Engine Woes

[FasterIsBetter]

Okay, this is somewhat lengthy but here it goes. I have a 97 with some slight mods. I bought it used off of an individual that has every piece of paper for everything ever done to it including tire purchases and oil changes. It has been garage kept most of it's life and for all of it's life it has been run on Red Line or Royal Purple synthetic oils. I test drove it and everything was great. I didn't drive it for 4 months after that because of the damn Pennsylvania winters, but pulled it out this summer. Sometime a few months ago I noticed a power loss. I have been reading the posts others have had on power loss so recently I went the route of changing the coil packs, spark plug wires, (which were original 97 wires), and spark plugs. When pulling cylinder #3's plug, I found OIL on the plug. Some of it was burnt onto the electorde, and some of it was still wet on the threads of the plug. This told me it was somewhat fresh. My question or questions are as follows: 1. The heads were pulled to put on Long Tube headers, I guess as a space issue by Brothers ???? Performance in Ohio before I bought the car. When pulling the plugs I found gasket seal in the holes where the spark plugs go and had some minor trouble pulling the spark plugs out because of it but managed. Could it be possible that to much of the sealant was used and it blocked something forcing oil into the cylinder? 2. If that isn't possible, which I don't think is because it wasn't doing that right after the job was done, the power loss occured several months after that, what else may be causing the oil seepage into the cylinder? I really don't have any major issues with losing oil. I change it every 3000 miles and it has never been low even after the power loss has occurred. 3. I plan on having the motor looked at, so, (long shot here), does anyone know of a good shop in or around the Pittsburgh, PA area that will be able to take on the job and do a good job at it? If pistons or other major internal work needs done, I am just going to see about boring out the motor and going the whole 9 yards on it. The mileage on the car is only 54,000 so I am not sure what it could be. Any help anyone can give me will as always be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[TheDukeOfEarl]

Oil in the cylinder is one of three things. Rings or valve guides/seals or head gasket. Get a compression gauge and check all your cylinders. If you find one that is low you can check if its rings by adding a small ammount of heavy weight oil and re-running the test. If the compression comes up its your rings. If it does not come up then you need to have a valve job done or head gasket replaced. Does your oil get dirty VERY fast? Do you have oil in your water or water in your oil? It sounds very strange for them to pull your heads to add headers. I have seen engine mounts pulled and the engine raised up but never the heads removed.

Oh yah!! to get the oil out of the cylinder you crank the piston to the top, take a strip off a shop rag. remove all lint. take a dowel and push the end of the rag into the cylinder. Dont let go of the rag. Let it asorb most of the oil, then pull it out. Repeat if nessary. You dont have to get it all. It will burn off. You will look like a 2 stroke dirt bike for a few seconds.

If this sounds too complicated I would recomend taking it to the shop.

 

[98svtconvert]

the other thing that you might want to check is the ring around the valve cover inside the spark plug hole where the valve cover meets the head. i had 30000 miles when i noticed a loss in power. same thing. when i pulled out the plugs i noticed a small peace of gasket in the hole. then i noticed that one of the rings was broken. same thing as you though. just a small amount of oil on the threads and no real loss of oil at oil changes. just a thought. i was able to change mine in my driveway. it only took a few hours. if it isn't that then i would try the above. hope it turns out o.k. let us know.