I've put about 1500 miles on my 383 I built, and i decided to change the plugs because i was sure I'd fouled them pretty bad while tuning the carb and setting timign and what not. so i pull the first 3 plugs last night from the passenger side head, and lo and behold, 2 of the three plugs (2 and 6) have a fair amount of oil on the threads, and a little on the elctrodes too. wtf? are my rings FUBAR already? it's not knocking or making funny noises. it's really hard to turn over by hand at first (once it gets going, it's not as bad), the rings are NEW and I bored the cylinders .030...... the pistons are the right size....what do i do? what's the most likely things going on here?

 

Probably just not fully seated yet.
Have you run it hard yet? Engine braking as well?

 

There are a lot of opinions on rings seating. Some people say they seat when you turn the motor over on the stand. Others say they will seat in 20 minutes of run time and some still say it takes a couple hundred miles to get them fully seated. One thing I firmly believe now is to run it hard to get everything broken in. Drive it like you stole it after first startup (and everything checks out).

Are you getting any smoke from your tailpipes (burning oil)?
Was the car running extremly rich to maybe wash the walls down?

The only way to be sure is to do a leak down test...time consuming but faster than a re-ring.

 

now that the board is back up..... yes, I've gotten on it a coupd of times, and engine braked a couple tiems also. not much... maybe 3 or 4 times each. I'm not getting any smoke or anything. it was running a little rich, but not that bad. I corrected it pretty quick.

 

New motors are always tight to start with.

Are you absolutely sure the stuff on the plugs is oil? Could it be coolant? (is it greenish on the electrode) If so then you may have a bad head gasket. White smoke is coolant, blue smoke is oil and black smoke is fuel. Any smoke?

 

.

 

he's right. and all the gaskets have less than 6 months on them. it's brown, and smells like petroleum. i'm inclined to think the rings aren't seated or the valve seals/guides are bad.

 

No smoke.... If it were mine I wouldn't worry too much at this point. I'd just run it a little harder than normal for a few days. Don't go nuts on it but make it scream a little...

Check your plugs on a regular basis, maybe take a few notes to keep it all straight. 1500 isn't really enough miles to make any difinitive conclusions. But it is enough miles to know that you don't have any major problems.

 

ok. I'll keep watching it. I'm still changing the plugs out (i work a lot and i have headers....) but I should have it done this weekend. I'll see what it does. love the avatar, atomic truck. do you know what the chain of command is?

 

Oil on the spark plug threads is a sure indication that your valve covers gaskets are leaking.

 

Yes I do...

It is the chain that I beat you with until you figure out that I'm in charge!!!

I love that line in the show

 

finished the spark plugs just now. I have to go to work, so I'll crank it tomorrow and see what happens. she needs a new coil anyway. "this is the finest weapon ever made. I swear it's more than a fair trade!"