Decking questions for Pat

Rodeck 350+ block decked .032, brodex track 1 heads, heads are new but surfaced. B&m powercharger 250 blower. Crane blower cam with JE pistons and plasma moly rings, copper head gaskets with aeroquip O rings, the block also has been 'O" Ringed around the cylinder bores. Felpro intake gaskets. Now the problem, engine smokes slightly at idle and more on decelleration. Removed PCV Valve to assure blower not sucking oil through it. Where is this oil coming from? Is it possible, from mismatch of the heads to intake from the block being decked .032? When do you start machining the intake? I'm at my wits end with this motor. Also I've heard the plasma moly rings never really seal as they are racing equipment. But, that is what Rodeck recommended. I haven't retorqued the heads as if yet. Just fired it today, but had this same problem before I tore it apart to address this very issue. Also, have some oil leaking out between head gaskets, ??? Guess I didn't get it.

Keith

i have to think some about this but if you .032 off the deck the intake could be sucking or any rocker mounting points not sealed going in to the intake port. as for the rings i have used many plasma molly rings they seal up .what do you have for valve seals . sure the rings are facing the right way was the block honed with deck plates ? were do you have the pcv valve hook in to ? what are you using for breathers ? i would never use a PVC on a blower engine or any thing much over mild build

Valve seals are viton and brand new set up buy engine shop. Rings are installed correctly as I read the directions 100 times over. The block was honed with deck plates and squared to crank CL. I am going to omit the PCV valve altogether. Before I tore it down it was going through oil like mad. Thought we fixed that prob. The blower was completely soaked and had standing oil in the intake runners. As block came out of a sprint car one of the screens was plugged with epoxy not letting the one bank drain back. Thought it was allowing the PCV to suck the oil out.

Rocker stud bores do not go all the way through into the intakes if I remember right.

Keith

PVC could suck oil and put in threw the blower and burn all the junk you do not want that better to blow it out then re burn that junk . sounds like your breather setup needs to be better

alot of the alum blocks do not have good drain back as they are mostly dry sump set ups . if you have screens and vent tubes it may need more drain back but still would get out of the heads it would lay in the valley but it need s to vent so added oil = bad deal with blower engine you just can not over vent them i use two breather per cover dry as a bone and work fine

I removed all the screens and had the valley drilled the way most SBC are set up. I guess I will have to invest in more breathers. What is your suggestion for cleaning the oil out? Can't think of any way short of tearing it apart. Just see if it will clear up by itself? I am going to delete the PCV!

Keith

pull the blower off wash out intake with rags and some mineral spirits let dry out abit. take spark plugs out crank it get the stuff out un arm the coil first. on bbc i like the moon breather one of the bigger ones they sell one per side should do the job were a smaller push in may not

Well, pulled the blower and sure enough, soaked. cleaned everything up and deleted the PCV. Will pick up another breather at the Hot Rod show this next weekend. I am going to try 2 push in Billet Specialties ones since I already have one. If it is not enough I will step up to some different valve covers and breathers. I would thing the push in ones should be able to flow enough. What are your thoughts on the breathers?

Keith

i think them breather have small cell foam in them not very good if so they get loaded with oil then they are done for .may need a baffle under them try it with just one on each cover and see what happens or the big K&N s i am abit over kill on breathers

I gotcha. Do you vent your breathers into the exhaust or just the air on a street motor?

Keith

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blwn31

I gotcha. Do you vent your breathers into the exhaust or just the air on a street motor?

Keith

---

no that set up only works good with out exhaust back pressure keeps it from working right . better to just use open breathers or you will end up back were you were with the oil deal

Alright Pat, thanks. Gonna fire it again today and hopefully no smoke.

Keith

Well, I'm about ready to throw this GeeWhiz motor over a cliff. I fixed the drain back issue on the first rebuild at 500 miles. Haven't even driven it yet and already had blower off and cleaned out a bunch of oil. Deleted the PCV. Refired this morning, motor ran about 15 minutes and I'm starting to see the blue haze. I rap on it and I'm killing all the Mosquitos in Placerville. If you've had this problem where did you look? Must be coming from intake mating surface gaskets. They looked good the last time I tore it down. I didnt see any evidence of oil leakage/travel path. Something to mull over, I smoothed (only smoothed) intake and exhaust runners. I had one head standing upright in the garage and I noticed a bright spot in the runner. Sure enough a pin hole from one of the bolt holes to the runner. I contacted Brodix, they had me ship them back to them and they sleeved 2 bolt holes through the runner. One in each head. I wonder if this could be a leak point?

