down to 20 MPH.

11. Run a couple hard throttle accelerations up to about 5000 RPM (55 to 60 MPH), then letting off in gear and coasting back down to 20 MPH.

12. Let engine cool and change the oil and filter and check coolant level, top off if necessary.

13. Drive the next 500 miles normally, without high RPM's (below 5000 RPM), hard use, or extended periods of high loading.

14. Change the oil and oil filter again.- Keep an eye on oil level during the first thousand or so miles.

15. Your engine is now ready for many happy cruising miles!

Hope that helps.

 

i wouldn't use a multi weight oil or prime the oil system on a SBC/BBC, regardless of what you migth read here. EOS from GM is a good bet until the first oil change.

 

Lots of engine braking will help to seat those new rings!

 

so after 3k miles as i originally stated, they're about as seated, broke in as they're gonna get... must have an issue somewhere else. compression test i may do later. intake leak? i have no visible leaks anywhere.

 

Use propane to follow the intake gasket with the engine running. Listen for any change in the idle. You'll know if the intake gasket is bad when you hear the change in idle. If you didn't assemble the rotating assembly, then you don't know what was done. The low oil pressure, especially while turning, could be centered around the oil pump pick up. As for the heads, were they gone through, or did you just buy a pair and throw them on? Are you experiencing detonation, and have you checked the plugs to see if they're fouled with oil. These are all things you need to check for us to be able to provide feedback. What type of heads are you using? Do you have an air cleaner, or are you using a T.P.I. set up? The compression check should at least give you a heads up on some of the potential problems. Keep us updated.

 

The meaning was an intake leak in the valley, thus a loss of oil. Pull the plugs and see what they look like. If you have a leak on on cylinder or one bank you'll see it on the plugs.

 

seriously?

 

My bad. I shoulda read the post more thouroghly.

 

this is a TPI engine... heads were redone also. they are the original, but reworked and is when i had the teflon valve seals put on. gotcha on the propane check... was going to change plugs today, but since i need the shorties, can't seem to find them around here, so maybe next weekend. i did get a few of them pulled and #5 and #4 were big time coked up - literally with crap. the others i got pulled looked normal, other than the 'trode being brown on half of it, the half black... as for the low oil pressure, it had to be caused by the low level, but 4 qts down will do that. i'll have to check to see if my comp testor fitting will fir around the header tubes.

hopefully i can check up with this post during the week since i-net service is hard to come by when i'm at work, but i won't be able to do anything with the car now til next weekend anyways... thanks for the replies, tho.

 

Yes. You need to load the rings in both directions to get them to seat properly. When you accelorate, it loads the rings one way, when you decelorate by engine brake, it loads the rings the other way

 

Good, because I did that during the first few miles of my break in...about the first 10. If he was joking or something...oops :-p

 

keep us posted.