Hello-

Recently I noticed a small oil leak on my block. I have an 81.5mm CP + eagle mild build, OEM head gasket and the older style ARP studs (without the allen key at the top). I hand tightened the studs and then torqued in three stages (forgot the final number, Earl gave it to me) but it was ~78lb-ft

Anyways, the cars boost max's out at 17psi in 4th gear, and I am rarely that high. The pictures below are after cleaning the block beforehand, driving for ~20 mins, and sitting for ~3 hours.

Any ideas? At first I thought it may have been a loose fitting oil return fitting (see the blue tape peeking from underneath when the fittings were assembled) but more recently I am leaning towards the HG. Note - SOME of the oil pan hardware worked their way loose (on the driver side) and I re-tightened them before these pictures.





Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

Seb

 

I had a similar oil leak and thought it was the headgasket too...but mine turned out to be one of the cam gear seals had went out and it was leaking down the front and exhaust side of the block. you might want to check yours out. Pull off the plastic cover over the cam gears and see if it's wet under the gears. Good luck finding the leak.

 

also check the valve cover gasket

 

check your cam seals.
but thats a baby *** leak i wouldnt even noticed haha

 

I would guess cam seal leak also. It happened with mine too. GL.

 

Interesting, thanks for the replies! I'll check the cam seals, the VC gasket, and poke around some more soon. I will do a leakdown test too

thanks!

Seb

 

FYI:

I had a problem with block pressurizing and the oil came out of the crank seal behind the pulley.

Another note: you will be suprised how far the oil will get from the leaking point...

Any chance it could be your cam seal?? it is an easy fix too.

anytime I see a leak on that side of the car I take the covers off, clean everything completely (after removing harmonic balancer, pulleys, tensioner, etc), then put the cam gear, crank pulley, and timing belt equipment on... no plastics though... start, possibly rev a few times, and look for the fresh oil leak

 

I had the same problem on my LS, ended up being the cam seal. Are you running a catch can? If not get one hooked up. GL

 

how much hp are you running?? make sure your heat studs are not coming lose!!!

 

mine is leaking there too. i thought it was a head gasket and replaced, now i know what it was

 

Cam seal most likely as stated earlier. Check that out fix it then check back

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B R Fittings &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I had the same problem on my LS, ended up being the cam seal. Are you running a catch can? If not get one hooked up. GL</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks for the reply - I have two -12AN coming off of the VC, and two more -12AN from the back of the block. They lead to a very large catch can where the OEM battery was



<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by allhonda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how much hp are you running?? make sure your heat studs are not coming lose!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Car made 400HP at 17psi How do I go about making sure the studs aren't loose without taking off the timing belt? timing belts and I really dont get along too well

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by raiden571 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">mine is leaking there too. i thought it was a head gasket and replaced, now i know what it was</TD></TR></TABLE>

So, was it the head gasket?

I checked the cam seals and VC seal tonight... the upper black plastic covering the timing belt had no oil on it, and the seals look like they are okay. They are a little oily but certainly not as much as the block.

The VC gasket is brand new, but I pulled off the VC and inspected it... seems fine to me? There is no oil near the PS mount at the top of the head.

I cleaned everything off and took her for a quick spin, boosted three times or so around 14psi. I returned and the block was wet right beneath the head. For this test I also slid my firesleeve (on the return) over the fitting on the pan, so that rules out a leaky fitting.

 

Hey-

I did a test tonight. I used a metal bracket to hold a thick paper towel to where the head meets the block. Drove around for 20 mins, boosted a few times... its definitely coming from the headgasket area... no doubt about it. Certainly not a lot though, maybe a teaspoon?

What do you think the proper course of action is?

 

I had a similar problem a while back, I just kind of left it as is. Did you retorque your headstuds after the first few heatcycles?

BTW Seb, the car looks great

 

yeh the leak is so small, I just don't want it manifesting into something larger.

No, I didn't re-torque this is going to sound lame but I have had some bad experiences with timing belts so I tend to avoid them at all costs.

Thanks for the compliment Joel!! Its super fun to drive, I am getting used to it daily.. I want to get more into the tuning/interpretation of a tune aspect of it though