racermike36

I Had my murphy oil level alarm go off during a poker run last weekend. The site glass and floats appear to show that the engine has way too much oil. New 383cid small block chev, one of 2. 671 blowers. 7 quart Stephs oil pan with windage trays and trap doors. The oil coolers hold a measured 2 quarts and are fed by thermostatic valves 180 deg. is there a way for all the oil in the coolers to dump into the pan while warmed up and running at speed?? only the stbd. engine has done this so far. each engine has 9 quarts of Brad Penn 10/30. The Tall sprint car style breathers on each valve cover lost a good bit of oil out the 1" hoses and into the carbs and bilge..I am draining the pan now the is no fuel or water in it. I will measure the volume when I am done.

fireboatpilot

Possible that some of the oil from the coolers and system can drain back into the pan after being shut down but highly unlikely that it would be a measurable amount. I have heard that seals in the huffers can go bad dumping the blower oil into the block. You might also want to check and be sure that fuel hasn't somehow thinned out the oil if too much is being dumped down the carb. The oil lost in the carb and bilge is from a blow by condition? I use vent tanks mounted above the valve covers venting both covers up into the tanks, breathers on the tanks. Oil drains back down into the engine after rpms are lowered. What size coolers hold 2 quarts? Thats a hugh cooler! Also, if their new engines could it be possible that it was just overfilled to begin with?

racermike36

Yes the coolers are big custom San Juan Engineering units made for 800hp. I drained and measured the oil today. I ran it through a fine filter mesh as well. It looks fine. clean not much fuel contamination no water no metal. The pan had 6 of the original 7 quarts. The rest is what blew out the breathers.

racermike36

That or some sort of oil foaming issue. It seems like there was excess oil in the upper end of the engine, Valve covers etc. There is a good bit of vacuum at the breathers with excess oil under the valve covers there would be quite a bit of oil mist venting. If there is much blow by it is a new condition. This weekend we are doing a leakdown test as well as trying one of the new Snap On smoke injecting leak detectors. maybe we will find something.

racermike36

) compression on #4 hole.:-( . 6 engines in 4 years. All unrelated failures. I am ready to quit this waste of time at this point.

fireboatpilot

So I'm assuming without a more detailed description that for some reason there is a loss of comp in #4 cyln causing excessive crankcase pressure pushing oil out of the breathers? What caused the loss of comp? You said these engines are new? Built by who? Yea I've been there, ready to throw in the towel. "F"ed around with older engines rebuilding and such, back and forth, port to starboard, changed builders with same results, even tried building out a few myself. Finally went back to the first builder and built 2 brand new engines, I mean brand new blocks and everything, told builder the HP I wanted and let him know that I would follow ALL his recommendations and maint if he produced what I wanted and would stand behind it. He came through right on the money and I havent had a problem since. It wasn't cheap but in this game what is? I feel your pain brother, plenty of help and advice to be had here, maybe someone is close enough to you to get you sorted out and fixed without too much trouble? Where are you located?

mcollinstn

Blower motors spewing oil is usually a hole in the piston. I've seen it on crappy built motors all the way up to Merc 1075's holing them. The 1075 was running a 1200 (race fuel) EEPROM and was not running race fuel.

Do you have mechanical spark advance or electronic on your boat?

MC