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Old Apr 10, 2012 | 09:34 PM
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Default crankcase ventilation problems

Ive got an 01 SS camaro with 111k miles...The cars been having major oil problems...its got blow by and its hard to tell where its spittin the oil from...The motor is not knocking and when we changed the oil there was no metal shavings or anything...the valvetrain is a little louder than my stock z28 since the car has patriot heads and ms3 cam. A while back a buddy adviced us to take the oil cap off or put a breather on instead...so we took off the cap and drove it around for a little bit to see if it helped and it did but not too much. My buddy then decided to put the cap back on the next day and he said when he fired it up it backfired and killed the engine and smoke started pouring out of the hood...he checked under the hood and sure enough the valve cover gaskets blew off and were dangling off the heads. The car still starts up right away and idles fine with no problems and barely smokes...but when you get on it it smokes like crazy. Does anybody know of any fixes to this problem or could it be the piston rings are fried? The oil pressure seems kinda high when idling my stock Z sees right in the middle at around 30 psi i believe well the SS has really high oil pressure about 50 psi at idle.



Last edited by camaro981289; Apr 10, 2012 at 09:54 PM.
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Old Apr 10, 2012 | 09:55 PM
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50 views and no replies? Am i missing more information
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Old Apr 10, 2012 | 10:37 PM
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If it smokes white all the time......your ring(s) are shot, or maybe one is broken and lost a chunk.

And to blow the gasket out like that......you have some major combustion entering your crankcase. I can't believe it didn't exit the PCV system or blow that open first. That would point to a broken ring.

When it idles do you feel puffs of air coming out of the oil filler neck? You shouldn't.

Also...what do you have for PCV system....or is everything capped off.

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Old Apr 11, 2012 | 09:11 AM
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Originally Posted by LS6427
If it smokes white all the time......your ring(s) are shot, or maybe one is broken and lost a chunk.

And to blow the gasket out like that......you have some major combustion entering your crankcase. I can't believe it didn't exit the PCV system or blow that open first. That would point to a broken ring.

When it idles do you feel puffs of air coming out of the oil filler neck? You shouldn't.

Also...what do you have for PCV system....or is everything capped off.

.
Im not really sure if air puffs out of the oil filler neck i will have to check. Im not sure on the pcv system im buying the car from my buddy...How would i check on the pcv system to see? Thanks for your reply man.
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Old Apr 11, 2012 | 12:29 PM
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Originally Posted by camaro981289
The oil pressure seems kinda high when idling my stock Z sees right in the middle at around 30 psi i believe well the SS has really high oil pressure about 50 psi at idle.
50 psi at idle is good. Generally when cold, oil temp less than 100F you will see 40-50 psi at idle on a good motor, and when you get rpms up around 3000 you'll see 60-70 psi. that is normal, it certainly is not bad. As the motor and oil heat up, oil viscosity drops and you see lower oil pressure all around, how much depends on the oil temp and the viscosity of oil you're running. Generally for 5w30 oil when hot you see 20-30 psi at idle and 40-50 psi up over 2000 rpm.

if the crankcase ventilation is not working, you can easily blow out gaskets. you cannot seal everything off because even a healthy motor will build internal pressure and blow out front and main crank seals and valve cover gaskets. The PCV system works by a hose connected from one valve cover to the throttle body with the pcv valve in between. the pcv valve meters or restricts the air, and engine vacuum sucks vapor from the crankcase. If you did not have another opening somewhere, a running engine would suck itself to where the front and rear crankshaft seals and valve cover gaskets would get sucked inwards. That's why there's a second hose off the other valve cover going to the air box where the air filter is, and fresh filtered air is sucked back into the crankcase so there's a pressure balance (mostly). I think you should not measure more than 1 psi between crankcase pressure and outside air, more than that and there's a restriction somewhere. You can rig up any pressure gauge such as an engine vacuum gauge to measure crankcase pressure.
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Old Apr 11, 2012 | 03:46 PM
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Originally Posted by camaro981289
Im not really sure if air puffs out of the oil filler neck i will have to check. Im not sure on the pcv system im buying the car from my buddy...How would i check on the pcv system to see? Thanks for your reply man.
Check this out, this is how you should set it up, works perfectly. Less than $10.00 in parts. My 427ci has been like this for like 5+ years.
And NO MORE oil in the intake by the ridiculously designed PCV system causes. Just clean air through your intake. Don't have to waste money on a catch can either.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/general-m...?highlight=pcv

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Old Apr 11, 2012 | 11:03 PM
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Ok i checked it and yep sure enough theres puffs of air coming out of the oil filler neck, Also after a while of the car idling smoke starts coming out of it.
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Old Apr 11, 2012 | 11:23 PM
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Originally Posted by camaro981289
Ok i checked it and yep sure enough theres puffs of air coming out of the oil filler neck, Also after a while of the car idling smoke starts coming out of it.
Well ****......those puffs are probably coming from the piston with the broken ring, each time it fires......

But, maybe do a compression check on all cylinders to find out for sure.

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