I felt compelled to reply because I have the same problem on my 2v. It is getting fixed right now. I had a leaky valve seal. Smoked really bad on any start where it sat for over a half hour or so. I could tell the problem was in cylinder 5 because I removed all the spark plugs and inspected the piston tops/ and cylinder walls. #5 had oil on top of the piston and the cylinder walls looked bronze stained from the oil. I have been told oil in the cylinder can make it more prone to detonation so I wanted it fixed fast, it is quite embarrassing as well. I am shooting in the dark here, but with the added vac on decel and a bad enough seal oil could be getting drawn into the cylinder that way as well. I only got massive smoke on the start.

 

I felt compelled to reply because I have the same problem on my 2v. It is getting fixed right now. I had a leaky valve seal. Smoked really bad on any start where it sat for over a half hour or so. I could tell the problem was in cylinder 5 because I removed all the spark plugs and inspected the piston tops/ and cylinder walls. #5 had oil on top of the piston and the cylinder walls looked bronze stained from the oil. I have been told oil in the cylinder can make it more prone to detonation so I wanted it fixed fast, it is quite embarrassing as well. I am shooting in the dark here, but with the added vac on decel and a bad enough seal oil could be getting drawn into the cylinder that way as well. I only got massive smoke on the start.

What is the cost to fix something like that? How was it ultimately determined that was the problem?

 

Sorry don't know the cost, the shop that sold me the heads is taking care of it. I told them what I had found and they saw it on start, and have come to the same conclusion. They are supposed to call me if they find anything else. I think finding the faulty seal is the hardest part, replacing it seems pretty straight forward.

 

First thing was that the car did it only on start up once in awhile (normal) but when I was dyno'ing i noticed that a small amount of blue smoke would roll out when the rpm's came down from redline. This was only after the 3rd/4th run.

A few weeks later I had a Spark Plug pop out of my head (#8) and ruin the threads in the head.

This happened to my buddy with a 99 Cobra, he dynoed it and when the let off from redline it would smoke some white/blue and then maybe a month or so later it shot a spark plug out of the head ruined the threads and all, not sure what the hell causes it though, sorry

 

I felt compelled to reply because I have the same problem on my 2v. It is getting fixed right now. I had a leaky valve seal. Smoked really bad on any start where it sat for over a half hour or so. I could tell the problem was in cylinder 5 because I removed all the spark plugs and inspected the piston tops/ and cylinder walls. #5 had oil on top of the piston and the cylinder walls looked bronze stained from the oil. I have been told oil in the cylinder can make it more prone to detonation so I wanted it fixed fast, it is quite embarrassing as well. I am shooting in the dark here, but with the added vac on decel and a bad enough seal oil could be getting drawn into the cylinder that way as well. I only got massive smoke on the start.

Yes this is caused by leaking intake valve stem seals and worn guides. Decel placed the highest vacuum load on the engine. This tries to suck the oil down the valve stem. Usually not a problem on the exhaust side due to positive pressure present from the expanding gasses. Yes oil vapor in the cylinders is more likely to cause detonation. Oil in the presence of high oxygen concentrations has a very low flash point. When I changes valve guides in the heads cost $3.00 dollars for standard iron guides and $10.00 for bronze guides. That is per valve guide.

-David-

 

Yes this is caused by leaking intake valve stem seals and worn guides. Decel placed the highest vacuum load on the engine. This tries to suck the oil down the valve stem. Usually not a problem on the exhaust side due to positive pressure present from the expanding gasses. Yes oil vapor in the cylinders is more likely to cause detonation. Oil in the presence of high oxygen concentrations has a very low flash point. When I changes valve guides in the heads cost $3.00 dollars for standard iron guides and $10.00 for bronze guides. That is per valve guide.

-David-

If it is that cheap to replace guides, I may just do that. What was the labor cost?

 

The bad news is that I believe the heads have to come off for guides, but don't for seals. I definetely could be wrong about that though.

 

That is the labor cost per guide. Yes heads have to come off and be disassembled. Changing seals on a 4v motor in car is such a pain in the XXX.
I think I would rather chew on razor blades. Pull the heads to do the seals and save your self lots of greif.

