hey guys,I installed a 350 chevy in my 54 belair,it runs good with ALOT of power,im pushing around 400 horse.The motor sat for a few years while trying to find a cheap car to put it in.I have tall valve covers to clear the stud girdles and one im running a pcv valve and the other a pop in breather.With the breather out there is smoke coming out of the hole(not a whole lot but noticable)and there is pressure building inside the cover,when I put my hand over the hole and release there is a surge of air pressure coming out,same on other side when pcv is diconnected.I changed out the stem seals as well as all the gaskets to freshun up the engine before i put it in.The car doesnt skip at all and will smoke the tires with ease,its also positve traction.Right now im only driving the car around the parking lot of the shop I work at(just got it running) so theres not much I can say about how it runs down the highway or through town.I did notice it ran a little hot today while i was out playing with it,but im also running the oe radiator ,need to upgrade that before hitting highway,thanks,Howell. p.s -The car doesnt smoke out of exhaust???????????????
what type of rings are you running? how many miles are on it? maybe the rings have not seated yet......if you pull the breather out of the valve cover and watch the smoke coming out, then pull out the pcv valve but cover the hole where the pcv valve goes, does the amount of smoke out of the breather side hole change at all? if not, your pcv valve isn't working correctly or enough to offset the amount of crankcase pressure made while your engine is running. Double check that the valve is not hitting or sitting too close to the stud girdle. Just curious, but why are you running stud girdles?
First of all, the rings may have gotten lazy or lost their memory from sitting, and should recover with some usage. Also, is there even vacuum at the end of the PCV that goes into the valve cover, or is your vacuum source plugged/incorrect? Is your PCV backwards? They have a one-way valve in them
We put the stud girdles on to lock the retaining locks for the roller rockers,the pcv has alot of vaccum,its pluged up at the bottom of the back of carb,the engine sat covered up in a shop for a couple of years,I changed the oil and filled the filter and put in a new oil pump and primed it also before cranking.could it possibly be that the valves arent seating and letting compression into the valve covers,ran it today and i would say while covering the hole for about 20 seconds it built 10 to 20 psi,there was a noticable surge of air pressure coming out.if it is the valve seats do they tend to seat more after running it a while.
OK - valve letting compression leak into the valvecover... that's really unlikely - the high combustion pressures are held in the cylinders by closed valves, and the piston/ring package (and of course the solid block/head/headgasket parts) and once the valve opens the pressure is bled off to the exhaust quickly and there isn't a huge pressure at seen at the guide- the intake tract should be under vacuum so that's going to 'suck' in from the valve guide - that said - if compression leaks past the valves - it either goes up the intake or out the exhaust - not much air (combustion) pressure on the valve guides - plus if the guides are that shot they're usually leaking both ways - sucking lots of oil into the intake or exhaust and causing smoking when running. That said - your combustion pressure is leaking past the rings causing the crankcase pressure buildup - so ring seal is suspect at this point - personally - get the car finished and change oil if you haven't done so yet, then take it for a nice long cruise, change oil in a few hundred more miles and see where you're at with smoking and oil consumption - that'll tell you what you're dealing with.
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