Re: [alfa] V6 oil consumption

[Joe Elliott <jee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I did a compression test awhile ago, when the oil consumption started 
to get bad, and compression was fine.  I didn't trust my pessimistic 
judgement, so I took my numbers to a top-notch Alfa mechanic and he 
said they were nothing to worry about.

I replaced the valvestem seals last summer, and that cured the 
problem almost completely for 2000 miles, until I changed the oil 
(and switched back to Castrol GTX for 3000 miles, incidentally).

I clean the oil vapor separator every 6000 miles, and that doesn't 
seem to help, but there is definitely oil in the intake tract every 
time I take it apart.

-Joe



> Joe,
> Please forgive me if you have posted answers to these questions before:
> Have you done a compression or leakdown test on the engine?
> Have you replaced the valve stem seals?  ( I seem to remember reading this...)
> Have you cleaned out the oil vapor separator like everyone has been 
> talking about?
>
> Anyway, it could be that your cylinder walls were very, very glazed, 
> (edit: or there was a ring stuck in its groove, but the fix should 
> be the same) causing lots of blowby in the cylinders.  It seems 
> maybe the 5 hour drives on the freeway would cause this, as there is 
> not (relatively) high pressure in the cylinders, causing the rings 
> to not keep the walls clean.  Then the 15 minutes of hard driving 
> increased cylinder pressure and temperature that it cleaned up the 
> cylinder walls (or un-stuck the ring).  If it was (is) consuming 
> that much oil, you can just check it in a couple of days to see if 
> the consumption rate is the same...
>
> Steve
> '74 Spider
> '65 Spider
>
> At 01:14 AM 9/8/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>
> > I had myself 95% convinced that I needed to get myself a used 
> > engine for Christmas if I was going to keep my poor GTV-6 on the 
> > road.  The oil consumption and the related cloud of smoke that 
> > followed me around had me convinced that there had to be something 
> > really wrong with that engine.  I even convinced myself that it 
> > felt slightly down on power.
> >
> > But today on the way home from a birthday celebration for a friend, 
> > I followed a rather reckless friend of ours back into Pittsburgh 
> > (saw a silver '80s Spider on 279 just south of the Ft. Pitt Tunnel 
> > at ~3:30 by the way--anyone on the list?), and had to work the 
> > engine considerably harder than usual to keep up with him.  It ran 
> > very well, and didn't really feel like it was lacking any power. 
> > What really surprised me was when we got back into traffic, the 
> > Alfa wasn't belching smoke like it usually does.  I can hardly call 
> > this conclusive, because we weren't in traffic all that  long, and 
> > depending on the wind, it's hard to tell what's coming out of my 
> > exhaust, but it's been pretty noticable lately.  As in big-time 
> > embarrassing.  But it certainly seemed to have improved 
> > dramatically after I'd been pushing the engine a little bit.
> >
> > So what's the deal?  I suppose it's true that I don't rev much 
> > beyond 3500RPM on a regular basis when I have my car at school, so 
> > you could call this an Italian Tune Up.  But I redline the engine 
> > routinely during the summer, and the oil consumption got pretty bad 
> > over this past summer.  Is there something in there that just 
> > doesn't get up to temperature unless I'm really working the engine? 
> > Something that gets up to temperature from 15min of spirited 
> > driving, but not from 5 hours at constant speed on the freeway?  I 
> > can't imagine that any kind of deposit that I may have cleared out 
> > would be responsible for the oil smoke.  Would I be a fool to spend 
> > $300 on a used engine?  I really want to run the car at Nelson 
> > Ledges later this month, but I was thinking maybe I shouldn't if my 
> > engine was about to die.  (I even had a dude in an old E23 BMW pull 
> > up next to me at an intersection and say "Your car's shot."  (I say 
> > "yeah.")  "You're not going to make it home.")  Should I just go 
> > ahead and do the track day, and see if it smokes any less under 
> > that kind of abuse?  Will a seemingly-strong engine that burns a 
> > quart of oil every 250 miles leave me stranded without warning?  I 
> > would think it would have to be a gradual thing, like a loss of 
> > compression, but seeing that cloud behind me makes me uneasy about 
> > making any of the trips I had planned for this semester.
> >
> > Thanks for any input,
> > Joe Elliott
> > '82 GTV-6
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