I my just a rookie at engines but did my first head and cam install on my car a little while back. I was burning about 1 quart of oil every 3,000 miles. But after the head and cam install I was having to put a quart of oil in every 500-1000 miles with no hard runs just babying it. A little bit later I noticed a slight smell of gas on my dipstick and pretty soon my oil stunk more and of gas. My oil level never rose but was still burning at the same rate. Also tonight after taking a closer look at things I found that the spark plugs had white insulators but had lots of gunk that appears to be oil and gas combo down the threads of them. The intake and heads also had gas and oil mixture all over them in contrast to before was I had none. So my question is why is gas getting into my oil? I think my valve seals are leaking due to oil burning as soon as I did the install but can valve seals leak gas into the oil. If you need any more info let me know. Any comments would be great for I have limited experience in this field.

 

Sounds like a serious piston sealing issue. I would do a leakdown and see what is going on. Sounds like you have a few rings that are allowing blowby. Just a thought.

 

Leaky injectors can also cause gas to get into the oil, as the extra fuel that gathers in the cylinder overnight then gets past the ring when you first fire it up in the morning, since even a perfectly good engine has slightly loose rings when you first fire it up cold.

 

Patman:
Leaky injectors - really??

I think you should stick to giving advice on what you know!

 

injectors getting stuck open or maxed out can aboslutely cause this. Although sounds more like rings are shot

 

Probably in need of a good dynotune. I would have said a rich condition however white insulators say lean. Definately change the oil before you wash the bearings and look into it further.

 

And obviously you don't know that it is indeed true.

 

When I first read the title I said, injector, but since it was already doing it and got worse with the head swap, I would say rings. Most people swap 5.3 heads with a boost in compression which would show this more.

 

just curious, how many miles on the engine?

 

I am willing to bet a combination of a leaking injector and a bad piston ring. When the car sits, the injector will leak slowly and gas will run into the cylinder. The bad ring will allow the gas to pass between the piston and sleeve and the gas will enter the crankcase where the oil is.

 

I would say leaky injector for gas smell in oil. Ring does not have to be bad to allow the gas to get by, it will flow past the end gaps. Put pressure gauge on fuel line and run engine. Shut off and see how long the pressure holds or doesn't. Extended crank/ rough after start is a good sing or pull plugs and see if one is richer/blacker than any others. As to oil consumption problem, gas leaking into sump will accelerate and worsen the problem due to dilution. It will also increase wear on the rings and bearings and guides.... oh my!

To get a lead on the problem, see if you can identify any smoking from the tail pipe and when it does it, either at idle... constant, first starting after sitting and not running, when leaving the stop line, when accelerating hard, or when lifting after hard pull. If all else fails do a leak down on the cylinders.

Valve seals leak oil into combustion chamber, not gas. Any oil/gas in intake tract can be traced to either bad reversion and/or poor crank case breathing.... ie PCV valve or breather plugged or not working.

Can you post a pic of the plug? Or take to a local guru to advise. Bone white isn't always bad, but at the same time it could be a lean condition also and a trained eye can help point you in the right direction.The 'gunk' could be from the cylinder but hopefully it is from the anti sieze you used on the threads when you installed them. I prefer the 'silver' anti-sieze for plugs.

 

A little more information, the car was not burning oil before just one quart every 3,000 and now its one quart every 500-1000. And before the H/C install there was no gas in the oil. So after I installed the heads I noticed that oil was burning a lot fast and I knew the company had issues with valve seals and they said that was most likely the problem. So they are suppose to send me some new seals. That explains the oil not the gas in the oil. My uncle, a mechanic, though the burning/leaking oil was fouling my O2 sensors and it was throwing the reading off because oil doesn’t burn as fast and clean as gas. Which in turn made my computer think plenty of gas was present so it backed off the gas a bit causing a leaner situation. That would explain the white spark plugs. And as far as the plugs and how they look I only had time to pull a few off, which they all had very white lean looking insulators in my opinion. But two plugs had oil/gas looking gunk going down the thread and the other one didn't (this one was the front plug drivers side and I do use silver anti-sieze). My uncle thinks that the injectors are the gas in the oil problem also but he is assuming all this with out looking at my car and not knowing the exact setup of the LS1 engine. He said the injector O-rings maybe just need to be replaced but would that stop them from leaking gas? Could I have put the fuel rail back on in correctly or some other part causing the gas in the oil? My uncle is going to make his way over to my house this weekend hopefully and take a look at it. I will post some pictures if I can find my camera’s cord. I seem to have misplaced it the other day. Any other thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks for all the ideas and replies so far. Oh yea no smoke at all but maybe a slight bit at WOT and start ups are clean and smooth.

 

I'm not exactly sure how the LS1's intake gaskets are set up compared to a regular SBC, but the oil/plug issue sounds similar to an issue I had, the intake gasket ended up being bad on two cylinders and the oil would get sucked into the cylinder. Also check to make sure you have the intake torqued right--again thats if the intake is the same on an ls1 and I'm not for sure. Just some ideas to think of.

 

Yeah, GM finally fixed that problem with the LS1. Dry intake.

 

One Qt every 3 thousand is unacceptable. As a ' general' rule of thumb, guides will deposit oil on the ground strap and electrode. Any time the fuel rail is remove you should inspect the 'O' rings for damage or replace if high mileage, they are cheap insurance but they will not stop or cause injectors to leak gas. You didn't say how many miles are on the car but one thing that does happen sometimes, and we usually try to discourage doing heads on high mileage cars, is that after sealing the top with new valve job and guides it blows out the rings. Do a leak down on the fuel rail and rings to id the problem.

 

58k miles on the car and its a mild 224/224 .581 comp cam. I was under the impression that 1 quart every 3,000 miles in a LS1 was normal especially if you drive it hard.