New crate motor woes

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Blues65

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I spent most of last summer installing a new MP 360 crate motor and getting the 10.95 Scallop clutch to operate correctly. I have driven the car less than 1000 miles since working out all the installation problems and changed the oil 3 times. A few weeks ago my wife and I drove to Santa Cruz for lunch in the Barracuda (about 50 miles round trip) and when we returned I found that the car had consumed ½ quart of oil. I had been keeping the oil level up by adding some from time to time but figured it was just slow to break in. I am going to take the car to Mopar Engines West for a leak down test to confirm there is a problem. I am not the first to complain about oil consumption with 360 crate motors and one of the guys on the Moparts web board lost his engine because he couldn’t conceive of a crate motor consuming that much oil so quickly. The warranty for a crate motor is 90 days from purchase, so I am likely screwed.
 
I wonder if the oil rings are installed properly. I'm not sure if a leakdown test will show that. Might have to pull heads and take a look at your cylinders if oil consumption is that bad. I've read a few times that the MP crate engines should be broken down and checked before installation. Hopefully it turns out to be something minor. JMO, Mike
 
hmm santa cruz winding hills maybe it got hot and ate oil or the rings arent good maybe should do a compression test also.
 
I`ve heard of a racer here in town that bought three crate 360`s (for his street car)before he was satisfied with one that he could tear apart, machine, and put back together to his liking. With your engine using oil like that, it sounds as if somebody forgot to put valve stem seals in? A check of the heads would at least rule out problems there if nothing else.
 
How is the general state of tune? Did the engine start up immediately, or did you turn it over a bunch before it fired? What kind of miles have the first 1000 been?
 
The engine is in excellent tune and runs very strong (with the exception that the electrodes on the plugs are darker than what I would expect from a good running engine) there is no outward indication of a problem. There is no exhaust smoke which you would expect if you were burning this much oil and there is no oil on the garage floor. If I wasn’t anal about checking oil level before driving the car, I might have overlooked it and lost the motor. I have been told that it is most likely incorrectly installed oil ring and that a leak down test will confirm it.
 
I had to take my 360 crate short block apart to machine deeper valve pockets in the pistons. I found machining metal in between the rings and two different weights of wrist pins. I called MP and after many phone calls finally got some guy at Cummins Recon where they are machined and assembled. Told him what I found and that I was looking for at least two wrist pins of the correct thickness and weight.

He sent me an entire set of pistons and rods, with rod bearings for no charge.

I still had to clean everything and check all the clearances. I know it seems wrong to buy a crate engine and have to disassemble it and check and clean everything but, they aren't hand assembled one off race engines either. So for the money I'll disassemble and reassemble it to my liking.

Just a thought. Hope you get yours straightened out. Unfortunately I don't remember who I talked to or what his position was.

Just thinking, you could possibly have an intake leaking under the valley. What type of intake do you have? The factory Magnum barrell intake is notorius for leaking where the plenum pan is bolted to the bottom of the intake causing excessive oil consumption. You could also be sucking oil through a pcv valve in an unbaffled rocker cover.
 
we have found that the deck height is off big time that causes clearence problems that could cause your problem. you can re-deck the blocks to fix a lot of the brolems that have been brought on by out of the U.S. products.
 
As Guitar Jones said, You could also be sucking oil through a pcv valve in an unbaffled rocker cover. Definitly check this out. It could very well be what the problem is. Heard of this more than a few times. Mike
 
Deck height is not going to cause oil consumption.

BTW my block was dead on as far as deck height was concerned. With the piston .011 out of the hole and a .039 headgasket with W5 small chamber heads there isn't any room for slop.
 
I'll be interested to see the leakdown results. I'm thinking more the final finish on the bores was a little rough, and the rings havent fully seated yet. They may get better. They may not. I re-ringed a 383 last year because a wrong ballast resistor and confused owner washed the rings out of a new engine and they never seated well. If the 2nd ring sdoesnt seat, you will use a lot more oil than "normal". I also have an Indy crate engine with 5K miles on it that smokes at almost all times. The rings never seated in it either because of the poor Demon carb's state of tune as delivered by Indy. That's a $9500 engine that smokes at 5K miles...I see a lot of engines in posted pics that have the wrong final finish on the bores for moly rings.
 
Guitar Jones said:
Just thinking, you could possibly have an intake leaking under the valley. What type of intake do you have? The factory Magnum barrell intake is notorius for leaking where the plenum pan is bolted to the bottom of the intake causing excessive oil consumption. You could also be sucking oil through a pcv valve in an unbaffled rocker cover.
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I have one Edelbrock breather cap on the left valve cover and a PVC valve on the Right side valve cover and I have found a little oil film around the PVC side valve cover but it didn’t seem to be enough to be concerned about. I have the M1 intake that came with the 320 Hp motor. I sent Rich an email to schedule the leak down test for June 15, the best news I could get is it was a simple intake gasket issue (at 60 years old - removing the engine takes a toll on me). I choose a crate motor because I wanted to drive the car not work on it indefinitely. I thought I was ready to get it block sanded and painted over the winter.
 
