00ITR #543

May be having some trouble with my rebuild. I did a compression test and it comes out 210, 213,205,202 accross the board. The #'s look good, but when my engine is idling and when you look at my valve cover breather at a certain angle in the light you can see a steady flow of faint white smoke. The smoke is very light and is not all that noticeable but it is more noticeable than when my engine was stock... Any ideas of what that could be?
The car runs good without any noticeable problems aside from it being untuned. No overheating, burning oil or leaks whatsoever.
When I did the compression test I noticed very little on coming out on #s 1 and 2 cylinders but when I did it on #s 3 and 4 I noticed it more and it was definetly noticeable on #4. It is not bad like oil is spewing out or anything but I am wondering what it is, if my compression is pretty good accross the board. Could possibly be that my oil rings have not seated fully on #s 3 and 4. or it may be my valves. I only have about 1800 miles on the rebuilt engine. Any ideas what this could be? Already did the rislone for 500 miles and when I had that stuff in there I had a little oil seeping out of the breather but not much (stuff seems to thin the oil)... No oil coming out of breather since I changed the oil.

The vapor does not smell ike gas or oil either. It is very faint and not super noticeable...

engine is:
GEM sleeved 20 over
JE pistons and rings
eagle rods
stock itr head..



[Modified by 00ITR #543, 9:48 AM 6/21/2002]

shamoo

From my experience, JE's are more of a "race" piston and have smaller tolerances. That's why sometimes you get piston slap until it's kinda hot. With JE's you almost HAVE to drive like an *** to not burn/use oil. That's the difference with SRP and JE's even though they're the same company.

Keep an eye on your coolant and oil, and I say keep driving it normally until about 2500 miles and then see what's up.

earl

When you rebuilt it, did you actually bore or hone the cylinders? If not, you might be experiencing out of round cylinders. You can still have good compression but the new oil rings are not able to do their job.
If you did bore, maybe you have a low tension oil ring that is not working properly. Rings s/b seated by now. Hope you changed the oil after the Rislone.

00ITR #543

Oil has been changed after the rislone. Cylinders were bored and honed to spec of the JE pistons, rings were installed properly....

00ITR #543

Coolant and oil hold steady. No burning oil and oil looks clean...

X2BOARD

What type of crankcase ventalation do you have in place ?
The small portion of vapor escaping thru the breather filter could be blowby due to poor crankcase ventilation. The breather should taking in air, not letting gas escape.
Is the vapor escaping go away sometimes ? When does it occur ? (before or after boosting ?)

I have JE's as well, stock bore. I experience a good bit of piston slap until fully warmed up... even then, the 'show' sounds like a deisel truck I drove her one time without warming her up at all and oh boy did she smoke ! Smoke was bellowing out for about 7 or 10 minutes... scared the NOS outta me...lol... But NOW I always warm her up before I drive, but once warm.... she gets a whuppin' !

X2

00ITR #543

When the car is warming up and idling. It doesn't all the way go away after it is warmed up. Like I said it is fairly faint and you have to look at it at an angle it the light to see it. It is more noticeable when you shine a light to it. Not too sure if something is wrong. I haven't really hammered the car (only 1800 miles on the bottom end). Only once and after that it wasn't puffing smoke either.

Maybe I'm being paranoid.. Just wanna know what could be some of the causes of this..

00ITR #543

"What type of crankcase ventalation do you have in place ?"

I have the crank vent going to a unbaffled catchcan with a breather on in it (JAZ). Stock PCV is still being used. Just being routed to the catch can as opposed to the intake mani. I am using the vacuum port on the intake mani going to my bov...

X2BOARD

I don't have sigs on my IE, so I am assuming you are turbo by default...

so per my previous post... what type of crankcase ventilation do you have ? Stock PCV with the breather or a catch can ?

00ITR #543

Turbo.. replied above to your crank vent question...

dustin

So wait, does the crank case have intake manifold vacuum via the pcv or no? Since the catchcan has a breather on it......

00ITR #543

Crankcase does not have intake manifold vacuum via the pcv. I took the vacuum port on the intake mani and used it for my bov. I always thought that the crankcase vented it's vapor into the intake manifold in idle so it can burn off the oil and vapors and the pcv valve is what closed it off while under load.


[Modified by 00ITR #543, 3:35 PM 6/21/2002]

dustin

You need vacuum on the crankcase to evacuate vapor, else it will leave via the valve cover breather.

The valve cover breather is supposed to be the "intake" for the PCV system.

The idea is to hook the catchcan up to the intake manifold, so that all of the nasty stuff gets caught in the catch can, but the crankcase still has vacuum... You might need a baffled catch can.

Dustin

00ITR #543

Got it and that is probably why I am getting the vapor. I'll give that a try tonight. It seemed funny that my catch can had no vapor coming out of it and my valve cover did....

I have been running like this for about 700 miles, haven't really boosted. Will there be an ill effects on my engine because of this??

dustin

Other than a little dirtier oil? not really

00ITR #543

Thanks Dustin and X2BOARD!!! I will put it back to stock til I get a baffled catch can..