well the compression test would most likely show worn piston rings, if the compression is fine then its most likely valve guides. idk if that helps but but that my 2 cents

 

Head gaskets?:scratch: :dunno:

 

Compression test will show if either your valves or rings are bad eric. Ill try to think of anything else it could be...

 

Hey it's Vlad... some ideas/thoughts:
I'm curious what temp plugs you are using? Did you change them when you did all the other mods or are they the same as before? Could you go back to stock parts to see if the codes stop getting thrown out?
Since the weather is warm(er) now, try an oil change using thicker (less viscous) oil and see results...
I agree on doing a compr. test, it won't hurt to know... easier and cheaper than starting to take the heads apart or doing even more disassembly to inspect for right now.
On a side note, to me, the plug in the pic definitely looks like the car is running too rich, not lean... you're not running on boost so you are OK to lean it out a bit IMO... have you tried doing a fuel injector cleaner on a tank of gas in case the fuel rail you swapped in has some crap or has messed up an injector?
Btw, are any of the plugs oily? That may tell you head gasket issues at cylinder(s) where oil is getting into a combustion chamber and burning = blue smoke...
Since its not white smoke I am pretty sure your coolant isn't burning therefore not a H.G. leak from cooling chambers... Check the coolant for how it looks to be sure.
I'm trying to think what else... Don't know the 3G V6 well at all but leaky valves might be the culprit like people have mentioned and that's probably going to be the least of a pain in the ass to fix. Piston rings will be a big PITA... Are rings going bad a common issue with GTs? And i'm curious what's your mileage?
Not sure what correlation the mods would have with the issues starting... Could be coincidental.
HTH
I'm sure Liz will keep me posted on your updates... Later and good luck!

 

from riding behind you on the way back from MTOD, you had blue smoke when you stepped on it or when you down shifted to slow (engine braking) I also heard you had problems with an axle:mecry2: I'm glad you guys made it home safe and I'm sorry I can't help you more. Tell Lindsey I say hi

 

Tell you the truth, I am not really sure what temp plugs I am using. All I know is that they are denso iridium plugs. I did not change them when I did my upgrades. I am sure I COULD go back to stock parts, but im sure it would not fix my problem. Like I have been told by many people, I am going to try a 10w30 or 10w40 full syth oil and see if it helps the problem. I have picked up a compression tester but wont have time to do anything until this weekend. Yeah from what I have seen online, that plug does look like its running rich. About 1 ½ weeks before the trip there was a strange sound coming from the rear of the engine, sounded like a fuel injector problem. I ran a bottle of cleaner and the sound went away.

The plugs were not oily. Like I said, they all looked like the one pictured. And the coolant looks fine. Strange thing though. When the engine is all warmed up the overflow tank is past fool, but when its ice cold the tank is below low. Dont know if that is something to look at. I am thinking its valve seals and guides as well. But im not sure how hard that is to do yourself. Trying to decide if I want to just bring it somewhere.

Also car has about 89K miles


Ben, linz says hi back, and thanks for your help.

 

I am going to try a 10w30 or 10w40 full syth oil and see if it helps the problem

lucas oil stabilizer

 

just called a few shops around here and they all said it would be cheaper to get a used engine and swap it out instead of a valve job or piston ring replacement. what are your guys thoughts?

 

6G74? maybe?

 

My .02 with a used engine you don't really know what you're getting until it's installed. I think the best way to do it would be to get a used halfass engine and have it rebuilt. Or pull yours and have it redone. Atleast if the used is being redone your car is still driveable. I think that's the route I'm gonna take when it's time.

Also do the compression test, and if you have access to it do a cooling system pressure test to see if maybe you have a slight head gasket issue.

Do you know or figured out how much $$ you're willing to invest into this?

Good luck!

