ok, heres the deal. my motor is pretty much brand new. its got about 1000 miles on it. it was professionally build by scott shafiroff in long island. i never had any problems with it until now. i was getting gas today and i noticed that the car smelt a little like burning oil. so i get home, let it cool down and i check the oil. it just barely read on the dip stip. the motor holds about 6 1/2 - 7 quarts of oil. the problem is that i just did an oil change about 300 miles ago. there are one or two small leaks(more like moist spots). but there is nothing on the floor of my garage. i checked the radiator and there was no oil in it. my best guess is that it is either the valve stem seals or the rings. when i start it up it blows out black smoke, which i thought was because it was running to rich. when i get on it, it blows out a very little bit of black smoke. again i blamed this on being to rich. let me know what you guys thing about this. im going to be really pissed if i have to pull this motor and have it re-reinged

 

did you use o-ring type valve seals?

 

to be honest with you, i really dont know

 

sounds like its the valve seals but you should do a compression test on it first

 

why not call him after re-filling with oil and noting that it happens twice in a row, then explain it to scott. from what i can tell he builds high quality motors and should be able to point you in a direction.

 

you really think scot shafiroff screwed up putting rings in. i'll bet you either baught a short block, or long block and not a complete engine. my guess is you have an intake leak.

 

thanks alot guys. im going to do a compression check. i just have to find someone that has a gauge that i can barrow.

i did buy the complete motor. pan to carb including all the ignition. all i did was put it in and start it up. they did the break in on the dyno and i really never beat on it. i did alot of research on shafiroff before i bought this motor, and no one had anything bad to say about him. i find it hard to believe that they screwed up on rings but you never know. ill probably give them a call on monday just to see what they say.

one more quick question. if the rings were bad would i notice a power loss. because when i drove it yesterday it ran great and did feel like it was losing power.

 

what kind of crankcase ventilation setup have you got on it? Your first step in diagnosing power loss should be to do compression and leakdown tests.

 

i think i found the problem. i was looking at the pcv valve yesterday and it was soaked in oil. so i pulled the carb off and i noticed that the inside of the intake manifold had oil all over it as well as the gaskets for the carb. i did a little more investigating and found that they put the pcv valve in a bad spot. it is directly over the #8 exhaust rocker. so i think what is happening is that the oil that is coming out of the pushrod is getting sucked up by the pcv valve. they have a rubber grommet with slits in the bottom to act as baffling but i dont think thats good enough. i never noticed i power loss so im going to rule out rings or stem seals. i will try a different set of vavle covers and see if this fixes my problem. thanks for all your help.

 

interesting...learn something every day

 

So short of baffled grommets,the VC has no baffles?I'd bet $ that's where your oil has gone,You need to either fashion some baffles for your current VCs or put some on with baffles.

 

i changed valve covers to a set that i had laying around. they have normaly style baffles in them. ill drive the car with these valves on it for a couple hundred miles and keep a eye on the oil level. hopefully this will be my fix.