Burning Oil. Need Some Knowledge.

[sleepydsm]

'92 Tsi AWD 5spd
Head completely rebuilt 1 year ago by Motors By Gosh; all new valves, stem seals, decked 3 angle and it nows has about 3K miles on it since I rebuilt the entire engine. BTW the engine has good compression, 155-150-150-155.
The car smokes, and uses oil. It is NOT the turbo, so don't even suggest that. Took the exhaust manifold off, small amounts of oil pooled on the closed valves, exhaust side. Intake side clean, but it probably gets washed from fuel.

After the cams were removed from the head tonight, Blageo23 pointed out that some of the stem seam "springs" that keep tension on the valve stem were completely gone, and I saw one that was sitting ontop of the valve stem seal.

How the hell could that have happened?

Any one else have this happen?

I was hoping the problem was just bad oil control rings, but I'm pretty sure its the nearly new stem seals... wtf!

[blageo23]

And whats odd is, cylider #4 has the cleanest piston but 2or3 of 4 spings are gone. The rest of the pistons are wet.

Also he is getting oil coming in from his PCV(look in throttle body hole its dry, look in holes to intake mani its wet). Could that be a bad PCV? Or would you point the finger at the rings?

[sleepydsm]

Thanks for all your help guys.

[Kracka]

Sounds like you need some Kracka Vents

[95talonracer]

Kracka vents are nice. I was lucky enough to win a set at the dyno day!!

[turbotalon1g]

lol, i still need to get a set of those.

[sleepydsm]

I had a different engine machinist take a look at the head and throw on some new mitsu valve stem seals. He said the exhaust valve to guide clearance was about .006" THATS TWICE AS BIG AS THE MAXIUM CLEARANCE ALLOWED!!!! That pisses me off... So what did I get for my $500 from John Gosh? A shitty head job or what?

[sleepydsm]

But eh it will be OK with new stem seals. I'll have the car running in a few hours tomorrow.

[95talonracer]

I have bronze valve guides for ya!

[sleepydsm]

Eh the car is fixed. No smoke FTW!!!

[gofastman]

the only thing i can think of is maybe the VSS got put in dry, it doesnt take long at all for spring clad seals like that to burn up it they are installed dry, eather that or they were a bad batch, id call gosh up and ask him WTF the deal is, if nothing else just to learn something

[sleepydsm]

I'm more pissed because this application wasn't for Grandma's Buick, it was something where tolerances do matter. It's one thing if your tolerance is .001 and it's .002", but for it to be .003" and its .006"..... thats horrible. I have graduated this semester with a CNC Machinist and Mold/Die Maker diploma, I understand tolerances, what it takes to get to that number, etc. Rarrrrr.