[glhs#116]

Just a quick comparison of the two gaskets

FelPro 1016


Mahle 3494VC


Sam

[steve25]

It's strange , 6 looks tohave more of a burnt oil build up then 7.
Sam i would try and get as much of that backed on oil off of # 6 pistion as you can.
Otherwise there will be a lot of glowing hot spots at full throttle and then preingtion .

[glhs#116]

Originally Posted by steve25

It's strange , 6 looks tohave more of a burnt oil build up then 7.
Sam i would try and get as much of that backed on oil off of # 6 pistion as you can.
Otherwise there will be a lot of glowing hot spots at full throttle and then preingtion .

Steve,

Yeah. It is odd. It's even odder when you look at the chamber view. #7 is kinda the "clean" one.



I think it might just be that I'm using the same modern synthetic 5W-30 as the other cars and it probably has a really nice detergent package. The oil in the chamber fouls the plug but seems to kinda clean the rest a bit and certainly seems to stop the carbon from sticking. Keep in mind, also, that #2 and #6 *used* to have an oil leak...

I was also a little surprised at how much carbon was building. I think with the pretty good leak going in #7 I might have been running an average tune that was fairly rich for the cylinders that didn't have a leak but ended up giving best vacuum overall because of #7 being lean (with the air leak)? Dunno. Plugs looked OK. Hope to be able to do a better job of tuning now if this fixes the oil issue.

Heads are on now. I'm not as worried about #6. It has the lowest compression, remember? But I was thinking maybe I'll warm it up and trickle some water into the carb for a little poor man's steam clean. Actually, I have a can of that GM carbon cleaner that you spray in as it is running and makes a ton of smoke. I might do that too (and then an oil change).

Gonna be a week or more before it is all together I imagine. I just wanted to get the heads on last night because it is really damp and didn't want any flash rust getting a chance to start anywhere...

Sam

[glhs#116]

So.. The day finally arrived and the planets aligned. It was reasonably dry, I was off work and available and the car was together. It was time for a little road trip







I'm pleased to report that not a single puff of blue smoke was seen in the rear view mirror at any time.

Sam

[steve25]

It was a long road, but I new you would resolve it because of someone with your determination.

I mean anyone who yanks his motor out to rebuild it while living overseas and while basically living in a dusty desert can handle anything.

My hats off to you!

[glhs#116]

OK. Final follow-up on this thread. I just popped out the plugs that I'd put in new after getting the heads back on and before going on my little drive (and a second short drive). For me, this is really the acid test as I've always had an oily #7 plug ever since this whole palava started.



Remember those really crusty black looking piston tops and chambers? Remember how black all the plugs were getting (look at pics earlier in this thread)?

I did a little light reading on that. It's generally a PCV system that's doing a poor job taking the oil out of the vapours pulled back into the engine along with generally poor ring seal causing a lot of excess blowby and crankcase pressure. The oily crankcase vapours are sticky and then soot and stuff sticks to it making the black mess, right?

So I'm thinking that yeah, seems like I've just got a fair amount of that sort of issue going on. But those plugs are looking pretty good now! I'm thinking that I was having all that carbon building in the engine purely on the basis of
* #7 (and earlier #2 and #6) pulling in plenty oil and...
* a reasonably lumpy cam causing enough reversion to "share the love" via the intake to all the cylinders

I'm betting a bit of driving and a few race meets and that soot is going to blast itself out of there.. Or, at least, it doesn't look like it should be adding any anymore now. Maybe I'll throw my can of GM top engine cleaner through it just before the next oil change...

Anyway, thanks tons for all the help from everyone. I declare this issue closed.

Sam

[steve25]

Indeed, closed and time to enjoy!

[steve25]

It's too late now, but the fact of the matter is the the head bolt pinch in is not much of a flow restriction in the E heads in out of the box form.
what is however is the height of the runner from the crown of the short turn on back to the Intake flange.

This is due to how darn deep the valve bowl is in these E heads, and yes even in the 87 CC version.

Only once the roof is raised to what's geometricly needed to match the bowl roof is the removal of the head bolt pinch in worth a good bunch of air flow above .450" lift.

Oh and by the way, I don't think Sam or anyone is going to take kindly to being called a kid as you have done!

[glhs#116]

Heh, surely y'all are kidding... I may not be as old as some of the gentlemen on here but I'm still old enough to be tickled pink to be called "kid".

GTO-relic, thanks so much! It was surprisingly hard to find out this kind of information. I mean, before I screwed up... But I inferred it was no big deal because I definitely saw some people porting into the headbolt hole so bad it was a big window and sometimes not even sleeving it (admittedly, not Pontiacs). I reasoned the headbolt should seal it because the hole is blind and the washer has 100 ft/lbs on it (ARP head bolts). Was a long time before someone pointed out about the gasket not sealing the hole (the FelPro one I'd always used). And then when I sleeved and still had oil I had to start doubting everything. I'll just chalk it up to a sequence of unfortunate events.

Great to be talking about the actual porting again. I know you're not supposed to "port with your eyes" but I don't have a bench so I did basically just that.

My impression is that the E ports are friggin huge looking. I didn't see either the pushrod nor headbolt bulges as "pinches". And I was vaguely aware that a smooth increase in volume is beneficial. That's why I went really light on the pushrod bulge. Not trying to take off anymore than I needed to smooth the wall. Now, again, to my eye the big culprit looked to be the headbolt bulge because that whole wall is steering the charge around to swirl into the port. So I really didn't like the look of that big ol' "speed bump". I wasn't thinking restriction. I was thinking smooth flow.

I also opened up the actual entrance of the ports to the gasket where the as-cast seems to pinch in a little (especially corners) just at the last quarter inch or so.

The only other thing I tried to do was to somewhat "waterfall" the short turn area like in my Jim Hand book. Last of all I did a teensy bit of back-cutting on the valves with a grinding wheel and a hand drill in a vice. I was pretty conservative here as I didn't want to screw anything up. And so, of course, I did a little lapping when the valves were back in just in case.

I didn't try to "shine" the port walls or anything because a) that looked like a lot of work and b) I seemed to understand a slight roughness here helps fuel stay in suspension. It's smoother than the as-cast, for sure. And I got rid of any anomolies I saw.

It's kind of on my list to tidy up the intake. I did the same on the intake (open the port openings where they were offset, get off any flash, smooth the walls a bit). But I'm thinking about those bulges you pointed out, Steve, like #8. I also spent a fair amount of time this winter with a hand piece of sandpaper on the transition of the primary and secondary bore holes on the high side. I noticed that the factory does some really nice smoothing at the bottom of the deep holes on the low side but the high side holes are basically cylinders. I've been trying to smooth a radius onto these. And I'm also thinking of trimming the ends off my carb mounting ARP studs that poke through into the upper plenum about a quarter inch or so. Not sure if any of this helps. I bet the radiusing I'm doing will help the most..

Really thankful for all the help, folks!

Sam