 

With your situation with the bank 1 lean codes you may have other problems, yes its burning oil but you need to figure out whats causing it to lean out and causing too much oxygen to be in the the combustion chamber. Its possible to be a mass airflow misreading, vacuum hoses or leaks, and since you the diamante fuel rail, fuel pressure could also be an issue and i would check that first. Or maybe swap out to the original fuel rail and see if the lean codes return and switching to a heavier weight oil. Did you use the diamante injectors, or the factory ones?

 

update:

Still have not done the compression test. But i have been driving the car all weekend (200+ miles) and at no point was there any smoke coming out. There have been no lean codes or any other codes, and oil level is fine. Is there a way that the altitude was playing a factor in this? im not sure what the hell is going on.

I also am using the Stock injectors.

 

Altitude shouldn't have any affect on an efi car since the computer will make adjustments to your stft's.

I was behind you for some of MTOD and I remember your car smoking pretty good, and I was thinking rings or valve guides, but now your sayin its all stopped and is fine? I never heard of that happening. I would still go ahead and do a compression test and like suggested before a coolant pressure test and see what those results yield.

 

Ok, so let me get this strait. After reading online I have a few questions. When doing a compression test it will tell me if a individual cylinder is having a problem. From online readings, if compression is low in one or more cylinders I can do a test to see if it is the rings or valve seals. By putting in a squirt of 30 weight oil into the cylinder and re-running the test I can pinpoint the problem because the oil will temporarily seal the rings. If the compression reading is higher the 2nd time around this means the rings are worn. If it does not change, it means valves.

But if I were to also do a leakdown test I could pinpoint where the leakage is happening. If you can hear the air coming out if the exhaust then its exhaust valves. If you hear it coming out of the lower manifold then its intake valves. If it is coming out of the PCV or breather vent its worn rings/cylinders.

My question is, if the air from the leakdown test can be heard from the PCV couldn't it also be the valve seals? The air would be passing the seals and going into the cylinder head portion that is covered by the valve cover and exiting through PCV valve.

One other thing i found to be odd on my car. I look into the overflow tank today for the coolant, and it looks like there is some residue of a sand like substance on the inner sides. What the hell could cause that? Also last night after about 20 min of idle i checked the oil level. It was below the low mark on the dip stick. When i came home today i checked it again when the car was cold. It was right above the low mark. Online, it says that at warm temps the level should show up near the top mark and when cold it should be at the low mark on the dipstick.

What the hell is going on with my car!!!

 

sort of sounds like a head gasket issue from the coolant gunk....does the coolant smell like 'engine' at all? but other parts of it don't sound like head gasket! you may have several issues causing several different problems at different times. you can also burn alot of oil if you have a crank case ventilation problem, do you have alot of oil in your intake?

 

not sure what you mean by smell like "engine". To me it smells like coolant. I was also told that if i have low compression it could also be a head gasket issue, is this true? How can i check the crank case ventilation? I saw a little bit of oil in the intake manifold when i took it off at MTOD, but not much.

 

if it smells like exhaust or smells like the inside of the engine (sniff the oil fill after driving). coolant should always smell like coolant, if it smells like the engine there could be problems.

 

well it doesnt smell as sweet as fresh coolant, and i dont know if its because its 11 pm, but the color looks a little darker then normal

 

It sounds like a head gasket is some ways and in others it does not. Some people mentioned it but no one said check it, but how is your pcv? Is it in good condition or is it clogged up?

 

No joke, i just changed the pcv valve the day before MTOD, the day before i started burning oil. But i have checked the valve and it is working great.

 

Can a Blown head gasket cause my car to burn oil? and if it was a blown HG, wouldnt my car be overheating and running low on coolant? I will take a photo of current coolant compaired to fresh coolant side by side. I have also thought of what that sand looking crap may be. I just had the front valve cover polished. I know he media blasted it. I am not sure if he got all the sand out of the valve cover vent. Could this be a problem? why would it now show up in the coolant of all places and not in the oil? im still not sure what is happening, just throwing ideas out there.

Also wanted to ask something. Would it be a dumb idea to take the downpipe off my Ripp headers and start the car and see if there is any smoke coming out. This would allow me to determine which bank is burning oil.

