Freinds: I was wondering if anyone has any advice on this situation. I purchased an 81 GTSi in the winter. Car was emaculate but needed a major service done as it had 21,000 miles and was relatively "un touched". All work was complete and car runs smooth. On starting, the car tends to smoke (looks like oil burning) for a little while then goes away. Upon acceleration from a stop or sudden acceleration to pass, the car gives a shot of smoke. I checked the pistons with a scope through the spark plug hole to find evidence of oil in the chamber. There is oil on the back of the intake valves (valve guide seals?). Oil is clean after 1000 miles (rings are OK?). I have read much about the rings being a bad design when the 1980 model came out with the injection system and I have seen much being said about bad valve guides. I will be doing a compression test in a week or so but with the evidence I have now, I question if anyone out there has done or recommends simply changing the valve guide seals without head dissasembly? Also, is there always a piston ring problem on the 80, 81 and 82 vitage cars? Since my car is an 81, could I have been spared since Ferrari had a year to correct the mess? Do the Valve guides always wear such that a seal change will only temporarily solve the problem? Are there any suggestions for this issue? Thanks in advance for any help. After all the work I've done thus far, I am ready to be in it and not under it!
The bad piston rings were all recalled at the time....... IIRC there's a stem seal to use that does a better job......not the stock one...unless your guides them selves are worn out.. Maybe another chatter will know the seal I'm remembering, from other threads...
That is a sure-fire sign of bad valve guides. My '76 did the same thing and when the head was torn down we found .009 - .011 clearance on all the guides. Spec is .002. Pull the heads, take them to a REALLY GOOD machine shop that knows exotic stuff (trust me on this one, I have recent experience!) and have the guides, valves, and valve stem seals replaced. SSI makes guides for about $12 a pop and valves for about $30 a pop. Stem seals are a regular viton 8mm seal which are typically used by BMW and the like. Your engine will never blow smoke again.........unless the rings are bad.
Great advice. I will get a compression test done to get a better idea of the rings. Reading all the bad news about the rings, I get the sense this is not really a problem from your response. Am I getting too worried for nothing? Also, do you know if it is possible to remove the heads without engine removal? The front bank is a tight fit. While we are on rumors, what do you think of the "weak" valves and the possibility of valves breaking. I have been told many times that these engines are bullet proof yet I keep reading of this supposed common issue / concern. Thanks again for your insite.
I don't think you can get both heads off and retorqued in the car.. At some point they discarded the sodium filled valves, not sure what year. I would't reuse them but you rarely hear of one breaking, it happens but statistically low....
Yeah you might be freaking a bit. A leakdown test is much more thorough than a compression test. At the very least the heads can be pulled and worked while in the car. The front head as a tight fit but I am told by some heavy hitting Ferrari mechanics on this forum it is doable and I trust their judgement implicitly. The exhaust valves are of course a worry, but remember those valves have been in the engine nearly 30 years and have been fine. That doesn't mean you should reuse them though. New valves from SSI are the way to go if those heads come off.
How's the oil pressure when up to temp? If you have lots of oil pressure - say, 60-70lbs at freeway speeds (3,500-4,000rpm) then the bottom end may be OK to leave as-is and just do a valve job by pulling the heads. The smoke you're seeing is hopefully blue/black (leaky valves or rings) rather than white/grey (coolant - head gasket or cracked head). The compression and leakdown will give you some good data upon which to figure out what's the right path. Pulling the heads isn't too bad a job. You can set the valve clearances on the bench during reassembly but be sure to check clearances again when the heads are on and torqued - good chance you'll have to do some re-shimming here and there. It's a nice engine to work on, so, enjoy. Most good machine shops can work just fine on a 308 head - they're not that much different than any other foreign car alloy head. Trick is to avoid working with a poor machine shop. Good luck!
If this engine really only has 21K miles on it, before you start tearing it apart I would do several things (assuming they havn't been done already). Firstly get a compression & leakdown test done, then change the fuel injectors and get the CO set up properly. Check the ignition over & make sure it is running as well as it can be. Then I'd run it for a while & in fact take it for a long trip somewhere & work it reasonably hard. Something of an Italian tune-up even. Then get the Compression & leakdown done again & see where you are. It might be oil you are seeing on the back of the valves (pointing to valve guides), but it might be as a result of excessive vapour from the crank case breather (caused by blow by caused by a weak seal round the rings caused by over fuelling/bore washing from an old/bad injector or two. In other words if you get the thing running right it may well just seal itself up. Also try taking the throttle body off & have a look inside the plenum. If its an oily mess in there that perhaps suggests that there is oil finding its way into the inlet tract for reasons other than the valve guides.
