Sources for pre-09 5.7 long blocks / cores?
Just some things to think about below. I have no skin in it, just maybe helping with some ideas that don't lead you directly from "it's done some oil" to "I need a new engine"
How Hemi and LS guys didn't suck their oil pans dry with the PCV-Less intakes, and cheap, non-orificed, fabricated valve covers, is beyond me. (not sure what valve covers you have, and thats not directed at you)
Your consumption issues could 100% be because you just have a vent plumbed right into the throttle body. In testing, we ran some Hemi's and LS's without a PCV restriction, and had to even finely tune the orifice size of the PCV barbs, to balance between building pressure, and suckling oil. I have personally see a Hemi and LS drink enough oil with no PCV, to where it wouldn't have went an oil change interval. The LS drank something like 1.75 quarts in 1000 miles without a PCV restriction/orifice.
Have you bore-scoped the cylinders? done a compression test, or leak down? you might be lucky enough that all your problems are PCV related.
I have 4 late model hemi vehicles. Here's the mileage
252,000
128,000
112,000
38,000
Never been inside the longblock of any of them.
The 252K mile Jeep gets oil changes every 5000 miles or so. it uses MAYBE a quart in that interval.
Hemi's can also push oil past the coil packs, on the spark plug tubes, and oil pressure sensors are also notorious for leaking past the plug. something else to look at.
hope all that helps.
Yeah, all of this is definitely at the forefront of my mind and some of it for sure I know I have issues with or have been working on.
Regarding the PCV, I do have an actual valve in the system now (and have for a while actually, though originally plumbed through a homemade catch can). The current setup runs much better than my catch can setup (it was probably too leaky) and has a PCV valve in a hose between one vent port on my intake and the other end straight to the throttle body base. The other vent port on the opposite side of the intake is plumbed to the bottom of my air cleaner base so it pulls clean filtered air. So it is an orificed system at the moment, but whether it is correctly sized is entirely unknown. I believe the valve was picked from an engine of similar size (~5.something liters), but that likely means very little. I was also somewhat restricted by what valve would physically fit in my setup as a lot of older valves are designed to mount directly into valve cover grommets and not inline in a hose. I have seen the one adjustable valve out there (basically two check balls and springs that you set the preload on to crack open at the vacuum you want), but it's a pricey piece compared to the $5 spring and pintle you can buy for stock vehicles. Granted, if it saves it eating oil it might be worth it, but I've got to think there is an off the shelf valve out there somewhere that would work well enough. Valve covers are stock 06 plastic pieces, so no venting or anything like that. It's all done through some tiny ports in the heads.
I just swapped out plugs a month or two ago and noticed a couple of the plug wells were oily. One in particular was very full, most of the others were mild at best. Certainly makes you worried when you pull a plug and see oil everywhere, but it looked like it was largely on the top side of the plug, not the bottom, so I think it's more of a valve cover issue and not a fouled and wet plug kind of thing. All that to say that some valve cover o-rings are certainly on my list to look at.
That's one reason I like the idea of a stock intake, because it gets me back to a stock PCV system that I know is designed specifically for the engine. I do think there is a chance that my intake is also not sealing well to my heads, which could potentially exacerbate the issue. I really like the idea of trying to have my intake cut for the stock o-rings more and more, though I'd have to find someone to do it.
I have not done any compression or leak down testing yet, though I might in the near future. My oil report still showed some not great wear as far as elevated levels of iron and copper though, so I'm a bit wary regardless. Some of that might just be accelerated wear from running it low on oil, so there's a chance that addressing the issue might slow the wear progression down. Admittedly the car has not seen a terrific amount of maintenance until more recently as it was driven very sparingly before and I did not have a functioning odometer to keep track of miles. I really couldn't even tell the oil place how many miles the engine had on it in total or how many miles or even what type of oil was in it as I didn't have it written down at the time, so the baseline is fuzzy to say the least, but any elevated material counts are something to pay attention to regardless.
Appreciate the feedback though! Definitely some stuff to look into. Did you have any suggestions for the PCV system? My latest setup has been on the car since the last oil change, so the 2+ quarts I suspect it has burned since then have all been with a PCV valve directly to the throttle body base with no catch can. If it makes more sense to just use an orificed fitting, I'm cool with that. I don't need every ounce of horsepower I can get out of this engine, so I don't mind if a little oil gets in the intake, I just don't want it to burn up half the pan between changes. Most of my miles are all highway at ~1750 rpm with low load, so I like to stretch my intervals out as I'm not being hard on things, but having an oil light blinking at me when I do romp on the fun pedal is not a great feeling.