Evening all,

After having fixed the megasquirt and got the ignition advance running properly, I've been trying to sort the coolant temperature sensor settings, which were a bit all over the place. Seems better now, but...

While the engine was running, I was feeling the water pipes to see if the rad was getting hot, and there was a pop, and smoke coming off the exhaust headers. I stopped the engine, and there was hot oil in all the spark plug recesses - it seems to have come out of the spark plug threads once the oil's got hot and pressurised (there were bubbles appearing in the oil in the recesses, which makes me think it was being forced out of the threads). There is an oil cooler fitted, with a thermostatic take-off.

There's a breather vent in the crankcase, and another from the cam cover, which are tee'd into an oil catch tack, which has a vent on it (and I could see vapour coming out of the catch tank vent).

Sooooooo, any ideas why the oil's managing to get out? Too much oil / too thin an oil / oil getting too hot / over pressured? The spark plugs are done up nice and tight..

Ta,


Vince

http://locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=163402

Blocked breathers or....
Do a compression test, worst case rings
Could be valves seating and stem seals
There's lots of reasons start simple

I'd be suprised if the oil was coming out of the plug holes. more likely to have leaked from the rocker cover gasket. the bubbles will be a little bit of combustion gas getting past the plugs probably.

the rocker cover gasket is a good bet - are you using the special shaped washers ?