Excessive oil entering catch can

[larry_s]

I recently purchased an 84 and it has a fuel line connected from the back of the cam cover to a catch can. While driving the can fills up quite quickly and there is another line draining to the ground when the can fills. It is a 2.5L and appears the block was o-ringed. Not clear by the receipts the head was o-ringed but have not had the head off yet to see exactly what I have. Also not sure about head gasket used. Compression test was ok with all within 10%. The car runs quite strong making ~280 or so using the butt dyno. Tonight we did a leak down test and the numbers were from ~32% to 45%. Most of the air could be heard escaping the oil fill hole with some being heard leaving the dipstick tube and PVC line. But most was heard through the oil fill hole. The car does not smoke at startup as though the valve seals are bad. I saw a little oil wetting on the top of the intake valve of cylinder 1 when the intake manifold was removed with the other cylinders looking pretty dry. So to further investigate I removed the cam cover and performed the leakdown test again and with cylinder 1 pressurized the air could be heard exiting the larger hole on the drivers side of the block toward the front of the head. I am thinking this is an oil drain hole. Pressurizing cylinder 2 and the air could be heard exiting the second hole back from the front of the head on the drivers side. If it was rings would the air be entering the pan from cylinder 1 and then coming up all of the oil drainage holes in the head? Is it possibly an issue with the head gasket? Also the engine has a windage tray according to the receipts. Any help appreciated unless you tell me I need to have the engine rebuilt. No seriously at the moment I am not sure where to go from here.

[dsandine]

I am working on the car and wanted to provide my input as well as to possibly give more information so help can be given. When Larry says fuel lines is going from valve cover to catch can it is basically just about a 1/2" diameter clear plastic line that goes from rear of valve cover where oil separator piece would be (piece is not there) and goes to catch can and from outlet of catch can goes to atmosphere and spews oil, like almost a quart of oil in like 15 miles while spooling up the turbo to 15 psi a few times. When we performed leak down test each cylinder being test had piston at top dead center of compression stroke so both valves where closed. The number one cylinder had the worst percentage of leak down loss, and the others where good or very close to the good range, none really higher than 40%, most around 32-35%. Thing is, we know that some air is going to escape naturally. But when 15-20 psi is applied to combustion chamber under test a lot of air comes out of what appears to be oil drainage or supply holes on driver's side of cylinder head on all 4 cylinders being tested, there are four big holes, one for each cylinder. When I say it comes out of all 4 holes, I mean it only comes out of the hole the correlates to the cylinder under test. What confuses me is, if air in tested cylinder is getting past rings or head gasket is getting into crankcase causing air to come out of dipstick and oil hole on cylinder being tested, wouldn't it come out of all the holes since entire crankcase would be getting air in it? I am not very familiar with 2.3 bottom ends so I am unsure. Also car has a windage tray so not sure how that effects things. I suspect if it is just air getting past rings it is not a big deal because normally if too much air was getting past rings the crankcase would really pressurize and the dip stick sometimes lifts up and the oil separator underneath lower intake manifold and rubber lines and pcv system would be an oily mess, but the oil separator underneath intake was very clean, as well as pcv valve and all the rubber lines. The only place it is a real issue is the rear of the valve cover oil is coming out like crazy. I know it is not ideal for the setup the car came with to vent that to atmosphere, and I am going to route it back into intake circuit, I just want to wait to get oil situation worked out so tons of oil aren't going through compressor housing, intake, combustion chambers, ect. Could it just be a case of a bad valve seal on cylinder one (the one with the worst leak down loss) I had valve cover off and listened with a stethoscope, but it was pretty much impossible to tell if air was coming from valve seal as air coming out of oil hole was so loud with stethoscope you couldn't really here anything but that air by that valve. There was also a little air coming out of pcv system, but once again I suspect that normal as it isn't oil oily and has almost no oily residue on pcv system. So bad head gasket, bad valve seal, I have no idea. I greatly appreciate any help anyone can give.

thanks in advance,
Dave

[larry_s]

there is a baffle plate, it doesn't have that oil separator or breather that some of the 2.3's have, so we are going to try to through that on. The engine only has a couple hundred miles and appears to have chrome rings and I have been told it take take a long time for them to set in?

