New engine in Formula, more problems then a math book!
 

Ok, all I'm at LOTO as we speak, had trip planned for months but never got to get the new engine broke in before this weekend cause the local river levels were all messed up the previous weeks, so I'm trying to do it here in the rediculous 9' seas of the Ozarks! So here is the run down: it's a fresh build, 0 hour, standard bore 454, with flat top pistons, new bearings, rings, double roller timing chain, ARP rod bolts, 0.564/0.567 flat tappet Comp Xtreme Marine cam, new lifters, bla bla bla. The heads are 2005 Vortec heads with oversized stainless valves, and a ton of nice port work. They have new custom springs matched to the cam, with rotators, new valve locks, retainers, harland Sharp roller rockers with poly locks, and after cc'n them, compression came right out to 9.1:1, and the tank is filed with 93. It has a just rebuilt Holley 850 sitting on a Port matched Weian team G intake. Has factory thunderbolt ignition, and factory mechanical fuel pump.... (possibly not enough? ) exhaust is CMI sport tube headers, with dry tails going into thru hull tips... I have a 24p Bravo-1 4 blade prop on it, as the old 330hp set up ran best with a 22p bravo 1, so I figured a 24p bravo on an estimated 500hp motor would be a good start. I unfortunately no longer have the 22p btw, and 3 blades run terrible on this boat. Oh, and yes the cam was broke in properly with good high zinc oil, and yes I do have the correct head gaskets to run a gen6 head on a MarkIV block.

HERE ARE THE PROBLEMS:
At initial start up it runs awesome, but after about 5-7 minutes you can smell oil, and it will slowly lose rpms. If you give it more gas it will just bog down and fall on its face. Pop the hatch and oil is EVERYWHERE. I have 2 breather filters on it venting onto the flame arrestor, but oil is still all over, ( possibly coming out of dipstick? ) and if you take the breathers off while it cools down, white smoke comes out and smells terrible! ) it will start back up but you gotta pump the throttle to get it to fire. It is burning oil and smoking out of the starbord tailpipe on initial startup. I've tried moving the timing from 30-35 with no change really, but seemed better at 30, but now when you turn the key off it keeps ****ing running! It's using as much oil as gas and 5-7 minutes of good run time is just enough to get you stranded on this terrible water! Im done for now, It's too dangerous out there with a broken boat. Any ideas anyone? Btw the oil pressure and engine temp gauges are reading good.

My first thoughts are bad valve seals and a fuel issue? Too much carb, not enough fuel pressure, something like that? Our maybe I'm on the wrong track and it could be a coil overheating and bran new broken piston rings? I know for a fact that they were installed with the correct sides up and the gaps staggered... idk, any input would be amazing. Thanks guys!

make sure oil level isn't too high. some boats need to be at or just below add mark cuz of wave action sloshing oil. other boats need to be filled high cuz of sloshing oil missing pick up and pressure dropping with each dip of the bow. broken rings and oil smokes right out the exhaust. same same with valve seals. yours is leaving the engine, either thru breathers or a gasket leak if u see it on outside of engine...do you have a big vacuum port on carb? mebbe try installing a PCV valve. ok, just reread problem section of first post. how much blowby when engine is running at startup? how much more when warmed up and running like chit? unless loose oil is going into flame arrestor and fouling plugs and smoking, (which is possible) it could be a ring clearance issue. get a gallon jug and fab up a puke tank. run the breathers into jug and another breather out to flame arrestor. heck, tie wrap jug so open lid is right next to arrestor might even work. see if getting tonsa oil into tank.

If the oil is concentrated at the rear and very oilyon the transom somebody may have put the rubber gaskets on the front and rear where intake meats block. Notorious leakers if you use gaskets there, permatex only. Hope it is that simple.
On the bright side, look how much fuel you are saving. Good luck

Losing power, having to pump the throttle, and puking oil is usual ya very bad sign of a compression leak into the crankcase

It's Definately appears to be puking oil at higher rpms, not idle, and I guess the carb ingesting oil through the breathers could be what's causing it to smoke so bad... but it seems like it's even worse then that.. I guess I could try the puke tank idea and see if that looks the smoking, but it pushing that much oil out is the problem I wanna fix, not just bypass. Compression leak into the crankcase is more along the lines I was thinking. It seems like broken rings or bad valve seals , (both new btw) would be the most likely culprit, with bad valve seals topping my last, cause of the huge smoke show out the tailpipes on startup. Bad rings would allow the oil to just leak back down to the pan, but bad valve seals would let oil leak down onto the top of the pistons and be ready to burn off on initial startup right? And the power loss after 5 minutes if cruising, Any thoughts there? I feel like it may be over carburated? But that shouldn't cause problems after a certain amount if run time, It would be all the time right?

Was the windage tray re-installed when the motor was put back together? Is it over filled with oil? What is the oil pressure? My motor doesn't have valve seals and it doesn't use oil or smoke.

Has the same oil pan/filter set up as before, and the oil pan has a built in windage tray. Isn't overfilled with oil, and has good pressure. 30-40 pounds at idle.

