jay7199

iTrader: (9)

Alright i need some opinions, I have a 93 LT1 that I recently bought it was completely stock when I got it but during some maintenance, I noticed it had a fel pro top end kit ( head gaskets, intake gaskets, ect ) and after removing the intake the heads have been rebuilt. Cool! fresh motor in my new car.

Fast forward, I cant keep anything stock so I put a hot cam in, new valve seals and Alex's valve springs. Car runs good and so forth.

Well I lost about 3q of oil in about 1-1.5k miles! thats no good! So today I decided to investigate, hoping for the intake gaskets to be leaking since I didnt replace them, compression check good and such.

The car has been sitting for a week, after removing the intake theres about 3cm of oil resting on all valves drivers bank. What?!

So heres my chain of thought, before I parked the car last week any oil that could have been coming from the intake gaskets would have worked its way down into the cylinder wall the lifters held the valves open, now that the lifters have lost pressure and the valves are sitting closed the oil could only come from above, but again with it sitting, oil doesnt rise above the valve seal when the car is off.. so where did it all come from? the valve guide? When I did the cam and valve springs/seals I checked for any play in the valve guide and they had none so wtf.

Any opinions before I further take the car apart? Thanks

The Outlaw Kid

iTrader: (1)

Ok. You should have replaced the intake gaskets, they're like 20 bucks and not reusable.

The way it goes is if it didn't leak before you messed with and it does now then... well you know. Don't feel bad I've messed up seals and trashed my valve train because of it.

I'd check all around the intake first. Check the china walls on the front and back of the intake as well, they're suspposed to have RTV on them.

Then check the bottom of the timing cover and around the oil pan as well. Did you pull the oil pan off the car when you removed the timing cover? If not you may have ripped the oil pan gasket.

How do you know there's oil on your valves?

jay7199

iTrader: (9)

The car has been sitting for a week, after removing the intake theres about 3cm deep of oil resting on all valves, drivers bank.

im not leaking oil on the ground, im getting large amounts of oil resting on the valves. Iv done many cam swaps, the valve seals are new fel pro seals.

ChevyOwner

Can you take a picture? It might help someone help you.

The Outlaw Kid

iTrader: (1)

Ya throw a picture up. I'm having trouble understanding how you can verify theres oil on the valve face. Maybe you can see them, I've never tried to look at the valves.

Puck

iTrader: (17)

You mean oil under the valve covers where the springs are, or physically ON the valve? If they are literally on top of the backs of the valves, your stem seals are totally wrong size or extremely warn out. If the oil is on the head under the valve cover, you could have your drainback holes clogged with pieces of RTV, sludge, or gasket material.

Either way don't try to crank the motor, 3cm deep is a LOT of oil and can cause it to hydro lock and trash your valves/pushrods/rockers/etc.

My ported LT1 heads used smaller then stock valve stem seals, which I didn't realize until I changed springs on them and the factory replacement FelPros were too big and didn't sit tight enough. I went one size down using Trickflow seals and everything worked perfect.

BALLSS

many heads than have been "worked" have the valve steam outside area machined down to clear double springs. mic them and buy the correct seals if that is your case

.500 is what mine are. I got Manley Viton seals, there are other brands but get Viton full jacketed seals

Kevin Blown 95 TA

Is it something as simple as drainback holes plugged?

jay7199

iTrader: (9)

Sorry if im doing a poor job of explaining this...

Puck has the right idea, oil ON the valves! I typo'd cm I ment to say mm, about 3mm of oil resting ON the valves!

damnit, why is ls1tech using this shitty image insertion that the corvette forums use, it never lets me enable imgur links.

https://i.imgur.com/PjhriMs.jpg

ChevyOwner

I don't have an answer for the oil.

I find it is easier to add images if you type "[img]" paste the link "[/img]" after the link.

Puck

iTrader: (17)

Valve stem seals

Try to rotate them, if they can spin on the valve stem boss then they are too big. I like the Viton seals with the spring around them that holds them nice and tight.

jay7199

iTrader: (9)

they are brand new fel pro, I cannot spin them. they have the small band on them as well like you are describing, And as I was originally questioning. All the valves have oil on them.

So when the car was last running, oil leaks down onto the valve, but that would drain down as some of the valves would be open. but after sitting for a week the lifters pumped down and all the valves closed, with the car not running oil should not be getting past the valve stim seal since its sitting at the base of the head, so how did it get there? Is it possible the machine shop who did the heads installed the guide wrong?

ChevyOwner

I had to think about this for a while. If the seal leak is small enough you won't notice it when the engine is running. I have an old 350 that always burn oil on cold start. The longer it sits to a point with out running the more oil it will burn on start-up, but once it is running there is no notice of it burning oil. I think it is the valve seals, but for this truck changing them is not a priority, and it has done it for over 10 years.

BALLSS

did you use the plastic "straw" over the valve stem when you installed them?

Did you look/wiggle the valve stem without the valve seals and was there any movement?

oil coming from up top down onto valves suggests either worn guides or bad valve stem seals