FE oil burning problem
 

I fired up my new 428 today and while running it a 2000 rpms to break in the cam it smokes bad out of the left pipe. I pulled the plugs and #8 is oil soaked. (It ran long enough to burn off the assembly oil). The engine is a 428 with edelbrock heads, erson roller rockers, solid cam. There are no oil restrictors in the heads. When I crank it over with the valve cover off there is a huge ammount of oil from the rocker arms in 10 seconds so I am sure I will have to install the restrictors but I was wondering if anyone had the same problem with the smoking. Im hoping the #8 valves are getting flooded with so much oil the seals cant handle it. Tommorrow I will run it with covers with breather holes so I can look inside with a light running and see exactly how high the covers fill with oil. Anybody? Thanks in advance.

This could very well be your problem with the oil in the rear and the valve seals. If this does not fix it you might also check the intake gaskets on the #8 intake port. Good luck, Keith Craft

Valve seals are like umbrellas, they aren't designed to keep your valve stems dry, just keep them from getting soaked. I'd do as kieth suggests. Either way you need restrictors. Then check for manifold leaks. A good way to do this is use a gun cleaning kit to snake down #8 intake runner, use a clean cotton patch. If there is oil on th patch you have a leak.

Also check to be sure that the oiling holes on your rocker shafts are facing down not up.

Ed...all of the above are pieces of great advice....
these pictures might tell the story too...(MIGHT)
George

http://www.gessford.com/cobra/images/BT-01228.JPG


http://www.gessford.com/cobra/images/BT-01225.JPG

Thanks to all. I ordered the restrictors from Gesford and will be pulling the intake to check it and the gaskets.

I had a very similar problem of excessive smoking until I disconnected the pcv valve from the intake manifold. Oil was being sucked directly into #8 cylinder. I had a 2x4 manifold and #8 intake runner got most of the oil.

I found the problem with #8 cyl. smoking thanks to advice from George at Gessford. On my Blue Blunder, I mean Blue Thunder intake, the #8 port has a hole in the casting from the port to the pushrod tube (hole) causing a vacuum leak sucking oil. Now I am waiting for a new manifold. Remember- just cause its new doesnt mean its good.

blue blunder allright !!
 

I also had a blue thunder manifold which I had to throw away. A hole between the #1 cyl pushrod hole and the water passage was seeping water into the engine. No welding got things straightened out. If you welded here, you got a hole there, if you welded there you got a hole somewhere else, and so on.
The welder said it was a very bad casting. I have an edelbrock now.

Those photos are pretty wild. We all kind of take solid materials for granted. I'm glad it was just your manifold Cobred. Sucks to do double work, but nice to know it isn't your bottom end.

Intakes are tricky. I helped a friend sort out his rebuilt FE awhile back. It leaked like a sieve. FE's need not leak at all. A little RTV goes a long way properly applied.

We got it pretty much leak free and he was still losing a ton of oil. I mean scary oil loss... A quart every 50-60 miles or so. Yea. He wanted me to help him pull his engine and find the hole in the piston he "had" to have...

The plugs showed pretty heavy oil build up but were not oil soaked, which surprized me with all the oil he was using, the car ran well... Too well to have serious problems with the rings, and the motor came from a reputable shop with less than 1,000 miles on it.

Long story short he didn't torque the intake as well as he should have. He did it once and never retorqued it. I like to torque in increments and I started his at 20 ft lbs. Each bolt went 1/2 turn. 25 lbs. 1/2 turn 30 lbs were a little less and 35 lbs were about 1/4 turn.

I wish I'd started lower to see where he was when we started. I'm guessing they were at 15 lbs. He swears they were 32 pounds when he installed the intake, maybe they were, maybe they weren't. It never hurts to retorque a bolt.

The result was immediate. No more oil usage.

i pick my era up tomorrow(small block stroker). i had number two cylinder taking a good amount of oil in it. smoke out the passenger tail pipe and even a little by the spark plug area. turns out it was a bad intake manifold gasket. inside my carb was black from it too. heavy soot build up from oil getting into areas that it wasn;t supposed to be.