Since the cam install the car has been drinking oil. It is using about a qt per 1,000 miles. I pulled the drivers side plugs tonight and they are very black with oil stains on one side of them. I used the compressed air method for the spring swap and used 100 to 125 psi for it. I heard some air escape the valve and the valve seals made a little pop. Didn't think much of it. Could I have hurt the seals? Car didn't use any oil before the cam install. Car is an 02' with 18K. 2K on the cam install. Thanks.

John

 

It's been a while since I've played with cam swaps and such. Back when I was a full time 'hobbist", I had a friend I helped with his '80's Vette that he bought second hand. He had oil consumption problems and smoking. I followed behind him and noticed blue smoke at idle and in decellaration: tell tale signs of the intake valve seals being bad (vacuum sucks the oil down the stems into the cylinders). We pulled the valve covers and I checked his springs: no friggin' seals at all. Evidently the last guy had a valve job done and they forgot this little item...all 16 of them. After replacing them, we changed the plugs and no more smoking!

Now if you had air getting past the valves into the stem seals when you were pressurizing the cylinders, and you did not have each piston at TDC where both valves should be closed. I would say that you either ruptured, or unseated, the seals and you are pulling oil into the cylinders.

 

Thanks for the info. Looking for all the advice I can get at this point.

 

John,
I did a cam and spring swap on a friends car back last year and it was burning some oil afterwards. I started checking it out and I found that when I was taking the stock springs off the heads I had damaged two of the valve seals on one of the heads. The spring compressor that I was using went between the coils of the springs and tore the seals. Might want to check that out, I changed the seals on that side and it cleared it up.

 

I've looked at the valve seals and they appear OK and all the plugs have a uniform coat of oil so I don' t think the rings are to blame either. Seems the rings would be some worse than others. This leads me to the PCV system. I ordered the LS6 valley cover today and should have it one early next week. I'll post back as soon as I get some results. If that doesn't stop the oil consumption there is gonna be one hell of a parts sell posted soon!