Oil in the water

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69conv

69conv

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So a little background while my camera loads. Found a 90 LA 360 with roller cam (thanks for the advice Rumblefish) had it gone thru including 20 over, Keith Black pistons, 5 angle valve job, port matching, deep bowl blend, clean up 10 on the heads, nice Lunati 224@50, 515 lift (thanks Rusty Rat Rod and Mike at MLR) and had the long block assembled and delivered. Added airgap intake, Demon Street demoncarb, MSD ignition and dist, Champion rad and misc goodies. Fired it up and ran it, checked the fluids and everything checked out. No leaks, no overheating, no fluids in the wrong places, everything looked good. Fast forward 300 miles, engine is taking a long time to come up to temp, may be unrelated. Cracked open the rad and this is what I found.
IMG_1217[1].JPG
 
So no water in the oil, thank Ma Mopar! Next I thought I wold pull the spark plugs and see if there was any difference in appearance. #8 was very slightly more lean, all looked a bit rich but the engine isn't really broken in yet, so I can forgive them being a little dark. The first is #1, the second is #8.
IMG_1219[1].JPG
IMG_1226[1].JPG
 
Is the radiator new? Could be nothing more than protective oil on the aluminum. Hard to tell since we cannot see the fluid inside the radiator. Somebody blocked it with a shop towel. LOL

See if you can get a sample in a clear glass and lets see what that looks like.
 
Num
69conv said:
So no water in the oil, thank Ma Mopar! Next I thought I wold pull the spark plugs and see if there was any difference in appearance. #8 was very slightly more lean, all looked a bit rich but the engine isn't really broken in yet, so I can forgive them being a little dark. The first is #1, the second is #8.View attachment 1715144901 View attachment 1715144903
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Number 1 is dead pig rich. Number 8 is pig rich. It's rich at idle and it damn sure looks like it will be rich at WOT but you'd have to clean up the tune up and then cut the shell off the core to see it in pictures.

You need to clean that up. It doesn't need all that fuel.
 
Thanks for checkin in Rusty. New Rad. I've tried to skim the oil off the top of the water, been thru about 20 towels. BTW I'll fire the sob who left the towel in the wrong place, lol. It looks like a coating on the surface, I'll try to get a sample. Engine runs great, doesn't seem to have a dead cylinder.
 
Thanks for chiming in YR. I just got done changing the speedo gear after a rear end change and it was idling for about 10 min. This version Demon has the springs and rods and a 3 position pump shot adjustment and I'm crap at tuning. Has a nasty bog at initial throttle. The plugs show the richest and leanest. I just really want to solve the oil thing.
 
69conv said:
Thanks for checkin in Rusty. New Rad. I've tried to skim the oil off the top of the water, been thru about 20 towels. BTW I'll fire the sob who left the towel in the wrong place, lol. It looks like a coating on the surface, I'll try to get a sample. Engine runs great, doesn't seem to have a dead cylinder.
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I wouldn't sweat it just yet. Might be nothing to worry about. It's a new build too, right? Could be protective oil from the radiator as well as some left over cleaning chemicals from the machine shop in the block. Lets not condemn anything yet. lol
 
The first one is the rad with the layer of oil on top of the water, the second is after the towel treatment, you can still see a bit around the edges.
IMG_1215[1].JPG
IMG_1216[1].JPG
 
That wouldn't alarm me, but I would still verify where it is coming from.
 
Bought a leak down tester today. Pumped up the #8 cylinder and it showed a drop of about 20%, compared it with #3 and it was the same. If nothing else I now own a nice leak down tester!
IMG_1227[1].JPG
 
Just a thought.
Had a situation with my daughters Jeep Grand Cherokee 1996 318. Reddish brown oil kept getting into the overflow. I suspected an oil passage or head gasket leak. Turned out to be the trans cooler in the radiator had a pinhole leak. When trans had some pressure it would allow a small amount of trans fluid into the radiator and being lighter than water rose to the top and into the overflow. Just a thought.
 
Unless we are talking about very insignificant amounts of oil, a rise of oil in the radiator should correspond to a drop on the dipstick.
 
To clean up the cooling system i have used simple green. It is the cheapest and most effective thing i have tried. Pull thermostat,rinse and dump in a bottle of simple green. I buy just the spray bottle size. Run it to warm up engine, then drain it and flush it a couple times.
 
Do a vacuum test divide that by two and use that # power valve. should clear up rich symptom. Most carbs come with a 6.5 power valve for 13-15 vacuum. with that cam your vacuum should be a lot lower . If your vacuum is lower and is 7 use a 3.5 power valve and so on.

Also you want to idle off of the secondaries so the primaries are square at the transfer port. If your car has no secondary idle screw you will have to drill holes in the primary ventura valves. You never want to have the primaries open more than the square of the transfer port. It screws up the emulsion jet function and causes a dead spot off idle. squaring the transfer port must be done before the carb is installed. Then never touch the primary idle screw

A lot of times when you run a larger cam the fuel and air must be increased at idle. Using the primary idle screw past square of the transfer port is a no no.
 
Thanks for all the great advice. I know I've said it before but FABO rocks because of you. I like the idea of flushing the cooling system and watching for any more contaminants in the water. I leak tested 2 cylinders and I think I will test the other 6 just for data. Also time to do a little more digging into tuning, just bought the tune up kit, gonna check vacuum etc. Looks like I'll be busy!!
 
totally useless to you, but the only thing that comes to mind is "fire in the sky"
 
69conv said:
Thanks for all the great advice. I know I've said it before but FABO rocks because of you. I like the idea of flushing the cooling system and watching for any more contaminants in the water. I leak tested 2 cylinders and I think I will test the other 6 just for data. Also time to do a little more digging into tuning, just bought the tune up kit, gonna check vacuum etc. Looks like I'll be busy!!
Click to expand...

I used dish soap 1/8 cup and ran the motor at temp for 1/2 hr and flushed it all out.
I did this because the cooling system seemed to be a little gummy, and the soap removed any possible oils causing it.

Sorry to say, but I have the impression you have a coolant leak into the oil, and that you may not have gotten that intake leak like you thought.
The exhaust and valve cover venting videos showed that IMO.
 
Looks like RRR pegged it with some sort of coating in the rad or solvent in the block. No drop in the oil level, flushed the cooling system with simple green ( thanks tooljunkie) and so far no more dark fluid in the cooling system. Now to do something about the dead pig rich problem, lol. This model carb has the spring and rod setup so the kit should arrive in a couple days. I'll try oldmanmopars school of carb tuning and keep my fingers crossed!
 
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