00CaliforniaZ28

iTrader: (11)

I had a slight tick from my engine, so decided to swap out the pushrods while I was taking a look. None of the rods on the drivers side looked bent, but the new rods seemed to help with the tick. I went to swap the passenger side, and everything looked okay as well. But I fired up the car with the covers off to make sure everything was running alright, and the passenger side had quite a bit of smoke coming out of the head. It was white in color, and had little to no smell to it. So I would assume its not oil burning. So I would guess that head gasket is toast? The car sat for over a year with only being started a handful of times. Could the sitting have caused the issue?

The car had a minor cooling issue for a while, and I was told the waterpump had been leaking slightly. I swapped out to the new edelbrock pump a few months back, and the car has been cooling just fine since. The coolant dipstick has some gunk on it, but doesnt seem to be oil. I had the cooling system flushed maybe 25K miles ago. The car has 85K on it now. I had noticed small amounts of smoke coming from my oil fill tube for a few weeks now, but I read that could also be caused by a failing pcv valve, so I didnt pay THAT much attention to it at the time. I swapped to the LS6 pcv system around the same time I noticed the smoke, so I thought that was the issue. But I guess theres more to it than that.

00CaliforniaZ28

iTrader: (11)

ttt

vettenuts

iTrader: (4)

A couple of ways to proceed here. You can contact Blackstone and get a kit and send in an oil sample. That will tell you if you have coolant in the oil if it is not obvious. The smoke could also be blowby. Does the dipstick still have gunk on it? Is the PCV working correctly? If not, then the block is not being correctly purged.

01FbTaWs6

iTrader: (12)

blowby

Monte4ever

iTrader: (2)

Condensation........ When you had the valve cover off the PCV system could not vent the motor properly. This also happens when people disconnect the PCV system and run only breathers on the valve covers; white steam/condensation comes out of the breathers at idle.

Armageddon

iTrader: (41)

Does the bottom of your oil cap look like a chocolate milkshake? Engine off, take your finger and run it around the inside top of the valve cover through the oil fill hole. You're looking for the chocolate milkshake residue here also. Do you change your own oil? If you had a head gasket issue your oil as it was draining out would obviously have mixed water in it.

When a car sits for a long period of time the injectors are known to bleed. If you had a leaky injector in one hole on the problem bank that built up enough to do harm it could bend a rod or blow a headgasket.

The white smoke is probably steam. If it was only visible for a couple minutes after a cold engine start I'd agree with condensation... but there's no way a motor after completing a heat cycle is going to still be steaming condensation off the inside of the valve cover.

01FbTaWs6

iTrader: (12)

put the valve cover on, start the engine. Remove the oil fill cap and does it puff like a train engine? Put your hand over the oil fill hole. Do you feel pulsation? Or vacuum? If you dont feel vacuum, and feel pulsation, its blowby. Your rings are shot.

paint it black vette

thats me no pcv system, and some white steam out breather more noticeable at lower temps with humid air

Monte4ever

iTrader: (2)

I ran my old combo (BBC) like that and it also smoked out of the breathers along with pushing oil pass the rear main seal (too much crank case pressure). Later I hooked back up the PCV system, along with the breather, and an AEM catch can. That solved all my issues and kept the intake clean. This is how I'm going to set my LS1 up in my Monte Carlo...works great.