Keith

intake runner in head still may have a weak spot .i line head bolt holes all the time they may have miss one but hard to get oil in that way have to come down from head bolt . push rod holes in the head s are weak they will suck oil. if intake is sealed down it can be rings or heads less your intake has a hole in it .that intake has the bolt holes for middel bolts and center bolts in the intake is that open to plenum? you have them bolts in the intake other then cutting threw the heads if big valve springs were put in that will make it smoke. oil ring spacers rails ? was the piston pins in the oil ring land if so did you put oil rail spacers in if so did you put them in right

I'll take a look at the rocker studs. I thought I installed them with ARP liquid Teflon. Will pull some out and take a look see. Gotta retorque the heads anyway. Is it common for copper head gaskets to leak coolant out around the lower head bolt mating area prior to being retorqued?

Keith

ARP SEALER IS juNK ANY THING But THAT STUFF oil base and will wash off bolts/studs.the only heads studs i had leak was ones i used that crap. love there fasteners hate there sealer.when you cut the 030 off you must of recut the O rings if not that is one thing that going never be right . one thing to look at are the block front and back wall s that close in the lifter valley we call them china walls came from...the great wall of china.. if the intake hit on bottom of the block it will look like the gasket are sealing but stopping the intake sealing on the heads

Here I thought ARP sealer was good stuff. Damn! I only had the decks touched to clean them up, as I'm sure it had the majority of the decking being done in it's racing rebuild days. The engine shop, to the best of my knowledge cut the "O" rings after I had them clean up the decks. If my memory serves me right, I used black silicone to seal the china walls. When I took it apart many yrs. ago I think the silicone was about .040 thick. But, I will check all this stuff when I pull the top end off for inspection. Can I use the Cometic MLS head gaskets with a block that has been ringed. If so, do they make an .062 crushed height gasket? Since block has been decked so much, pistons stick out .020. Need .062 for a .042 quench. I'll also check the pushrod slots.
This motor runs good and has great throttle response. The boost referencing and rebase lining the carbs woke it up.

Keith

you would do is to drive copper wire in were the s steel wire is now and use any head gasket you want

I think we solved the major oil consumption problem. It was the intake rocker studs. They do protrude into the runner, and the threads were soaked with oil. We cleaned everything and used Form-A-Gasket. I will use Silicone when I rebuild it. Them damn copper head gaskets are leaking oil and coolant all over the place. I'm gonna retorque the heads, but I don't think it's gonna help. I also installed a second breather, she's got a little to much blow-by. Since I most likely will be pulling it down this winter, I'm gonna rering it too.

Keith

did you coat the hell out of the head gaskets with hylomar? take the head gasket heat them up till they turn color drop them in water that should make them dead soft or use copper wire in the Orings and use a MSL or felpro race head gasket

We didn't pull the whole motor down, just took the blower off and the valve train components. No, i didn't coat the head gaskets with Hylomar. I didn't think i needed it with the embossed SCE Titan gaskets I used. If I take the stainless wire out and put copper in, the block will need to be redecked?

Keith

never used the SCR titan gasket they look good on paper .here may be one of your problems that head gasket has a fire ring in it now and you have a O ring on the deck if this is the case the gasket can not over come both and you will be not sitting down flat as you need to be on the deck of the block and will leak....use copper in deck O rings use them gasket or keep the block O rings with S steel and go with plane copper head gasket .i would use Caution in thinking that cranking up head bolts will fix this

The SCE Titan gaskets I used didn't have the fire ring in them, that style is the newest line of copper head gaskets they offer. If I install copper wire in the groove, do I have to redeck the block?

Keith

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blwn31

The SCE Titan gaskets I used didn't have the fire ring in them, that style is the newest line of copper head gaskets they offer. If I install copper wire in the groove, do I have to redeck the block?

Keith

---

no the copper will give more were the s steel will not it the only thing you can do with the block .do you know how Hi the wire side out of the deck

I don't know the height of the stainless wire protruding out of the deck. That was the machine shops job. I know check everything, learning that lesson the hard way. That was probably the only thing I didn't check. I talked to the owner of a shop that I feel very comfortable with in the Bay Area and been in business for 54 yrs., recommends pounding copper wire into the o ring groove and resurfacing the decks and the heads to the correct finish for the Cometic MLS gaskets. He was also saying for me to spread the layers of the gasket edges, spray Hylomar around the edges to reduce the likeyhood of oil seepage. He also says they use a 2 step process on a CNC, for the block decks due to the different materials in order to achieve flatness across the entire deck and sleeves.

