Heatmaker

Pulled my intake off.. sctraching my head wondering If I have a bad lifter or if it's in my head... but look at the ports on the heads? They're black and the the look kust as bad behind the valves. What causes this? I know something needs to be replaced... because 20K miles ago when I first pulled the intake everything was pretty clean.

valleyofthelifters

valleyofthelifters2

Whatinthehell

ssbowtie1

The oily film in your intake ports looks like a symptom of installing intake gaskets dry. Sometimes the shift of the intake as it heat cycles causes some leaks, so you should put a thin layer of RTV on the gaskets before installing.

As for the lifter valley, what kind of oil are you running and how old is it? It looks a bit milky, almost like you have some coolant in the oil. Have you been losing any coolant? I'd drain the oil and send it for oil analysis and they'll tell you exactly what's in your oil.

97WS6SCharged

Has the car been using oil lately? Check the throttlebody for oil as well. Alot of times, really bad blowby can come in through the crank case ventilation hose (or it does on blown cars anyway).

Heatmaker

Yes!

Thank you for your replies

I put RTV on the head side of the gasket.. but not the Intake side... I"ll take that as possible solution number 1.

My oil is just dirty it's 3.8K on the clock and time for a change. There's no coolant in there (thankfully) I guess the photo is kinda missleading.

I'm going to check the TB right now... all I know is that I had some sticky valves not to long ago... and I'm going to tear this thing down till I get to the bottom of it.

THnaks for the replies!

Heatmaker

Ok... I pulled the TB off... there's some oil beind it...not allot a small bit enough to question.

slverbullet

when you put your new intake gaskets on, spray them on both sides with copper gasket spray. works pretty good.

96ta(nick)

Maybe that is why i was slowly losing coolant... I put my gaskets on dry last time.

WeirdRich

The engine is toast...throw it out. lol, yeah jk

Ive heard of getting all that crap in the intake from something as simple as a bad PCV valve or leaky intake manifold gaskets. The crap in the lifter valley is just due to not changing the oil enough or just long time build up. Change the oil, run it for about 20 miles, change it again. (Good idea to do on a high mileage engine anyways.) Do this until the oil looks clean enough to you. I recommend cheap oil for this process...

slverbullet

??

because you put your intake gaskets on dry?

96ta(nick)

yeah no rtv or anything, i just put them on..

Heatmaker

I'm just going to assume it's the intake gaskets and goop em up good. The oil is normal... I change it out every 3K since 36K when I got the car. This is the first time I almost went to 4K.

I just want to get the motor back to strong so I can have fun racing in the mean time... I have a pile of parts I'm collecting for the 383 future (Spare no dollar) I guess a little at a time is the best way to do this for now.

I'm going to change out the lifters and hope that takes car of ticky then quit start up. My car feels like there's no power at high RPM's. I just hate to have to touch the promags after I had them set so nicely.

Thanks for all the help guys! Much appreciated!

Dave89IROC

umm..........there is no coolant in the intake...................

slverbullet

lol, dave hit this one on the head. if your leaking coolant out of your intake, youve got more to worry about than putting rtv on the gaskets. you sure your not thinking of the head gaskets or something? (btw-dont put rtv on those! )