Did this happen as soon as you started it up or after you hit the 9 footers. I've seen the windage trays break off stock pans before. What is your oil pressure hot?

why dont you take your compression? or even better with a leak down test! I would start there...

I'm absolutely going to do a compression test as soon as I get home. Just wanted some input if I was goin in the right direction.

What is your oil level doing? Could you be diluting it with gas from a float set to high? How does the oil smell?

Do a leak down test. No sense in quessing. If it's pushing oil out, you have too much pressure.

Who's valve covers did you use,is their baffles in them? the carb will just ace like a vacuum cleaner with out them and suck oil from the valve covers..you cam tell from the look on the carb if its getting saturated with oil..

Last time I saw a fresh eng puking oil, turned out one of the ring lands was broken. Probably happened when pistons were installed and the ring compressor wasn't sitting perfectly flush with the block.

Did YOU build this motor or did an engine shop?
If an engine shop put it together bring it to them to figure out. DON'T take it apart yourself as they may use that as an excuse to not warranty there work.

I agree it sounds like a installation issue with the rings. Maybe installed upside down or in the wrong position. Compression test should tell the tale.

I built the engine myself... And yes I know when you hear that, most peoples reaction is "well you obviously ****ed it up, should have taken it to a professional shop", but I happen to run a shop myself, and have built more engines then I could ever dream to count, and have never had one turn out bad what-so-ever, so I'm fairly confident it isn't an assembly error, but then again nobody's perfect so I guess I'll be re-tracing every step here in a day or so. I compression tested it a few hours ago and it was 70, 80, 75, 85, 70, ect...... So basically that's Junk, junk, junk, junk, ect..... The cylinder walls were beautiful when I originally took it apart, so I did a quick hone on it, kept the factory bore, got new flat top pistons, and new Moly rings, and even used high zinc, non-synthetic oil to break it in. I know for a fact I installed the rings with "dot side up", (I'm kinda OCD about things, so I checked it about 12,483 times before I popped them in the bore, and I have a really good piston ring compressor, and they all went in smoothly), so I really kinda doubt that something went wrong there? They are Mahle rings, and I've used rings from them dozens of times in the past with no problems, so I wouldn't think there is a problem there? IDK, the only thing I didn't do "myself" on the whole build is the assembly of the cylinder heads, and the heavy-oil-smoking on initial startup has me thinking valve seals or guides, but even that's far fetched. The valve covers I'm using dont' have baffles in them, but are eddie-marine tall bbc valve covers. they didn't have any holes in them for breathers except for the oil fill cap, but I cut holes and installed baffeled breathers that vent to the carb, but the smell that comes from the valve covers after it's warmed up isn't normal oil-burn smell, it's like bunring aluminum smell or something... And the whole running awesome for 5 minutes and then slowly loosing RPM's until it dies is a whole other problem waiting for me after I fix the oil problem too... So I guess my main question is, I'm gonna go ahead and pull the motor here in the next week, and if the rings end up being junk, which I'll honestly replace anyway if I need to, what do you guys think I should do to prevent this again? Different oil? What kind of break in procedure? Again, I've done tons of new engines, but never had one do this, so if I'm doin something wrong I would love to know so I don't do it again! lol LOTO shootout/poker run is comin up!

Did you use hyper pistons? The top compression rings need a little extra gap with some of those, especially in a marine eng.
Hopefully that's not the issue, just throwing something out there.

What a pain in the a##. I had a customer bring in a 468 with a similar problem. When we pulled it apart, it looked like the rings never seated. He said he had a nice cross hatch pattern,but it looked like the cylinders polished back up before the rings had a good chance to seat.I checked the bore dia. and it was fine so we honed it again. Used Childs/Albert rings (with standard tension oil rings instead of the low friction he had used)and it's been trouble free for about 300+ hours now. ps some break in additives give of some crazy smells when they get hot!

One quick observation. You are using Vortec heads. Since they are a fast burn chamber design you cannot run a lot of timing like you normally would on a BBC. 28 degrees total advance is about the maximum you can run. It's possible you detonated it right off the bat if you had a lot more timing initially. Maybe broke a ring land, torched a piston or tuliped some valves.

Bob Lloyd

I would say that the rings are broken. No way the smoke is from the valve stem seals.

Read an article way backed that talked about if an engine runs too cool the rings don't seal correctly and can cause blow by,, maybe not to that extreme though,

Were the cylinders plateau honed?

You said 2005 Vortec heads. Dumb question, but in 2005, wouldnt the vortec heads be off a 496 GM engine? Or are we talking about the oval port vortec 454 heads?

If its blowing oil all over, and compression test is showing 70psi,its time for it to come apart.

i may be wrong but i believe the vortec 454 came out in 96.the 95 is a gen5 engine,not a vortec.

