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So I have an '04 GPW that I had the boys at InlinePro build the engine for after I got back from Afghanistan. Decided to do it all in one shot rather than a little at a time, my mistake. F24 bottom end mated to a cylinder head prepped with SuperTech valvetrain from Laskey Racing and Skunk2 stage 2 cams. Plus a bunch of other bolt-ons.
Got it put together and tuned. Ran fine, aside from a couple gremlins, which got worked out. But John at Inline mentioned some concerns over the Skunk2 cams and that stock cams show better torque than what I was getting. So I decided to swap them. Once I did, smoke central. I'm talking almost a quart of oil a day, depending on how much I have to drive, is being burned!!! Literally all I did was swap cams. I forgot to readjust the valve lash when I did, so it didn't start right away. Once that was pointed out, it cranked and ran fine. Except for the chimney that replaced my exhaust!
So after a lot of calls and advice from John (super patient and works hard to keep the customer happy) I decided to have my stock cylinder head (which I still had but needed a little repair work) cleaned up so I could replace the built head that was on the engine. Our thinking was that somehow during the cam swap a valve or guide or something was damaged that was letting oil seep into the combustion chamber hence the burning oil. This was a guess because compression and leak down tests showed very strong numbers, which should mean no bent valve. Plus the guys at InlinePro and Laskey both said the cam swap process, including the part where I cranked the engine over and over w/o adjusting the valve lash again, shouldn't have done any damage to the valvetrain.
But I just finished with the head swap. Still smoke! The piston crowns, while a bit dirty, had no marks where there was valve contact. I saw no signs of damage. The valve faces were all dirty as expected but cylinders 2 & 3 were caked with carbon. I'm talking I couldn't scrape it off with a screwdriver! The only other thing I saw was the intake manifold had a hole by runner #4 (I think it's the egr?) that was super dirty. But at this point I can't figure out what the hell is going on. This thing has barely 1,000 miles on it and it's gone to shit very suddenly. The only option I have at this point is to pull the whole engine and send it back to the guys at InlinePro for them to take it apart and find the issue. That's a huge PITA and not super cheap since I'll have to cover shipping and leave my wife w/o a car during that time ( which won't be a couple days, mind you).
So please, oh wise and creative internet mechanics, help a brother out. Is there anything you can think of that might cause this outside of the block? A hose or breather or valve somewhere in the engine bay that might just need to be cleaned or replaced? Anything that I could fix without pulling the whole dang engine? I just want my baby to run right.
I'm not going to solve this with my comments but cylinder four has way too many deposits, it is going to be the likely source of where the oil is going. EGR port should have no deposits so oil is being sucked in from outside of the engine. The EGR (air pump system) sucks in clean air from the intake system, so oil must be getting into the intake system, check the K&N intake pipe and look for excessive oil marks. Perhaps you have the air pump vacuum lines mixed up or air intake breathers mixed up. Check the PCV valve and hose just to be safe. Too many deposits in the intake ports for a newly installed head, indicates impurities coming from the intake system. You could have a bad head gasket but you will be putting on a new one now anyhow. Seen a few complaints about ARP headbolts being worse than OEM bolts, but I'm not the one to make that argument, just heard it from some reputable people on here. Any chance you overfilled the oil sump, or you have the wrong oil level in the engine, wrong oil dipstick reading ? Excess oil in the sump will suck through to the intake pcv system in some circumstances. Hard to diagnose these things over the internet but I'd start with a check through the intake system, breather hoses, air pump (EGR) system and hoses, and pcv system, etc.
This port on the old (built) head is caked. It seems to run from the intake side to the exhaust side of the head. Wondering if this is a source of oil going into the cylinders.
That is what I was referring to initially, too many deposits from the air pump system, that port is supposed to feed clean filtered air to the exhaust ports on start up to reduce emissions at cold idle, it should not have large carbon deposits in it. The deposits are coming from the EGR valve and the air pump hoses/system from the looks of it, that system should be completely clean as it simply uses filtered clean air from the intake pipe off the K&N arm. . Take the egr valve apart and the connecting hoses and see what it looks like inside the egr valve cavity, and take a good look at the large hose feeding into the egr valve, something seems to be getting in there that shouldn't be there - oil/carbon/ etc.
Does the pcv valve have suction on it ?, it need suction in order to open and release crankcase pressure, hard to tell from the pictures.
Lastly, there might be a freak coincidence that a piston ring broke for an unrelated reason, but that is just a stab in the dark. Keep searching for some form of oil entry on the intake side.
Last edited by zeroptzero; 06-02-2018 at 11:36 AM.
Anything suspect with the cat heat up quick thing < plugged up?> <is it plugged up or open> on the exhaust manifold side of the head near exhaust ports.
it connects to the <this little shit> as above & are any others blocked off ?
think they are under a plate with a gasket/cover ect..
IMHO, I don't think you can blow through a quart of oil in a day without having a broken or misplaced expander on the oil ring. Since you were talking about pulling the engine, can you drop the pan and pop that #4 piston out or do you want to leave any surprises to your builder?
Took a look at the old head. That caked up port on the intake side runs along the back of the head and runs under the squiggly cover above the header. That has a hole leading to each exhaust port. It appears that path allows some exhaust gas to reroute to the air control valve.
If I'm seeing this correctly, the exhaust gas, which has already burned a bunch of oil, fills both the exhaust ports and the port leading away from it. Still doesn't explain where the oil is being introduced. And to top it off, the intake ports of the head have oil in them.
06-02-2018, 08:30 AM
Where the hell is this oil coming from????
The piston crowns, while a bit dirty, had no marks where there was valve contact. I saw no signs of damage. The valve faces were all dirty as expected but cylinders 2 & 3 were caked with carbon. I'm talking I couldn't scrape it off with a screwdriver! The only other thing I saw was the intake manifold had a hole by runner #4 (I think it's the egr?) that was super dirty. But at this point I can't figure out what the hell is going on. This thing has barely 1,000 miles on it and it's gone to shit very suddenly. The only option I have at this point is to pull the whole engine and send it back to the guys at InlinePro for them to take it apart and find the issue. That's a huge PITA and not super cheap since I'll have to cover shipping and leave my wife w/o a car during that time ( which won't be a couple days, mind you). 