Edit for coolant photo:

 

just taking the exhaust manifold off, you would be able to see which cylinder has the oily sooty deposits, but once its running 'right' for a little it will sort of clean those away.


as for the coolant, dark green could just be factory fill. not every green coolant is the same color, but if your old coolant and the new coolant are both the same brand/type and you've recently had the whole cooling system changed then no its not a good thing.

the new stuff, if i may flex some muscle here looks like prestone universal coolant.

 

Im impressed. yes it is prestone coolant. I know i have not changed my coolant at all. About a year ago i noticed my coolant level being low for about a month. Also noticed it was leaking where the top pipe connects to raidiator, so i just chucked it off as that was the reason i was low on coolant. I added about half of a premixed bottle total. Also i now think of when i changed out the TB last month my soon to be father in law added some coolant as well. I know it was not premixed. I can remember if he used distilled water, or hose water. (btw hose water by him is well water. This would not be good.)

Never thought of just looking at the manifold to see if there are any oily deposits in the pipes. What i was asking is if it would be stupid to take the downpipe off of the manifolds. Both manifolds (rear and front) extend full lenght and connect to the downpipe that then coennects to the cat back. This would then allow me to see what bank the smoke is coming from if i ran it for a bit like this. Thus allowing me to find which bank is the trouble maker.

Any other ideas as to what is happening? would i be able to see a bad valve seal/guide if i took the Valve cover off? Anyone know? Could i see oil buildup on the intake valves through the lower manifold?

 

you won't be able to see bad valve guides or seals without pretty much taking the heads off and cams out.

so the old coolant doesn't look that bad, if you were blowing combustion into the coolant it would be darker and smell burned.

since you say it comes and goes (the smoking) try to figure out what brings it about, how did your compression look? how steady is the engine vacuum at idle? I'm not sure whats going on exactly to be honest, if it were something like worn rings or valve guides/seals I would think it would smoke all the time and smoke worse as time went on. maybe it has to do with how hard its driven?

 

Could there be a problem with the PCV valve? Like i said, i changed it the day before MTOD. I know i said that i checked it. I took it off and shook it, it rattled. I pluged it back in and started the car. I put my finger over it and it sucked. But when i held my finger there to long it shut down my car. Is this normal?

 

Man... that sucks! I feel bad for the dude that was behind you the whole way!:lmfao: Anywho, you said you pulled the plugs right? Did you notice any gunk/oil in the tube? If so, your tube seals are bad.
Check your oil. Does it look frothy or bubbly at all? Wait... didn't you say you just did the mani conversion and you were burning black smoke? Whoa man... you reset your ECU and this happened afterward? You might have been throwing a whole lot more air into the mixture... and you said it was running lean at one point... lean enough to heat up that combustion chamber so much that you might've warped your piston rings! Because of that, now you're burning oil at a crazy rate and it won't stop till you get that shit fixed! I'm just putting two and two together here.

 

Compression test done.

cylinders

1=180
2=180
3=180
4=175
5=180
6=175

I also got to take a look at the top of the valves through the lower manifold and they looked like they had oil on them. The runners of the upper manifold had oil on them. There was no oil on the intake tube. I have a few cell phone pics i can post later.

It seems like those are ok readings.....right?

 

Those compression numbers are fine.

 

So i am looking at a valve job huh? Problem seems to have shown itself after eliminating other possibilities. Anyone have any thoughts on this being a DIY project or should i just have a shop do it. I also had a thought, what if i bought a set of used heads and had those redone. This would allow me to still drive the car, and then i can do the install after they are complete. I could also put new timing belt, water pump and pulleys.

 

Using used heads and having them redone would be an option. After PharmEcis built my 6G74 I was burning oil to the point where it was over 2 quarts low after a week changing the oil and about 900 miles worth of driving. The problem was the piston ring gaps. Pharm gapped them to the manufacturers specs which were wrong instead of gapping them the way he usually does. What we did in the meantime was re-break the engine in with my stock GTS heads.