Yes that's right mike. The vortec head was released in 96 along with the gen 6 block. The 1996 454 that came in trucks is completely different engine than the flat tappet , low 7.9 compression peanut port headed tbi injected pre 96 454. The vortec engines were 9:1 with hyd roller cams and mpi. In the truck world, the 1995 454 was something like 230hp and 385ft lbs. The 1996 454 was 290hp and 410ft lbs. The marine vortec version simply had a different intake setup and rated at 310hp. The marine version of the 1995 and earlier peanut port had a different cam and a carb. Rated at 330hp.

The 8.1 was referred to as a "vortec" also. I don't even think a 8.1 head would bolt on a 454 block. I assume he has gen 6 vortec heads. They do NOT like a lot of timing. I'm also pretty sure if you bolt those heads on a older block you must use the right head gasket. If the wrong gasket was used, water flow would be all jacked up. Prob overheating the block/heads from a water flow issue. I'm not certain on what mods are required to make that work ? That might explain why after 7 minutes it all went to $hit.

What was the piston to wall clearance ? I think the reason it starts running worse after it runs for a while is because your vent tubes from the valve covers are putting oil in your carb. Also that is very low compression.

If for some reason the head gasket didnt block the front water hole in the block, the water will bypass right thru there, coming out the thermostat housing. The rest of the heads and block will not cool, and overheat, but the temp gauge sender will still see water flow, and think all is well since its located at the Tstat housing area.

newer rings these days are looking for a very specific cylinder wall finish, no longer can you just scuff and install most of the rings now, you have a issue(no ****) in the pistons/rings, could be the hone job, the wrong ring(size/type) were they file fit rings ? or just plan screwed up on the install...

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm thinking it's Definately a non - seated or completely bad ring issue. To answer the questions, the heads are 2005 Vortec 454 heads, and actually they came off of a natural gas engine used by Laclede to run their generators. So really they are from the industrial line bbc motors, as these heads have super hardened seats, no exhaust crossover, and came factory with inconnel exhaust valves. They are large oval port heads, and have 99cc heart shaped combustion chambers. After I had them surfaced, I did a substantial amount of work in the chamber to unshroud the valves (aftermarket SS large valves). After all the work was done, the heads cc'd right out to 99cc exactly, and with the standard 4.250 bore, flat top pistons with
3cc worth of valve reliefs in each one, and the measurement of the compressed gallery thickness and diameter, it came out to 9.01:1 compression, and it's never been even fitted with anything less then 93 octane. I've heard that they don't generally like a lot of timing, but every set up is different, and but the more timing I take away,
the worse it runs? Oh, and to run these heads you simply use the original mark IV head gaskets. I studied that intently, and all the cooling passages lined up really well. The puking oil into the carb may be a big contributor to it dying maybe? I really wanna just try adding a puke tank, putting a smaller carb on, move the coil away from the heat and see if that makes a substantial change. If that don't do it then I'll Definately be pulling the motor and doin the rings, check out the cylinder wall and go through the heads to figure out wtf....

With 70psi compression in the cylinders there is no point in even trying to get the timing optimized. The motor needs to come out and find out what went wrong as your next step.

Compression test and leak down test is the first thing. As with the above post. Then remove oil filter and cut the threaded end off and pull paper out for inspection. There should be less than a teaspoon of misc. debris in there. More than that you have issues that need to be addressed before running it anymore. Feel free to call me at 989-224-9803 Kyle. Good Luck in your project.

If the rings are ok then it must be a cylinder issue, out of round, taper or just excessive clearance or like someone mentioned above, you already burnt pistons due to setup and/or not enough ring gap. FWIW, I've built engines with good straight bores and only did the glaze breaker hone and had good ring sealing so I dont think its rings not sealing from bore finish.

I know this sounds dumb, but have to ask. Have seen other's do this.

Assume the block is factory standard but ends up .030" or more. 'Factory Replacement Standard Bore' pistons gets installed.

Chase tune forever. Bother me forever. I suggest compression test. That gets blown off because 'no way, I just built it" disease.

Tune, tune, tune, tune,,,,,motor still a slug and pushing oil.

I do compression test - can't deal with answering bad question after bad question.

Find out it's got compression near yours.

Tear it apart. Kick person in mouth after finding something like that.

Just my crazy experiences I can't seem to hide from.

LOL.

That motor must have piston slapped like a bastard.

Ran into this twice. Didn't hear either run, Thank god. I probably would have cried. LOL.

I have a customer that decided to do the brakes on his own on his Focus. He brought it in due to scraping noises. He had his pads so that the friction material faced away from the rotors.

After I cried/laughed/and puked I called him and he preceded to drill me with questions on why his other car's check engine light is on and it runs rough.

Told him not to touch it and pay me to properly fix it.

I have pics of it somwhere in my other computer.

Anyway, moral of story, is some should not touch things.

I can't believe we are trying to still diagnose this with those compression #'s. There is no tuning, timing setting or valve cover baffle that is going time fix this thing.

There is something wrong with the pistons/rings/bore. (I hope something inexpensive)

My 0.0002$
Carry on :)

70 psi is fiiiiine.. I~m sure its something simple, probably need to run some thinner oil or add some Slick 50 :lolhit:

At this point, I'm thinking Wet Roof Cement just might do the trick!