There's only a 90 day warranty? :thumbdow: That's crazy. Now don't shoot me for this but I just bought a crate motor for my daughters Camaro,
3 yr/100,000 mile warranty and I'm sure it cost less than half to boot. Something is wrong with this picture.
 
Rob said:
There's only a 90 day warranty? :thumbdow: That's crazy. Now don't shoot me for this but I just bought a crate motor for my daughters Camaro,
3 yr/100,000 mile warranty and I'm sure it cost less than half to boot. Something is wrong with this picture.
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I won’t shoot you for two reasons (well more than two but ...)

Number 1. I agree 90 days for a 320 Hp crate motor is crazy and I wasn't told until the transaction was complete.

Number 2. My daughter’s car is a 64 Falcon

I don't care what she drives; just that she enjoys what she drives. And, seeing her dirty coveralls hanging next to mine in the garage and her hands dirty from overhauling the brakes, well that’s just icing on the cake. :love4:
 
What's up with these crate motors? Aren't they supposed to be of excellent quality and workmanship since they are coming staight from Mopar Performance?
 
You would think so - I have discussed Crate Engine problems on several boards and have had a lot of negative feed back. Many feel that all crate motors should be torn down and reassembled prior to installation. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the issue before purchasing one.
 
Blues65 said:
You would think so - I have discussed Crate Engine problems on several boards and have had a lot of negative feed back. Many feel that all crate motors should be torn down and reassembled prior to installation. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the issue before purchasing one.
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In my opinion that defeats part of the reason why you buy a crate engine. Why buy a crate engine when you have to go through all the trouble of tearing it down and double checking their work?
 
I think you've answered your own question.

Why buy a crate engine when you have to go through all the trouble of tearing it down and double checking their work?
 
ValiantMike said:
I think you've answered your own question.

Why buy a crate engine when you have to go through all the trouble of tearing it down and double checking their work?
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No doubt, but my question really is how can Mopar Performance stand behind this product? Someone must have filed some type of suit in regards to the lack of product quality and workmanship.
 
Just to let you know about quality & issues from the old days;

In summer 1970, I bought a 69 Swinger 340 4spd 3:91 with 13,000 original miles. The car was mint, adult owned, all stock right down to the hubcaps.

I was on the highway going to work and another 340 dart was in the slow lane....being teenaged idiots, we both punched it at 60 mph. A HUGE plume of oil smoke came from BOTH cars as we got past 80-90 mph!

I never complained about that on the 5 yr, 50.000 warantee, because I was fighting about clutch problems and an annoying knock in the engine. I don't even recall if they fixed noise, but I saw it apart for some lifters at the dealer. Basically it was a nice clean car that went better than anything I ever had, but it wasn't perfect mechanically. Despite those few things, I'd take it back today with a big smile :goodman:

If that was my crate motor, i would look into what was said about the breather/pcv, plus put some miles on it before condeming it. Also, try a different oil type, too.
 
Guitar Jones was kind enough to PM me with a procedure to perform the intake test and I have a vacuum gauge, so I will complete that this weekend and post the results. MoPar Engines West emailed me and said the leak down test was a waste of money and time because: “They have had motors that had a good leak down, yet had washed out rings, and still burned oil”. I agree that you may only hear about the problem crate motors but its bad enough that many professional shops claim they will not install one without a tear down inspection. However, my intention in putting out the post was to let others know about what problems I was experiencing and about the lack of a reasonable warranty (getting tipped to a possible cause that didn’t require pulling the motor was an unexpected benefit).
 
I performed the procedure to check for an intake leak this weekend. I removed the breather and the plug from the valve cover on right side of the car and used duct tape to seal the holes. I then removed the PCV valve and covered the opening. I the put the Vacuum gauge on the valve cover PVC grommet and started the motor. The vacuum gauge registered 1 psi of pressure and began rising slowly. The duct tape was also bulging on the other valve cover. As the engine warmed up the pressure stropped rising and settled at about ½ psi (after pressure was relieved). At no time was a vacuum ever registered and I do not believe the crate motor has an intake leak; the good news is that I didn't consume oil on the drive to the MoPar Alley car show (30 miles round trip) last weekend. Thanks again to Guitar Jones for the procedure, I guess I will watch and wait.
 
I've neer heard of that test. A leakdown that shows good, where the rings are washed? BS. If it seals air from a compressor, the rings seal. If they dont, it will show immediately. Any pressure in the crank case could be a problem. From rings loosing their seal (it's really pressure that keeps them on the walls, not tension) to gaskets pushing out, it's bad. That being said, there's always a little pressure, especially as rpms climb, and the PCV helps alleviate that. As do vaccum pumps on race engines. So with them both blocked, I can see where the 1psi comes from. In any case, driving the car tuned properly I think goes the furthest to getting it squared away.
 
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