Oil in exhaust port, white smoke

[ktmrider]

History, car was bought on eBay for $1000. Rebuilt 6 bolt with 2g pistons. Car smoked like crazy at startup, never stopped. My buddy bought the car, saw bubbles in the coolant, and replaced the head with a built 1g ( yes, another unknown! ). He then found a 91 Laser, bone stock, for $1500 and I decided to pick up the Talon as a toy.
Starts the car up, still smoking ( white ) but no bubbles in the coolant nor overheating. Lots of external oil leaks so hard to determine how much is burning. Compression check is good, all between 150-165psi.
Suspect high oil pressure and bad turbo seals. Move the turbo off the manifold and find unburned oil slinging around the manifold. Ported the pressure relief valve and bypassed the oil cooler, smoke is much reduced but still smoking. Some at idle now, worse when accelerating.
Pulled the turbo today, found a TON of unburned oil in the #3 exhaust port ( both valves ). Appears to be coming down the valve stems and directly into the cylinder when open. Took the valve cover off, the seals appear to be intact.
Now, can a stem seal pour that much oil down the shaft? Again the head was listed as fully built with 1mm oversize valves and Ti springs and retainers ( they are Crower products as per the stamp ). I am tempted to try the head-on-the-block change but now wonder if the valve stems themselves are different and require aftermarket seals?!?
Thanks again for any help or suggestions!

 

[ktmrider]

Anyone? I can't post in the mainstream threads yet, I'm also thinking if I have a problem on the exhaust side there are probably issues on the intake side too.
I may end up pulling the head and checking all.

 

[meliketoball]

Lucas Oil Stabilizer; slows down oil leaks, stops smoking and increases compression.

 

[vernvision]

I had the same problem with one of the many motors I have gone through. I would start looking at pulling your head. You probablly have burnt valve guides. These willl dump lots of oil into the exhaust port. Make sure that you have the head done by a competent machine shop and be sure that they replace all of them or you will be doing this process again. There is no fix for this and if your engine is lean then you run the risk of having a fire. It will plug your cat up if you still have one on and then you will need to fix that too. Oh 1 more thing if you end up pulling your head check to make sure that pistons are not loose. There are alot of people rebuilding these and upgrading the pistons and are not prepping the block properly and it will lead to them slapping the cyl wall which will score that prized 6 bolt block you have so you might have to prepare yourself for a more than you expected. I would be carefull when dealing with anyone online and would try and find a reputable local machine shop to do your work so you can inspect it as the work is being done. These cars require a huge amount of TLC or you will pay big for it later. If you are not in it to deep $1000 is not bad to get out of.

 

[ktmrider]

Thx folks, I tried to use a cheapo spring compressor but the cam boss clearance is too small.
Probably a good thing, like stated no sense in cutting corners at this point. Gonna yank the head later this week, will post up results after.

 

[vernvision]

Good luck and when you bolt the head back on use ARP head bolts they a worth every penny. If you need to know about head gaskets I would not reccommend a stainless one as I have nothing but problems with the oil passages leaking out the side and they can change the tolerance between the head and block. just an FYI for you. I was wondering where this work was done. I had the same type of work done at one time by this guy in Tulsa, OK. Well lets just say I learned a $5000+ lesson about trusting certain people and the crap that they build. I had the same type of work done 1mm oversized valvels full 4 stage head ported. Well It wasn't until I pulled the head beacause the oil ports were leaking that I discovered the exhaust ports were flooded with oil. I took it to the best machine shop I could find in my area. When they pulled the valve guides out they were miss matched and appeared to have 100K miles on them. These were supposed to have been replaced since the work to the head at the time cost like $1500. The porting was not done right and it ended up costing me another $500 to fix all the things that were done wrong. That shop would have done all the work for less than $800 and would have had it done in less than 3 weeks. The guy in Tulsa had my motor for a total of 9 months and it ran for about 4500 miles before it was pulled a part and rebuilt again. I just wanted you to make sure you watch out for so called experts or shady shops. The only really straight up online place where you can buy a head done up right that I know of is BUSHUR Racing because of personal experience but you will spend a few more dollars and might have a bit of down time.

Keep us posted would like to know how it works out for you.

 

[ktmrider]

Yup, the previous owner installed ARP head studs but I'm not sure if he used a MLS gasket or not.
Definitely mixed reviews on the metal gaskets, I'll think about the power goals and go from there.

 

[ktmrider]

Ok, got the head off today, see the attached pics.
Due to the lack of oil deposits in the cylinder head ( all cylinders had a coating of unburned oil on the crowns ), no visible scratches on any of the bores, clean/unburned oil on some of the intake valves, and massive deposits on the back of the exhaust valves in the #3 port I am thinking valve guides and seals.
We removed the valves from the #3 cylinder ( dark and out of focus sorry ) and the seals appeared to be intact. There was noticable slop in the stem to guide on all. We pulled 3 intake valves and found one bent ( also correlated to the lowest compression reading, 140psi vs 160 for the other cylinders ).
Reminder this head was an unknown, it was purchased from this site and supposedly had a few hundred miles on it. Hard to imagine how one of the two valves in #1 could be bent, I think the seller did not disclose all the facts about condition and rebuild.
Next step seems to be a replacement head or rebuild of the current one. The current has oversized intake valves and Ti retainers and springs. I'm gonna get some estimates for new guides local and hit the classified for a complete stocker as another option.
Thanks for any input folks!

 

[vernvision]

Yes, head ports by your pic is what mine looked like exactly.

On the bent valve I bet that they either didn't get the belt on right or something cut it and it skipped a few teeth. I had an idiot mechanic not use lock tight on the inside deflecter for the cover to bolt onto and the bolt came back out and cut my belt to ribbons. I got lucky because I was using a composit head gasket which gave a little over a .001" more than the stock or stainless gaskets so I didn't loose the valves. Man that sucks royal. I know how you feel getting scewed like that but at least it appeasr salvagable. It is just time consuming and having to deal with the whole thing but its good education. I do all my own work now regardless of my time. I can't trust anyone to do anything right around here where I live. I can't stress enough to make sure you take it somewhere that you know that they do good work. Now is the time to put 2mm valves in there!

 

[ktmrider]

Thx vern, appreciate the time and input.
I'm gonna make some calls this week to a local shop that I've have great luck with in the past. Once I run the prices past the home boss I'll decide the next step.
My power goals are mixed, most likely I will use it for auto-x and limited track/time attack but never rule out the drags. 300-350whp and quick spool are my main targets for now, not sure if dumping another $500-800 into the head alone would be worth it?!? The Evo3 setup ( mani, turbo, and O2 ) and some tuning would probably be more than enough altho "enough" is relative and short lived from past experience...

 

[vernvision]

No thanks is necessary, what comes around goes around here.I have learned and been helped out a great deal because of this site. I am glad I could help you out. Good luck with getting your engine back together and achieving your power goals.

 

[ktmrider]

Update, I found a recently refreshed 1g head on the GVR4 site for $175 shipped. I am on business travel thru 1/19 and it should be in my hands by then.
After reading thru a bunch of posts regarding head upgrades and performance I decided to go the stock 1g route and swap over the Ti springs and retainers. Lots of folks are getting 400+ whp on warmed over heads, more than enough for my power goals and usage.
I should have the head installed by 1/20 and will post the results!