Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Engine problems

[Robert W. Garven Jr. (rgarven]

Thank Jim, you made me feel better, see my responses below. I love this car and it has been the most wonderful non human thing in my life.

I have always thought is was perfect so this errant number has got me worried.  I cant do a compression test till the car is back together, and will do that after everthing else

get adjusted!

Rob

Robert W. Garven Jr.

rgarven [at] gmail.com

 "The Ferrari is a dream - people dream of owning this special vehicle and for most people it will remain a dream apart from for those lucky few". Enzo Ferrari

On May 7, 2011, at 10:30 AM, Jim Conforti wrote:

On 5/6/2011 9:39 PM, Robert W. Garven Jr. wrote:

Lets talk about this

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?p=140497884#post140497884

 OK, at the risk of violating my own (and Benny Hill's) rule...

 Let's ASSuME that there are no "cracks" - no broken heads, pistons or
 cylinder walls.

 So where can air be leaking.

 1) The Piston/Ring/Cylinder interface
 2) Cylinder liner/Head interface (aka head gasket)
 3) Intake Valve
 4) Exhaust Valve
 5) Spark Plug

 To eliminate #1 - you put a squirt or two (not drops, but a good slug
 of oil - let's call it 3-5cc - into each cylinder and rotate the
 engine a few times before retesting.

 Note, this only eliminates WORN rings/cylinder liners - not STUCK
 rings.

I did this and the readings got worse, however I did put a few drops down the engine about a month or two ago

 You can eliminate #3 easily by listening in each intake runner and
 comparing the sound of leakage.

I did this and #3 & 4 were virtually identical sounding, I even rotated the engine a full 360 on each one to

hear what the sound was with the intake valve open.

 #4 is much harder unless you have the exh. manifolds off.

 If you have separate CO plugs that will actually come out, you can do
 that and listen to each as the cylinders are pressurized to compare.

I did this with the exhaust pipes. Most of the noise I heard was from the crankcase oddly allot from both good

and bad clynders, I assume this is from the rings. Although with my stethescope in the intake runner I could hear a neighbor talking

at 80psi up from the runner, at first i thought it as Enzo talking to me.....

 So we eliminate 2 the old fashioned way, run the motor for a few hours
 and then look for combustion gasses in/over the coolant using the
 proper (and very inexpensive) chemical tester which samples the
 gases and changes color.

I am pretty sure this is not a probelm as when I shut the engine down I had never had either

 (Of if you have a CO meter you can do it that way)

 Essentially, the "head" of air over your coolant will rapidly become
 all sorts of CO2, and usually you'll have either oil-in-coolant or
 coolant-in-oil.

 You'll notice however that I also mentioned #5.

 How, I can hear the thoughts - "But Jim, he has the TESTER in the
 spark plug hole".

 Exactly, and if I had a $1 for every time a POS tester didn't seal
 properly in 1 or 2 plug holes, I'd also have an F430 Scuderia for
 track days ;)

I thought of this and noticed a fair mount of sound coming out the hole on #3, but I also heard some coming out on #2

with the good numbers. The tester had an oring. I did put some grease on the threads and that did improve the numbers from

50 to 61. No sign of stripped threads and the plug in that hole looks good.

 This is 33 years of building engines, and thus having to fix every
 family/friend/acquaintance,

 If your tester doesn't have a good gasket, add an o-ring around the
 snout that screws into the spark plug hole.

 If it DOES have a good gasket it's bright light and/or mirror time to
 see the difference between cylinder 3 and the others.

 If none, rule out #5.

 Also remember - that a simple gummed up ring can cause #1.  Nothing
 has to be "bad".

I am hoping that it is this as I am not sure I have the money or time for the other scenarios. Thanks for your advice.

As many of you well know to get an engine down to where I have it took a month of sundays so after it is all back together I will

let everyone know what happened. I am posting my valve lashes if anyone wants to comment. I spent lots of time on FChat as it is

more friendly to pics and threads but spend my time here for moonshine and cats!

Rob

 In which case you can try running the motor, then squirting a little
 marvel mystery oil down each plug and rotating the motor warm a few
 times - letting it sit over nite - then restarting and immediately
 changing your oil.

 If it were me?  I'd give it an italian tune-up first.