I think I have about 4k miles on the rebuild and after about 800 miles of running dino oil I switched over to mobile 1 10w30 synthetic. Did I switch over too soon?.
Thing about it is it only smokes during wot and sometimes while decelerating. It doesnt smoke usually at all during idle and actually runs pretty good. But can soembody tell me how long it usually takes b/c im starting to think that this motor will be comng out again over this issue. ( sigh)

 

It should have been well seated by 800 miles.
After all bugs are out of my motors (cooling all works , timing and tune pretty well nailed , leaks etc gone) I allways take the new motor out and with about 3/4 throttle run it up to 50 let out , slowing to 30 then repeat.They allways are pretty well seated after that.

 

I agree that something isn't right. On the oil that should have given it time to seat but you then chose the wrong oil that stuff is too thin for a stock LT1 and your engine builder probably uses a crosshatch of lesser quality than OEM and most motors he builds probably run a lot thicker oil. On the too thin comment this is speifically m1 5w-30 and 10w-30, most other brands being just fine in those weights and some being great on 0w-30. I would swap back to a cheap 10w-30 for a few thousand miles it might not help but it wont hurt, dino is still good oil and MOST people see little to no benifit with synthetic because they don't push it beyond what dino would have been able to handle. These days people seem to think dino is abusing an engine but it can do the job well for a lot of miles, synthetic is better but few actually tap into that extra margin of protection. After running some more dino in there and trying to get it to seat if it does seat then go ahead and go back to M1 if you want just use 5w-40 or 0w-40.

 

Were the heads reworked? What kind of rings?
Go with a 10/30 oil and stay there.Ya are not in -30* weather or racing it looking for the last tenth. Dino oil is not bad but everybody wants to run a 0/0 oil just to say they can.It doesn't help the engine,in fact it could damage the bearings in the summer.(next year they will be claiming they ran with no oil--ha)
On my builds the rings ars seated with a trip around the block.Run the hell out of it and see if they will seat.

 

You don't know what you are talking about but I have a solution for that, go here http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi and do some reading.
The oil returning the best year round MEASURED results in this engine at this time is a specific 0w-30 and it is a lot thicker than the M1 5w-30 and 10w-30, again I speak from actual research and looking over MEASURED data not the 10w-30 is thicker stupidity you will get from many here.

 

Oil aside.

I am curious about the bore finish and also what type of rings were used. Feel free to PM me if you like.

 

Yea Yea 10/30 is what has been run in engines for a bunch of years.
I NEED to go and read something that the oil companies are saying is right,so they can sell something new,Yea Yea.
Heard of a lot of oil pressure problems on this board from the NEW style of oil.
Except on one of my race engines that is built for the thin oil will I ever run any 0/30 oil.I fully understand what weight is and does so let the oil companies sell "you" that stuff and don't try to convince others to possibly hurt their engine.
We ran 0/20 in our trucks in Alaska at -36* that in itself ought to tell ya what it's good for,if ya can see it.

I think ya need more hands on experience with different engine's and oil's. Have worked in Alaska to -56* mean temp to the desert at 128* mean temp with Cummings, Detroit, and Cat engines and also the service trucks and the bosses car. In these type of conditions ya work closely with your oil supplier to prevent engine problems and downtime. Ya learn something when ya have gone through these things and not one time has the supplier recommended a 0W anything oil when the temp was above 20*F.
I forgot to mention my engine shop,since retirement and the experience of a lot of years of building engines and racing.

 

I haven't seen oil vicosity selection keep rings from seating, but I always run 20-50 kendall gt-1 in our race stuff, and minimum 10-30 on the street.

Usually ring seating issues have to do with ring selection and bore crosshatch, chrome rings can be hard to seat if the ra/rz values are not in the specified range. Also if the engine is running too rich, it will wash the cylinders down and keep the rings from seating, you said it only smokes on WOT, and on decell, I would check timing and fuel maps, get a dyno with AFR, when you go into closed loop it might be dumping too much fuel.

 

Ditto on the GT-1.Have run it since the '60's and never lost an engine due to oil.
I have run dirt sprint's with the radiator packed up 22 more laps after 280* on guage and it was still 220* 3-4 hour's after the race.That engine ran the rest of the season 5 nights a week.

 

The site I linked is for oil enthusiasts not a manufacturer site though there are a select few sponsors. If you bother to go read it you can see actual data about wear metal content in used oil from a variety of vehicles. Think of it like a dyno chart or track times for oil this is actual measured data. If that means nothing then you are too ignorant to bother arguing with. Some 10w-30s are just right for this engine M1 is not IN THAT WEIGHT. I am not arguing against 10w-30 just against M1 10w-30 based on DATA.

 

You ***,I ain't argueing. I am stating fact's that have been proven.Research-seasearch I don't use all that is proposed,just the proven stuff. You use all that newly reasearched stuff.
I know what oil is and does and don't need the internet to tell me what works,you may.
The General doesn't recommend it above a certain temp and I guess they are ignorant to,huh.Maybe ya should send them a note with the link to your newfound reasearch,hey they might even read it before they trash it.

Done plenty of oil samples and read the reports and I know what works and those big engines take a hell of a lot more abuse than a standard SBC and longer too. They get rode hard and put up wet.

 

You cannot criticize research for being "new" or "on the internet". If you dont agree with it, find out where they went wrong in their experiments and set the record straight for us. If the research is sound and no flaw is evident, then the results are valid regardless of how recent or what medium was used to present it.

 

valve stem seals, stem guides, pcv system, washing the cylinder walls w/ fuel??

 

I said I don't use newfound research or the newest fad this week.I use what has been proven. No I don't agree that 0/anything oil is for an everyday driver.
There is probably other research that says something else so here ya go with choices.
When ya use a bunch of different oil on a bunch of different engines in very different situations,ya don't need to read reasearch, ya have already done it and not in a lab.Ya have your oil sample reports to back ya up as to the choices.Isn't that called reasearch or just doing your job.
If I let an engine on a 2 million dollar crane go down for an oil related failure the CO would have a new maint foreman in an hour.So ya tend to keep in touch with your oil supplier and what's what.

 

I guess evidence based medicine is totally different from engines then. We are always evaluating and re-evaluating research and modifying treatment guidelines accordingly.