[dsandine]

could be mistaken, engine was built in 2001 with race walsh parts, best info I have is it says ring set 2.3 .030 total, I read somewhere on total seal website about a ring that racer walsh sold that was chrome, but I could have been mistaken have the sheet on the pistons, and know it has ranger crank to make it 2.5, bore size is 3.8100, suggested clearance of .0040, compression height 1.158, piston forging F6148X, wrist pin S489, pin diameter .912, pin length 2.500, Pin retainers CS24, retainer width, wire diameter .075, ring type 1/16x1/16x3/16
top ring land width .2900 groove width .0648 groove root diameter 3.398
second ring land width .1800 groove width .0648 groove root diameter 3.398
third ring land width .0900 groove width .2185 groove root diameter 3.395

And that is all I know for a fact so i guess the rings could be made out of anything really, just after searching total seals site I might have jumped to conclusion at chrome, just from I heard the rings taken a wile to set seemed to make since as this is a low mileage professionally built engine that does make good power

[larry_s]

Are you sure the top ring is chrome? Nobody uses chrome anymore - so be sure to check that. If so, then you need to take it apart. and replace those rings. It will never work right. Sorry.

Chrome-faced rings will not live in the required temperatures in turbocharged engines. The chrome flakes off above 800 F- that's bad.

Chrome rings also require a relatively rough bore finish that is way too rough for moly or ceramic faced rings.

The best ring for turbo'd engines is a moly-facing. With the proper bore & finish they will be sealed to 98+% within 30 minutes of operation.

I am going to call Racer Walsh on Monday and try to figure out what rings were installed. A few other bits of info. The compression had a mean of about 139 or so. The engine was not warmed up first. The high was like 144 and low around 134. The exhaust does not smoke out the tail pipe as though the oil is escaping the rings and the car does not have a catalytic converter to capture burning oil. Also I have no idea if the leakdown tester is at all accurate as it is the $40 harbor freight special. I am really hoping we do not need to rework the short block.

[larry_s]

Two different issues here:

Was the throttle blocked wide open for the comp test?

Yes it was. Not sure on the cam other than it is from Esslinger. I need to call them to try to help me identify it.

[dsandine]

Talked to Mr. Walsh, he said most likely moly wrings with a gapless second ring

[larry_s]

So what's the plan?

Paint the car bright red and hope for better luck. Just kidding. Looking for competent engine builder who has experience on 2.3s and looking at options as to what other if any upgrades I should consider while motor is out. Need to figure out if I have correct windage tray installed now and what oil pump to put in as long as I am having new rings installed. There is a local guy that has experience with circle track 2.3s and recommended if he do the job that for an additional ~$400 he would put on engine dyno to put engine under load to seat new rings. That sounds reasonable to me and more controlled than engine braking and whatnot to seat rings. Just no matter what I need to make sure it is done correctly this time so I really want to try to find a well experienced engine builder in the midwest. Does Huber have a shop or just build his own stuff for a hobby?

[deathbypsi]

This is a basic question but what PCV valve does it have? If it is ANYTHING other than a Motorcraft 127e it most likely will not seal air tight under boost and will let the turbo pressurize the crankcase bad. Been there,done that. Pull the PCV out and blow through it backwards to see if it seals tight. Most cheap parts store metal PCV valves will not seal tight.

I also made my own crankcase breather setup on my motor to get rid of the PCV.I also use a breather tank/catch can but I have a fitting with a hose on the bottom of my tank that is plumbed to a fitting in the fuel pump block off plate. This lets all oil that makes it to my tank drain back into the motor.

[dsandine]

This is a basic question but what PCV valve does it have? If it is ANYTHING other than a Motorcraft 127e it most likely will not seal air tight under boost and will let the turbo pressurize the crankcase bad. Been there,done that. Pull the PCV out and blow through it backwards to see if it seals tight. Most cheap parts store metal PCV valves will not seal tight.

I also made my own crankcase breather setup on my motor to get rid of the PCV.I also use a breather tank/catch can but I have a fitting with a hose on the bottom of my tank that is plumbed to a fitting in the fuel pump block off plate. This lets all oil that makes it to my tank drain back into the motor.

Have tried a couple different motorcraft pcv valves, (same part number, just some we had laying around and a known good one) seems like problem is not from the crankcase blowing oil out of pvc circuit as the pvc valve, oil separator and lines there pretty much oil free, its just oil flying out the breather on back of cam cover.

[larry_s]

That's a good plan!! I like!

I was thinking you might appreciate that.

[larry_s]

The harbor freight leak down tester netted the following:
1 35%
2 30-35%
3 30-35%
4 40-43%

According to wikipedia: Leakage is given in wholly arbitrary percentages but these “percentages” do not relate to any actual quantity or real dimension. The meaning of the readings is only relative to other tests done with the same design of tester. Leak-down readings of up to 20% are usually acceptable while greater than that requires a repair. Racing engines would be in the 1-10% range for top performance.

So does this mean my engine leakdown readings are actually ~10-13% given the Delta between the results from the test and not 43% ?

[svopony]

Paint the car bright red and hope for better luck.

Larry, don't succumb to the dark side............

[larry_s]

Larry, don't succumb to the dark side............

Yea your right Barry. It's silver and that's a good color don't you think.

[svopony]

dass the best