318/390 stroker kit oil leaks NEED HELP!

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Post some pictures of that PCV set up. A PCV system is critical for controlling crankcase pressure. More breathers may or may not be an answer.

Cant comment on the oil pan situation. But it will suck if that’s the case.
 
pishta said:
It can seep up the intake bolts if they are not gooped. But that sounds like alot of oil. You running an oil slinger? I dont know why people leave them out, they really keep oil off the front seal when running.
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No oil coming out of the bolts that all looks clean. Oil pan has baffles to prevent oil from slinging.
 
I attached pictures of the set up. Drivers valve cover has a foam mopar breather, passengers side has the trickflow set up that connects to the front of the passenger side valve cover, goes to the catch can that has a PCV on top and then runs to the back of the carb. The picture of the top of the timing chain cover is where all the oil was. Going to start it now to see if I can find any leaks

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Is that PCV valve adjustable? It could be way out of adjustment and letting pressure build. Also be wary of the liquid filled fuel pressure gauges. The fluctuate greatly with temp changes. Watched mine go from 10 lbs to zero and back to 10 and idled at zero for 20 mins. Drained the oil out of the gauge, rock steady 5.5 lbs no matter what the engine was doing. Also make sure the fitting isn’t pushed right up against the baffle in the valve cover.
 
Thank you to everyone that has replied! This is driving me nuts and was supposed to surprise my dad with this car this weekend. Now I’m not sure.

update: started the car, let it get warm reved it up. The catch can system has really good suction at idle, I took off the breather and put my hand over it at idle and Erving it up to about 3500. Didn’t really feel a difference. It was had to tell if anything was blowing or sucking since the fan is right there.
In addition, there are no leaks. Zero. Which after yeaterday seems odd since there was a lot of oil. Seems like if there was a hole at this point it would constantly leak.
Rear main area also had a handful of drops coming from it from the drive yesterday. Today at start up nothing driped from there either, looked clean.
 
furrystump said:
Is that PCV valve adjustable? It could be way out of adjustment and letting pressure build. Also be wary of the liquid filled fuel pressure gauges. The fluctuate greatly with temp changes. Watched mine go from 10 lbs to zero and back to 10 and idled at zero for 20 mins. Drained the oil out of the gauge, rock steady 5.5 lbs no matter what the engine was doing.
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Yes that gauge is new and is already broken. We disconnected the fuel lines and it was still reading 10psi.
Im not sure if there is an adjustment I’ll have to read up on that.
 
Oil pressure sending unit leaking? I still think it is building crankcase pressure. Give him the car, then you both can work together to track the little things down. Cars are just a good reason to hang out with the important people.
 
I have the same problem with oil leaks from my 418 stroker. They are more annoying than bad leaks. After trying to cure them a couple of times, doing it differently, I have given up. I just clean it once and awhile with a can of starting fluid. If it's a bad leak, yes, you should find the cause.
 
You are definitely not to this point yet, but I have a slight rear main seal area drip. Three or four drips after it sits in the garage a week. You can go CRAZY changing the rear main to stop that kind of a leak. I decided to get philosophical about it, I made a small sheet metal tray/pan that hangs off the two small inspection plate holes. I sandwich a piece of pig mat between it and the bell housing area. Change it once a year and it catches everything and I don’t have to worry while sitting in staging.
 
Ok, I do not understand the point of or even the purpose of that TF system. It looks like an over complicated pain in the ***.

You do need a quality air/oil separator with a good working PCV system. From the looks of what you’ve got, your pulling vacuum for the brakes through the same system. That makes no sense.

The vacuum for the brakes needs to be hooked to the intake manifold, with nothing else running off that hose.

The PCV valve needs to be hooked to the back of the carb on the 3/8 nipple under the rear float bowl. You hook the PCV valve there so the carb sees the controlled leak and not just having an air leak to the intake manifold.

So the OCV hose goes from the back of the carb, to the separator and then to the PCV valve. There should be nothing else in the system.

Also, the best investment you can make is the ME Wagner adjustable PCV valve. There is nothing on the market like it. An off the shelf PCV valve (universal fit) universally fits nothing.

With an adjustable PCV valve you can tune the system to fit your combination.

EDIT: Looking closer at your pictures it appears the vacuum for the brakes is separate. That’s good. Is there a baffle in the valve cover where the hose for the PCV valve hooks up? If not, it needs a baffle.

I also don’t know what the PCV valve is in the separator. Guess I need to Google it and see why they think that’s a good idea.
 
Rat Bastid said:
Ok, I do not understand the point of or even the purpose of that TF system. It looks like an over complicated pain in the ***.

You do need a quality air/oil separator with a good working PCV system. From the looks of what you’ve got, your pulling vacuum for the brakes through the same system. That makes no sense.

The vacuum for the brakes needs to be hooked to the intake manifold, with nothing else running off that hose.

The PCV valve needs to be hooked to the back of the carb on the 3/8 nipple under the rear float bowl. You hook the PCV valve there so the carb sees the controlled leak and not just having an air leak to the intake manifold.

So the OCV hose goes from the back of the carb, to the separator and then to the PCV valve. There should be nothing else in the system.

Also, the best investment you can make is the ME Wagner adjustable PCV valve. There is nothing on the market like it. An off the shelf PCV valve (universal fit) universally fits nothing.

