well it is my dd and I do like the whole speed thing, however I will not be looking for quarter mile times. perhaps at most it would be used to create ricer tears, that and its funny to watch a pony chase a goat from time to time. I occasionally use it to pull a trailer so I would kinda like to keep the low end/ tire burning ability.

I believe they are cracked between the valves because i've lost a lot of power, it uses oil, and it smokes a bit when you step on it for the first time once its been cranked. I don't believe its the rings cause the plugs aren't fouled and the cat is still intact , and I have fixed the plenum and pcv so its not those two.

i'll be pulling the heads off sometime this week to identify the problem, and hey I might get off easy with just a blown head gasket who knows?

 

I had oil being sucked into the PCV and into the intake through spent guides. Also, a loss of power as well it ran intermittently rough however, it did not smoke at all. I had a crack between the valve seat on CYL no 8 and, one of my valves was spinning and not seating. It was sticking from time to time thus causing the rough idle condition, loss of compression, thus leading to loss of power.

To me, it sounds like you may have a ring issue there vs cracked heads and, one reason that there's no evidence at the plug is that it's being burned off.

Since it only smokes at startup, there's probably not enough to foul the plug or leave evidence such as a wet plug even.

Just a thought.

 

My experience differs greatly.Shear forces are still a problem with aluminum heads.Thats why head gaskets blow and the owner says "but it never ran hot".A 3 inch thick piece of aluminum still expands twice as much as a 3 inch thick piece of steel.While gasket materials have certainly changed over the years,so has everything else.As far as gaskets being poorer quality,they didnt need to be better than they were at the time.They lasted the life of the engine,why improve them?Blown head gaskets didnt become an epidemic until everyone started using aluminum heads.Coincidence?As far as the benifits of polymers,well,I used to make pretty good money swapping GM's hi tech plastic intake gaskets to low tech stainless composition gaskets.Newer isnt always better,no matter how many computers say so.While the use of mls gaskets have cured some of the aluminum head maladies,they have there own issues.Decks must be perfectly flat and finished at a very specific roughness average,which most machine shops are unable to do.If long term durability is an issue,cast iron beats aluminum hands down and its cheaper too.P.S. a leakdown test would be a whole lot easier than exploratory surgery.

 

well that's possible I suppose but as it was explained to me is that "if it were the rings it would smoke till it warmed up and allowed the rings to expand"
however it only smokes for a split second when cranked and regardless of engine temp it will smoke like crazy the first time I stomp on the gas, every time after that though it wont smoke even the least bit, but there is still a faint smell of burning oil in the exhaust even at idle so perhaps that first stomp sucks up the pooled oil around the valves and all oil after that is burned as it gets there causing that faint smell of oil.

another thing I just noticed because I was second guessing that whole plenum fix thing and decided to look into the kegger is that there is carbon on the inside of my air hat, on top of my tb, and all over the inside of the kegger. it doesn't have pools of oil in it like when I had a blown plenum, its just carbon and what smells like a mix of a little oil and gas. keep in mind that the plenum was re done less that 1k miles ago and I cleaned everything very well while it was out. also I seafoamed it about a month or two ago because it was starting that smoking then looked into the keg and it was clean. this kinda makes me think its the valves because if they are cracked or stuck it would blow exhaust into the intake right?

I really appreciate the help and information and at this point I'll try just about anything cause I love my truck, we've been through a lot together and I would like for it to have its power back and run well.

 

Your missing the whole point of the argument and, that is, it's not just about improving something for the hell of it, but, there's a NEED to change it due to a change in materials somewhere else. That's the point that was made and was emphasized.

In engineering, we use dissimilar metals all the time and, it's a non-issue providing that the gasket interface is changed to accommodate the change. Same with the seal material. Change the seal material and it works. Thermal cycling from minus 80 C to 250 C on substrates with the right material selection will indeed work.

Now, in certain cases, (NOT WITH AL HEADS) but, sometimes, yes, there's constraints where, you can not get around it and, in those cases, the constraint is the driver that initiates the change to using similar material properties to prevent excessive shear forces to be implied under thermal loading.

This is not the case with Al heads on cast iron blocks. If it were, we'd see immediate failure at the gasket interface.

People said the same exact thing about running Al intakes on iron heads. They all complained about how it would shear the gaskets to hell. Well, we are still running Al intakes on iron heads, and, it works now. It's not shearing gaskets and failing at all and, the reason why is the gaskets allow the two interfaces to slide across each other without tearing due to a CHANGE in the gasket material and design. That's why it works now vs before, the old school thought remained based on outdated technology.

The Japanese have been doing this for years- redesigning gaskets and coming up with new ideas. This is called advancement vs. getting stuck in the past. It's time to think outside the box and keep moving forward.

 

funny you should say that cause I had planed to do a leakdown test tomorrow actually. the idea of exploratory surgery sounds like a lot more fun though

 

Well, there's a piece of information that I didn't know about and, yes, your correct, it's a valve related issue based on the fact that you've got carbon build up in your intake. Sounds like the vac is pulling it out of the valve cover head as exhaust and reintroducing that into the intake thus the carbon build up.

I think your correct in your assumptions. It may be really worn valve guides as when worn, they will allow oil and fumes to pass.

 

yeah i'm glad to hear that actually, cause rings are supposed to be a p.i.t.a to change. and I was told that its better to upgrade than to replace on any engine, so changing the heads would be my best option.

and as far as iron vs aluminum I don't particularly care so much as long as they work better than what I got now. and if they both flow about the same im thinking the cheaper of the two will keep my wallet, wife and truck happy.

its not gonna be a monster truck turning huge tires or a drag racer, but I would like some more power and be a bit flexible just in case I want to put huge tires on it or if I want to put it on a strip.

 

Well, if your gonna strip, go with Eddy's as it's the biggest bang for your buck. However, if the cost is too high, you can get nearly the same performance for a lot less and, it is my opinion, that's the route you should take in all honesty.

Save on your wallet and marriage while your at it. Kill two birds with one rock so-to-speak.

CM

 

I dont think you really grasp the discussion.Im not sure how you can compare an intake with a cylinder head?Like apples to a-bombs.I think your big on hat,but a little light on cattle.In the real world we fix what eggheads design,thats how the dirt gets under the figernails.At least you have figured out that 500$ heads work as good as your edelbrocks.Use the force luke.Grab a wrench instead of a textbook.Amazing what you learn under a hood.