Hey all..... update.
Since last we spoke, life has been going on. So very little progress on the car until the last couple of days.
In a bout of frustration that I couldn't use my garage for a honey-do project that I really didn't want to be doing, I put the plugs back in and fired the motor up. It started to smoke badly, immediately, so I shut it off and rolled it out of the garage, then closed the door so I didn't fill the garage with smoke. My thought at that point was that there was probably plenty of oil that needed to burn off.
So I fired it up again in the driveway. it fires immediately, but idles rough. When you rev it, it smooths out. But SMOKE. I mean, LOTS of smoke. THICK, HEAVY, SCARY smoke. It was so bad that I finally shut it off. Once the smoke dissipated, I found to my dismay very heavy LIQUID OIL coating an 8' diameter on my garage door. And puddles under the exhaust tips.
::sigh::
So tonight I had an hour, so I did a compression check. I'm a little frustrated with myself over that. The first cylinder I checked (left front) had 200psi. !! That seemed VERY high to me. I checked it three times, then went to the next cylinder which gave me 210. The rear cylinder on that left side read 200. HUH.
so I went to the right side; 150, 155, 152. HUH.
So I went back to the left side: 153, 150, 152.
yeah. so... there's that. I don't know what could possibly have changed, but I assume it's in my method. or my tool. I don't see how it could be something in the motor. I'm open to suggestions?
So then I pulled the oil filter. I cut it apart and pulled out every foreign body I could find in it. See the photo, below. None of it is ferrous. there are two pieces that worry me in the slightest: the two closest to the pencil tip. The one is shiny metal, the other is hard plastic. Everything else seems to be gasket / sealant material (the red stuff is probably the stuff I used on the IMS this summer)
Here's something else that's... well.... odd. When I was underneath looking up, I noticed that there appears to be a plug missing over the end of intake cam, left-side, front. I don't recall pulling that cover for anything. ever. and the metal around where it looks like it should seat is shiny, like there was a cover in place recently. This is directly above the scavenge-pump on that left side. The green plugs on the rear of that bank are new, because I replaced them when I did the IMS. They are both canted; sitting proud of the head at the top, but flush at the bottom. Now, it is possible that I didn't seat them correctly when I installed them recently, and if they were the only oddity I'd assume that was the case. but I have to look at the aggregate of all of this. I can't imagine what would cause those cams to "walk" forward / aft, but I haven't been into this motor to see what sort of thrust surfaces or bearings exist to locate the cams fore/aft. I really can't imagine BOTH cams doing this.... so I'm inclined to dismiss it... but it's nagging at me.
Unless there are other, better ideas here (I'd welcome them!) my next steps will be to peek into each bore with a scope. I don't expect to learn anything. I'll probably do the compression test again, to satisfy my frustration over tonight's test. (I may borrow a tool from someone, and try that). Then I figured I'd pop all the cam plugs and check cam timing. I'll pop the covers on the scavenge-pumps while I'm at it. Assuming I don't find anything, then I'll replace the AOS, and probably remove & clean the intake and exhaust, so I can rule-out "puddles" of oil remaining in it. Then fire it back up.... and cross my fingers.
Any other thoughts or ideas y'all may have here?
Hybrid Mode
