Weird thing happened on my friend's 95 Firebird 383. I had to replace one lifter that fell apart and got lost. When I removed the 3 bolts that hold the retainer to the block, we smelled burnt oil. We had removed the oil pan previously, and the rest of the oil had smelled fine, but the main galley definitely has burnt oil in it. The motor has 8,000 or so miles on it...... all I can guess is the cam bearings might be clocked wrong? We're going to pull the cam this weekend and look em over, but I wanted to see if this happened to anybody else before.

 

Thats what happens to trapped oil in bolt holes. Its normal.

 

That makes sense... but the holes appear to go right into the main galley. Shouldn't this have constant oil flow, therefore no trapped oil?

He's had problems with the engine that point to a bad builder, so I don't want to assume there's nothing wrong unless we're pretty sure there's nothing wrong.

Do LT1's always stink under those 3 bolts?

 

And while I'm here, those 3 bolts for the retainer- I don't want them coming loose after the intake is on, any reason not to put some red threadlocker on them?

 

you must not have disassembled many engines because every engine i have, no matter how well it had been cared for, or how frequently the oil had been changed, it will always smell like bad oil especially when you start removing things like main bearing caps

i personally wouldn't worry about it, trust me if you go to your builder and say that it stinks when you take those bolts out in the lifter valley he will laugh in your face

 

You're fantastic. Never change.