my low oil light has come on twice now since the heads and cam install
once at about 1000miles into it and again recently at about 1500 miles
the first time i added 2 quarts and she was fine, havent added anything recently (currently not driving it)

thing is i cannot find an oil leak anywhere, what other areas should i start to look into?
she doesnt smoke all that much either, if anything it is black smoke, shes a lil rich right now


ideas, 82,000mile stock bottom end

thx

 

You might try a heavier oil. Also, how rich is the car running?

 

yeah, that was the plan to eventually switch over to a 40 weight instead of the 30

as far as exact numbers on A/F, the only time i did a pull with that both my O2's crapped on me. so exact numbers i dont have yet (will on the 24th tho)

but as far as i know any black smoke indicates a rich mixture

 

Yes, black smoke does indicate point to a rich condition. However, if the motor is extremely rich, you could wash the rings which would lead to oil consumption and since the exhaust would be extremely black, you probably wouldn't notice the oil smoke.

 

hmmm not liking the sound of that

so does it take time to wash the rings or is that something that could happen over a matter of minutes (for lack of better time description)

and is there a ruff A/F ratio at which point that can happen or is it motor specific/tolerant?

 

It depends on the clearances of the motor. What happens is the volume of gas is so great that it washes down between the rings and removes the oil from the cylinders. This causes the rings to physically contact the cylinder walls which makes the bores wear extremely fast which leads to oil consumption.

Depending on the clearances, it could take minutes or days. Hopefully you just have a leak somewhere and that isn't what's happenning.

Have you checked the underside of the car? I've got an oil leak that's hitting the exhaust so it never leaves a spot on the concrete, but it smells funny at a stop light.

 

man i sure hope so but i guess i wont know for sure how rich it is until i make that AF pull

another thing is, that might explain why the 2nd time the light popped on it didnt take as many miles to do so

first 1000 miles or so i was easy on it, after that i have been racing a lil bit and it only took about 500 miles for it to light up the 2nd time

wonder if this will justify that 355 build up (i hope not but damn)

yeah no leaks on top of the motor, intake, valvecovers etc.
rear main is good so is the front
and no spots on the ground anywhere i park it
i believe its getting burnt up somewhere, now i have to find out where from

 

As long as the bores are straight and not deeply scratched, you should be able to hone it and use new rings.

 

i'm gonna thoroughly hunt the engine bay this weekend and see what i find out

(fingers crossed)

sidenote: low compression 355 (8:1~8.5:1 CR) and keep it for the turbo build up and different cam farther down the road

 

Just remember, it's going to run like a low compression 355 till you get the turbo on it.

 

Seeing as this began after the work I woul pull a couple of plugs, maybe there is an internal leak into an intake port, after that I might change the valve seals. What oil are you running?

 

Valvoline 5w30
hope its not the valve seals, they were brand new with the heads

i will find something shortly i hope

 

Usually a bad valve seal will show itself when the car is started cold. Nice blue smoke.