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SS Burning Oil.....

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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 10:13 PM
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Default SS Burning Oil.....

Ok, I bought a 99 SS from a guy in CT about 2 months ago, about two weeks after I had it the low oil light came on, so I added about 1.5QT and it was all good. About a week later I decided to go ahead and change the oil just in case. I put in 5.5QT of Mobil One 5w30. After I was done the dipstick as on the arrow at the top of the "normal" range. Now it is about 700-800 miles later and it is almost out of the normal zone completely. I do get on it every once in a while but most of the time I just cruise around. Does anybody else have a similar experience? The car only has 38k miles on it. What can I do to cut down on the oil consumption? The etched "operating range" on the dipstick only measures the top QT right? I hope there is nothing wrong with my motor.
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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 10:20 PM
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My 85K LS1 uses about 1.5 qts in 5000 miles. How do you like the cam in your sig? I got the same one for mine .
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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 10:27 PM
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Pull your MAF and bellows off and open the throttle body blade. Get a flashlight and shine it inside the intake. Do you see alot of oil mist all over the place? If so, welcome to the wonderful world of "PCV valve oil consumption problems". Do a search on that and you'll find a few solutions that may help you out.
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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 11:08 PM
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Welcome to the club. I bought a 99 SS back in May 05 that I was told by the seller it had a freshly re-built motor.. Well a week and a half after having it the low oil light came on.. I did not think to much of it and went ahead and changed the oil since the motor only had 1k miles on it.. Well 600 miles later the light popped on again, it was down 2 quarts.. I have since put almost 12k miles on the motor and filling it with oil once a week.. I did a leak down test and turn out the rings on my motor are shot. I am about to drop about 4k to buy a new motor.

Check the PCV, you might be lucky and just be able to do a catch can and get on with life. Look for blue/white smoke at WOT and on decel or revving. If you see that it is a very good chane your rings are shot. Good luck it is very frustrating
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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 11:17 PM
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I have the same problem. Mine even had enough oil coming out of the exhaust to foul one of my o2 sensors. So before that keeps happening i'm doing an ls6 pcv swap this weekend. Hopefully that will do the trick.
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Old Feb 23, 2006 | 11:17 PM
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The car does not smoke at all. No black, white or blue. I looked past the TB and there seems to be a nice coat of oil on that post in the manifold, and pretty much all over. It even smelled like oil in there, lol. Maybe a catch can and updated PCV will help out, is there anyway changing to a different brand/weight oil would help, and if so what do you guys recomend. Sorry to hear about your motor Joel, sounds like whoever built the motor does not know what there doing or the person did not break it in properly.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 12:36 AM
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my car burns about a half of qt of oil....every 3k. if that....im always in the dotted line on my next oil change...
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 08:40 AM
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Mine uses about 1 qt every 3k miles, and I am close to 140k miles. I have the same cam as you also, I love it.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 10:37 AM
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I'm switching from 5w30 to 5w40 today when I get around to changing the oil. I also tried the truck PCV valve, not really a valve, it's hollow and just has a small hole in the rear, but it didn't help any. My cheap homemade catchcan collects about a Coke bottle cap full a week.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 11:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Sprayed1998
The car does not smoke at all. No black, white or blue. I looked past the TB and there seems to be a nice coat of oil on that post in the manifold, and pretty much all over. It even smelled like oil in there, lol. Maybe a catch can and updated PCV will help out, is there anyway changing to a different brand/weight oil would help, and if so what do you guys recomend. Sorry to hear about your motor Joel, sounds like whoever built the motor does not know what there doing or the person did not break it in properly.
Since you are down south you might try to some 10w30... I just do the catch can and see where that gets you. I updated my PCV valve as well and it did not make a diffrence. I did have oil coming in from the intake and through the rings.

Also it would not be a bad idea to pull your plugs an take a look at them. Here is what one of my plugs looked like that came out of the bad cylinder...

http://members.torquecentral.com/joel/plug.jpg

I talked with the guy who built my motor (Watt Bingham) and he would not warranty it.. He did not even really care to tell you the truth.. And he suppose to be a reputable builder in DFW..

Last edited by Joel_SS; Feb 24, 2006 at 11:50 AM.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 01:12 PM
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that plug looks terrible Joel_SS
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 01:17 PM
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As far as oil you could try some 5W-40 synthetics (as has been mentioned). Amsoil probably makes the best of these with Redline and Mobil 1 slightly behind. I don't know if there is a German Castrol in this weight, but if there is it would be right up there also.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 03:56 PM
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Originally Posted by dailydriver
As far as oil you could try some 5W-40 synthetics (as has been mentioned). Amsoil probably makes the best of these with Redline and Mobil 1 slightly behind. I don't know if there is a German Castrol in this weight, but if there is it would be right up there also.
Per bobistheoilguy.com and blackstone chem lab resules, Amsoil does make excellent product, but Redline is in no way behind. Look into oil a little bit on the oil forums, and Patman has awesome advice on this topic.. what I recommend below is based on lab results and patman's advice.

Amsoil 5w40
Redline 5w30
German Castrol Syntec 0w30
Mobil 1 Truck & SUV 5w40

Not sure about any others.. I used Redline for a while and switched because local stores stopped carrying it and it got to damn expensive. Amsoil 5w40 is awesome stuff, as is German Castrol 0w30 (usually found at most Autozones). I use German Castrol, and the best oil analysis results have been on that oil.
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Old Feb 24, 2006 | 07:27 PM
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i have an 01 z28.i have a oil burning problem.some of u mentioned if you buy an ls6 pcv valve and a catch can it will solve the problem.i was woundering since i have an ls6 intake do i already have an ls6 pcv valve?
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Old Feb 25, 2006 | 12:58 PM
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Well I had my car tuned yesterday and it did 401HP/380TQ, so the motor seems to be strong. Im gonna do the PCV and catch can and see if it helps, might even go to a 5w40.
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Old Feb 25, 2006 | 01:05 PM
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I have my intake off to get it painted. When I held the intake vertically some oil dripped out of the vacuum line on the back. There is a nice layer of oil mist on the intake - is the catch can the fix?
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Old Feb 25, 2006 | 03:27 PM
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I had the same problem with my 99 LS1. I upgraded to the LS6 Valley and still had problems so I put an oilmist, water seperater from home depot on it and it has caught the oil. Does not help the consumption rate, but it keeps it out of the intake. Heres a pic.

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