-Daivd-

 

If you do decide to get bronze manganese guide, talk with you machine shop before purchasing. They require a dimond hone to cut not a ream. Some shops don't have the correct tools to do this. I found this out when I did mine.
-David-

 

my experience and 2 cents

I'm on my second 01 Cobra, and had two 97 Cobras as well. Both my 01's smoked a blue cloud nearly one out of every 5 startups, while the 97's did not. I kinda remember someone a few years back on svtoa.com saying this was a design flaw in the motor that caused oil to pool and thus poot it out at various, yet always embarrassing times. My current 01 does it and surrounds the car in a pretty nasty cloud that I always pray no one sees, but I'm sure some dumbass chevy fan notices and tells all his friends.

 

Oil to pool where? Are you talking in the intake from the PCV system? I need to take the time and check mine.

I get the smoke on every 1 out of 5 startup thing too. Quite embarrassing as you say.

This along with the inability to get comfortable behind the wheel (my ideal seatback rake seems to be between to available positions) has me in a love/hate relationship with the car.

On the oil thing. If it's PCV I'm willing to live with that. But if it's valve seals I'm ticked that any non-abused factory engine would do that so early (low-60K miles).

But financially she and I are stuck with each other. And hearing the mighty 4.6 4V at redline tends to make me forget the problems.

 

I ain't mechanically inclined, so I dont know the exact place it is supposed to be flawed, but I think it was under the manifold or somewhere close. Supposedly it's just a design flaw, shame Ford didn't do a recall and fix the problem as it affects alot of us. I haven't caled Ford though to research if any recalls had been done, so I may be wrong on that point.

 

Since my heads have to come off, would it be better to rebuild the stockers, with the kit from GEFracing or...

for performance gains, rebuild stock heads with FR500 cams

or

FR500/03 heads with Stock cams.

It has to be one or the other as I cannot afford new heads and new cams.

Does anyone have a complete list of parts needed to rebuild the factory heads?

 

Solid, I am doing the whole top end right now..I will be going w/ ported 03 heads and the Fr500 cam kit...whatever your gonna do make sure you do it the first time b/c you sure as hell aint gonna want to do it again.

 

Pull your intake and you'll find a pool of oil under the runners. This is coming from the breather tubes (driver's side is the tube with PVC and passenger side goes into the throittle body). Either go breather filters on both sides or oil separtors or both sides. It could be a valve guide, but unless you have over 60K miles on the motor, I doubt it.

Once the pool is filled, oil starts to spill over the edge and gets sucked into the cylinder. This will occur at startup because the engine will kick over a bit at startup causing oil to spill over. When my IRMC was cleaned and motor replaced on my 98, the mechanic said it was a pool of oil the size of Iraq under there. lol

 

I just passed 63K yesterday.

I'm probably going to pull plugs and the intake cover this weekend to see what I can find.

I keep switching back & forth between wanting the ditch the car and not. I decided yesterday there's no point in getting rid of the car and taking a $3K to $5K loss over a problem I could fix for less than $1K at the most (cheaper still if it's not valve seals).

 

Breathers should be coming in any time. I'll let you know how that goes.

 

SnakeBit, your theory is starting to make sense.

Yesterday morning the car smoked badly. The day before (Memorial Day) I'd driven 8 hours on the interstate.

This morning after just a trip to the office & back I had no smoke at all.

I'm glad it's going to be nice this weekend. I can drive the Alfa while I have the Cobra apart.

 

My opinion on the oil getting into the engine is from the lack or I sould say non exsistant baffling to the valve covers breathers. When I had the covers off last I took the metal plates off the inside of the valve covers where the pcv goes through. To my suprise there is nothing in there, just empty space for oil vapor to get sucked up and into the intake. I took aluminum screening and balled it up into multiple peices to fill specific areas of this space. I then reseat the cover in place. I hope this will cause the oil vapor to separate as is has to pass through the maze of screen. I don't have any signafigant milage on the engine yot to see if is working, but I will update as to if it worked or not.

David