With an adjustable PCV valve you can tune the system to fit your combination.
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I’ll have to look into that system. This system is an oil catch can that has a PCV on top of it. It catches abs separates abs confiscation and you drain it at the bottom. It’s hard to tell in the picture but the brakes and this system are completely separate. The brakes have its own hose that goes from the booster directly to the mainifold. The catch can/PCV goes directly from the valve cover to the back of the carb.
 
71strokerduster said:
I’ll have to look into that system. This system is an oil catch can that has a PCV on top of it. It catches abs separates abs confiscation and you drain it at the bottom. It’s hard to tell in the picture but the brakes and this system are completely separate. The brakes have its own hose that goes from the booster directly to the mainifold. The catch can/PCV goes directly from the valve cover to the back of the carb.
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How much oil is ending up in the separator? Always monitor that because it’s a tell for some tuning issues.

For example, if all of a sudden you are getting more oil than normal in there, you may be detonating even though you can’t hear it. Detonation will put way more oil in the separator.

You could also be losing ring seal with more oil in the separator.
 
CRUZE 418 said:
I have the same problem with oil leaks from my 418 stroker. They are more annoying than bad leaks. After trying to cure them a couple of times, doing it differently, I have given up. I just clean it once and awhile with a can of starting fluid. If it's a bad leak, yes, you should find the cause.
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I wish I took pictures of the oil on top. It was a layer of oil all across the top of the timing chain cover
 
Rat Bastid said:
How much oil is ending up in the separator? Always monitor that because it’s a tell for some tuning issues.

For example, if all of a sudden you are getting more oil than normal in there, you may be detonating even though you can’t hear it. Detonation will put way more oil in the separator.

You could also be losing ring seal with more oil in the separator.
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I went to drained the seperator this morning. A little small bit of water dripped out but no oil.
 
Nice looking engine compartment! And how cool is that for your father!!

As others have told you, this sure sounds like a PCV issue. Under load, all engines have some blowby that they don't have when you simply rev them up. So unless that blowby has somewhere to go, it builds pressure in the crankcase. And it will find the weakest sealing spot in the engine to escape and push oil with it. Production pcv systems are designed to maintain a slight depression on the crankcase. They do the "suck" and the vent on the opposite valve cover provides the fresh air to the crankcase. These systems do this pretty well until us hotrodders come in and throw new/different parts on them not necessarily designed for them. The pcv valve itself is designed and sized for an engine. A "universal" aftermarket one may not be proper for your engine. I highly recommend you try a more prod type of pcv valve - just get one and plumb it from the RH valve cover to the full manifold vacuum port on the rear of the carb. It doesn't have to look great - just do it as a test piece and see if it helps. (Note I was not using one on my 408 and was using header "extractors" on both sides. When driving the car on the street, I noticed just a weep from the front crank seal and maybe a tad from the rear main. Put a pcv valve/system on it and....no more seepage! Just sayin'.....) Good luck with your project!!
 
A friend of mine bought a Star electric vacuum pump hoping for a performance gain. No gain, but it really help with it pushing oil out and keeps everything clean. He runs it just for that!
 
I had a leak onto the timing cover as well. It turned out to be the corner of the intake where the head gasket and china rail meet. Adding extra RTV and reinstalling the intake solved my leak (I don't use the cork end rail gaskets). Those corners need extra attention. Not sure if that's your issue but worked for me.
 
Everybody always asks if you have a PCV valve, no one ever asks if you have a COMPLETE PCV SYSTEM. If you don't have all "this" it's not enough.
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Thank you for the feed back. I’m going back out to test mess with it tonight. As a quick test I’m going to pull the breather and PCV system off and see if there is still pressure. I’m still unsure where the leak is coming from so I will have to drive it again tonight and check it every couple hundred feet to see if I can see where it is starting from. I’ll let you guys know how it goes. Thank again for the help! Any additional feedback on quick trouble shooting options are welcome!
 
One last question before I test again tonight. The stock set up had the PCV valve on the drivers side and the breather on the passenger side. Now that we have rebuilt the engine, we have it opposite (breather on drivers side and PCV/ catch can on passengers side) I wouldn’t think that would matter at all but could that be an issue?
 
I have tried it both ways, really did not see any difference. I just installed an oil mist separater on my engine. Will be another month or so before I can try it.
 
71strokerduster said:
One last question before I test again tonight. The stock set up had the PCV valve on the drivers side and the breather on the passenger side. Now that we have rebuilt the engine, we have it opposite (breather on drivers side and PCV/ catch can on passengers side) I wouldn’t think that would matter at all but could that be an issue?
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Doesn't matter as long as breather on one side, PCV on the other. Do you have the breather attached to the air cleaner with a hose as in the diagram? That is an important and often left out piece of the puzzle.
 
71strokerduster said:
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the royal purple. I was told it is the best. After we changed the rear main seal I had to drain the oil so I changed the filter abs put the royal purple break in oil and am currently running that.
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full synthetic oil isnt a good idea to seat the rings( break in the motor)
They may not even seat to the cross hatch by using it. Its so good it has no its too good for that.
Its all prone to allowing leaks to show up.
 
i wouldn't worry too much until you've got at least 500 miles on it. the rings won't fully bed in/seal until at least then so you'll get some blowby especially if you 'get on it' and as you've said that's when the leak occurs. keep a check on the oil level and get some miles on it. :thumbsup:
neil.
 
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