Ford Racing 427 burning oil

[68pony]

The ones we fitted looked like this.

[mreid]

Chris, do you have a part number or size?

In a related point, I have a Ford Racing 347 with the Z heads in my 66 Mustang. I bought the engine in 2008. I pulled a valve cover yesterday and guess what, it has orange seals. However, they work fine with no smoking or excess oil consumption. Chris, I thought you had problems in all cylinders? If not, perhaps the problem is only in the cylinders with the missing tension clips?

Really glad to hear you got it sorted! Nice job!

[blykins]

mreid,

If you're planning on changing yours, I would suggest using the Viton rubber seals over the Teflon seals. I have seen the Teflon seals get hard or brittle and not seal as well over time. The Viton seals provide a much better seal.

[Mike Huddart]

Might be a bit of confusion here, and undue alarm, with all this orange business.
The seals that Ford sell in the FMS catalogue are the nitrile rubber ones with a flat retaining spring on the guide as yours but an external helical wound spring on the valve bit, just like the internal spring in a conventional seal.
They come in black for intake and orange for exhaust but if you get them on their assembled heads they all seem to be orange. They work OK.
What YOU seem to have are the latest hard plastic "Ultimate Duty " seals marketed by somebody called Valve Train Only ( VTO ) ! and sold by Howards Cams # 93315, intestingly both from Oshkosh WI...Hmmm.
They are colour coded for size and the ones for 11/32 valves ( yours ) are......Orange. They do not have a top circlip as the ones in your photo
Amongst the claims they make apart from the usual "space age" nonsense, is one that they are "self lubricating" quite why you would want something self lubricating when they are permanently covered in oil escapes me.
Also the "Design allows small amount of oil for guide lube " ! How much is "small " and does small get big when dealing with the massive vacuum from a 427W
Apparently they are installed with finger pressure only BUT they have to be glued / sealed onto the guide with an enclosed sachet of glue, if you think you had these hard plastic seals, were they glued in place ?
Interestingly, in spite of all the marvelous qualities they claim to have they sell for about half the price of the white Perfect Circle seals you have replaced them with. Very strange.

Mike

[GBowman]

Yikes...I have a BDR on order with the 427 Z351 Alum block/CNC heads-I need to call Frank at Backdraft because my motor is from the same vintage, completed in July so pretty close. uh-ohhhhhh

[Cashburn]

Originally Posted by GBowman

Yikes...I have a BDR on order with the 427 Z351 Alum block/CNC heads-I need to call Frank at Backdraft because my motor is from the same vintage, completed in July so pretty close. uh-ohhhhhh

That all aluminum Ford Racing 427 is a prototype engine they had there for awhile, so the timeframe may have no impact. Have them verify it's not doing any of this.

For the record we have installed about 14 of these engines in the last year. Of those 14 we have only seen this smoking on 1 engine that is currently back in our shop for service. We changed out the seals with a set Ford Racing provided and they did not solve the situation. However, the set we were supplied look nothing like the ones that worked for 68pony.

So we are looking for solutions on that 1 engine (purchased around the April time frame).

[Luce]

Perfect! So they're intended to leak. Why even install seals?

Well, I don't think it's worth the time and headache to try and deal with Ford. I guess I'll just drop the $32 for a new set.

But I will badmouth Ford any chance I get about this.

[Gaz64]

Originally Posted by blykins

mreid,

If you're planning on changing yours, I would suggest using the Viton rubber seals over the Teflon seals. I have seen the Teflon seals get hard or brittle and not seal as well over time. The Viton seals provide a much better seal.

Another vote for viton.

I use viton in every engine now, will never use teflon again.
I've seen too many failures; broken, split etc.

[madmaxx]

Just to play grinch and add no value to this topic I opened the hood on my Lexus with 85K miles on the odometer today, oil still at full mark after 9K miles. Checked the Envoy, 11K miles since last oil change and a hair under the full mark. How does ford racing make such a trivial mistake.

[Luce]

It's not a mistake. They want to make sure the valve guides and muffler bushings are well lubed.

I'll also say, I think the oil return passages are a little too small.

[mreid]

Seems the marketing guys turned a design/manufacturing screw up into a positive sales pitch. B i t c h e s!