Keith

head gasket fire ring sits on the sleeves rest of the deck is there for the ride .i would just use copper and try a felpro race gasket the finsh on mls is smooth but i run my mill at a low feed rate and take more then two cuts.i have not lost a mls gasket as for a two step cut hard to say any time you cut hard steel the chips will get drag threw the alum deck . hard to say what machine he has i only know how i do it and what works for me .i would use copper not mill it.if you mill copper it very well hook up when milling it then you will have a $u#ken mess a flat file would be much better. if that will not work them mill the Orings off the deck .but you have a guy you trust then listen to him if he going to do the work . i posted how i would do the job right now with out seeing it .i think you can not afford to cut any more off the deck . your just helping him pay for is mill as this is all alum engine stuff wants to move but not as much as a iron block with alum heads

So you recommend just installing copper wire and flat filing. I would rather do that as long as it works. If I go to the machine shop, gonna cost me a good wad of cash to get it back.

Keith

not very long ago one of my customer ran in to much of the same deal he did not want the Orings and we just could not cut the deck with out getting in to alot of $$$ i told him the same thing use the copper or file the S steel still in the block file flat . if i would file the copper ? it would have to do with three things how hi it is sitting .were it is on the deck and were the fire ring is on the new head gasket.the make up of the gasket .

Boy you got me thinking! My head hurts...
I can't get my head around why you would remove the stainless ring and install copper? Easier to machine/deal with?

Keith

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blwn31

Boy you got me thinking! My head hurts...
I can't get my head around why you would remove the stainless ring and install copper? Easier to machine/deal with?

Keith

---

copper will give and flatten out some. not try to cut threw head gasket like S steel if to hi it will dead head on the gasket head will leak . the copper is more of a helper for a head gasket with a fire ring were S steel is used as the fire ring with soft copper gasket hard wire .hard gasket soft wire copper.this is the way i see it :)

I understand, thanks.
I am gonna try to remove, clean and seal all the head bolts with RTV then retorque one at a time. The head studs washers and nuts are from Brodix and very spendy. I am torquing to 55lbft with ARP lube. I looked on ARP's website and they listed 50 and 55lbft. I realize that is for ARP fasteners. The latter will yield a preload of 10000 lbs. If it still leaks, I will tear it down and blow a bunch of money on machining and gaskets. My guess is, the two head studs in the valve cover outboard fwd and aft (below the oil drainback holes) that carry a lot of oil all the time are the oil leak culprits. At least I'm hoping they are. As far as coolant leak on the left bank, hopefully the retorque will solve that, but I'm not putting money on it.

I gotta tell ya, when I first put this car together many yrs. ago, my buddy and I slammed a POS all cast iron SBC together. Just de-glazed the cylinders with a Snap-On hone and got a valve job done and slapped the blower on it and, off we went. No geewizz parts, just stock SBC form around '80 or so. Used regular FelPro head gaskets! Never had a single problem with that engine. It was a loaner that a friend had. We split the cost, and I got to run it for a couple of years until I got enough money to buy all the parts for the leaking GEEWIZZ POS! Very frustrating! I will get it eventually. Just time and money.

Keith

no you do not TQ one bolt at a time you TQ them in steps just like any heads work from center out . i would not use RTV on head bolts . non drying sealer.. oil is not coming from end head bolts if any head bolts are leaking if going to be water

I realize that you don't torque one at time. I'm not taking the head off, just removing one at time and reinstalling it to the recommended torque value.

Keith

less your leaking water i do not think your going to get much value in this .you did say you were burning oil ?or had oil in the intake

We fixed the burning oil problem by sealing the intake rocker studs. Seems the oil was leaching through the stud threads into the intake. Now the engine is leaking oil between the head, gasket, deck surface. I also have a little coolant coming out in the same area. The #7 cylinder has a little water in it at cold start up then goes away. I see no noticeable loss of coolant. So I don't think it's burning anymore coolant than at start up.
I just hate to tear the engine apart as I just got the car together last week and only have 300 miles on it. But, I may have to.

Keith

Keith my heart goes out to you with all the issues your have been having.I am not a blower guy like Pat is,but from me following along with this thread deductive logic I do think calls out for a do over tear down.

1gary, I'm with ya there. A little history. I put this engine together the first time and put 500 miles on it. Tore it down for some of the same issues I'm having now. Solved the drainback problem by drilling the valley like a normal SBC is, and removing all the screens. This was a race motor in a sprint car. Anyway, seven (7) yrs later I get it back together. I took the car to a the GG West Coast Nationals, a total round trip of 300 miles. Can't get myself to yank the car apart so soon. Besides the wife will hang my a$$. Already complaining about being in the shop! I can't even believe my luck on this one. I'm more or less getting all the possibilities out of the way now. The hot rod season will be over in a couple months, then I will pull it down again. It's funny, the more people I chat with the more educated I become on this engine. I wish the original machine shop (engine shop) could of given me better advice. But, not his fault. I built it.

The one lesson I have learned over and over is, I will get it right, it's just gonna take me two or three tries. LOL!

Keith

The killer would be and ticking off the wife even more to lose it all because of these issues.