I'm not doing anything, but monitoring both my engines and will replace them only if I have a problem. What's a few hours of my time anyway?!

[mreid]

Chris, that is a thing of beauty! Glad you got it worked out and thanks for sharing the story. You have helped many. Also, good luck changing plugs in the future!

[Luce]

Ha Ha. not doubt. Hope you installed those magic Ford 100K mile spark plugs.

I didn't realize how cramped those Mustang's are. Looks great!

[68pony]

Originally Posted by mreid

Chris, that is a thing of beauty! Glad you got it worked out and thanks for sharing the story. You have helped many. Also, good luck changing plugs in the future!

First of all merry christmas to all and yes changing spark plugs will be a nightmare, can not get 6 of them out without pulling a extractor bolt out also my birthday today my wish came true

[mreid]

Chris, did you have any other issues with the performance of your engine when it was sucking oil? I ask because I'm having some trouble with mine. It seemed to be running very rich and blowing some smoke (not blue). The fuel pressure is correct at 5.5 psi with a Holley 750 DP. It definitely seemed to be a fuel problem and after troubleshooting the carb, I replaced it with a new 650 DP that I know works as it was on my 66 Mustang. I'm able to the get about 15" of vacuum (bounces between 13 and 15) with all four idle mixture screws out 1/2 turn, but it still seems to be missing, blowing some smoke, and falls over when I give it gas under load. I'll start a new thread, but just curious about your situation. Thanks.

[68pony]

I have to say even when it was burning oil it ran great,i have a msd dizzy with 6al a super victor manifold and a pro systems carb, they used a holley hp 950 but pro systems told me its more like 830 cfm, the car runs great , no miss and just a little squeeze of the throttle and away it goes, i'm loving the way this thing goes, ill just mention that ford racing recomended a 850cfm carb when i rang there tech line, sorry to here your woes mate.

[Cashburn]

Using the white seals from Crane did not solve the issue on the engine we are seeing these symptoms. It has 2,600 miles on it for reference. It is going back to Ford.

[Luce]

Well, I spoke to Marty and he asked I check a bunch of things I know are not the cause. PCV valve? Really? And I didn't use the corks on the manifold to block seal...just a fat bead of RTV, and I have .040 or so gap left. He also says the seal problem is an internet rumor. The real problem I have is my car isn't drivable yet, so I can't really get it good and hot. I can idle and gun it until the water temp is up to 200 deg, but that isn't really getting the valves or oil up to temp. All I'm doing is polluting my oil and dirtying my plugs. And under these conditions, the oil burn is a non issue. I'll have to get the car drivable and tuned before I can have an issue to complain about. Since the painter has convinced me to get it running and the bugs worked out before paint, that'll happen sooner rather than later. I'm hoping to drive it to a get together in March.

As I see it, if it's not the rings, it's trivial. It idles at 800 rpm and 50 psi, and has no inappropriate noises, and screams like a banshee when goose, so I think it's good to go. The only way I get a little bit of smoke is if I get it hot (as I can), shut it down for a few minutes, then restart it. Then I get a tiny little blue/white puff and that is usually caused by bad valve seals. I also may only change the intake seals. I bet it's getting sucked by because of the vacuum at idle and a little oil getting past the exhaust would be a not so bad thing, if it doesn't make a noticeable amount of smoke.

[68pony]

marty can say what he wants , i know the seals were no good in mine, the oil in the tail pipes is gone and ive done around 280 miles with the new seals and i havn't added any oil, i suppose the other 2 427's here that had the same issue were a internet rumor aswell, funny how changing the seals fixed there problem and what about don from the ffcars forum i spoke to him aswell and yes his issue was faulty seals another internet rumor ( funny that ford racing admitted that yes in dons case it was faulty seals ), i very much doubt i will get any moneys from them when i send them the invoice as i have been a thorn in there side, if i could have done this over again i would have gone with roush.
cheers chris.

[mike harter]

Chris i also wanted to let you know the local speed shop here in san jose is a rousch dealer. and they have had 3 rousch motors come back to them also for smoke,oil and other mechanical issues. Thnx. Mike