Don't add Royal Purple, or any synthetic for that matter with those valve guides! It will burn more and you will have an even bigger puff of smoke. Ask me how I know!
Tru dat. Some of the 20-50s when hot run way too thin and breakdown a huge amount. Once some of those run over 230 degrees they break down and are never a 50 weight again. I use synthetics for that very reason. The engine just has to be in good enough shape to use the stuff
Wanted to answer some of the questions / comments in the last few posts. 1. The oil pressure is good at hot and cold. The guage never goes below 60 and ussually hovers around 70 - 80. I'm using the gauge on the dash board so I'm not sure of accuracy. 2. The smoke is a blue/black and most certainly oil. The spark plugs show evidence of oil as does the boro-scope when looking into a couple of the cyclinders. 3. Have not done a compression / leak down test but will in the coming week or 2 4. Although no way to confirm 21K miles but I know that the car has sat idle since about 1993. There is no evidence that even the timing belts have ever been changed before I got into it. The point is that the car sat for a very long time as this may play in your opinions. 5. I installed all new injectors but have always felt the car is running rich. Could it be the injector that dumps fuel for cold start into the plenum (forget what this guy is called). 6. There is no oil accumulation in the air breather and prior to the major service, I did look in the plenum with no oil found. 7. I use Mobil 1 synthetic 15w50 8. On a side note (may be a factor), it gets "testy" on warm re-start. About 50% of the time, I have to depress the gas pedal slightly to get it to start when it is warm (within 2 hours of having shut her down). The more I press the gas during this re-start, causes more smoke...very embarrasing since crowds ussually gather around her and want to hear it run 5 minutes after I get there...know what I mean?!?! Hope this helps clarify some of the open questions asked as I read through the thread. I get the feeling the valve guides are the culprit but I hate the idea of another tear up so I would like to try as much as possible to delay having to do this. You mentioned seal conditioner...you think this might help?
Good move, the new injectors....I think we are just pointing out that running it and a few oil changes will free up any sticking/gunked up rings and probably help oil blow by at the pistons. As far as 'running rich' you'd have to get a 4 gas analyzer and see what your numbers are... We had a guy last week blowing up mufflers, but his car was running..... I don't know what the stem seals are made of, if any seal conditioner would really 'help' there, but maybe usage well help there, also.......
Oil pressure is more of an indicator of the condition of the bearings - but of course is adjustable with pressure relief things on these engines. Also you are running a 50W oil so you would expect it to be where it is OK, well that could still be the rings not seating That will tell you if the valves or rings are an issue. If you have good compression then valve guides is looking like a reasonable bet. All the more reason to run it for a while IMO. See what its like after its done some work. Its called the cold start injector! AFAIK it only fires when you are cranking the engine. If you think the thing is running rich, have a good look around all the hoses in the injection system & also check the vacuum lines (on the 328 there is a long one that comes off the plenum & goes back through the wheel arch to the digiplex thing in the boot - mine had a big tear in it.). If you have an air leak what will happen is that you will set the mixture at idle & it will be set to compensate for the air leak. As the revs rise the air leak in something like a split vacuum hose becomes pretty inconsequential & so then the mixture setting is much too rich if that makes sense. OK well perhaps that rules out the blow-by theory! That's quite thick but you could always try a different oil. Hmmm could be fouled plugs - what plugs are in it? Do they have the correct temperature rating? Could also be the injection system/warm up regulator etc. You might be right but it also sounds to me like things might not be set up quite right & if its running rich that could account for some of the stuff you are seeing.
I really think this thing needs to be driven more than anything. When performing the compression check I would leave the plugs out and fill up the combustion chamber with some Marvel Mystery oil, turn over a couple times by hand, and let sit overnight. My car was relatively smokey, (combination of gunked up rings, fouled plugs, running rich, oil in the exhaust, ect) when I got it, and it had only been sitting more or less for 2 years. Compression readings were all over the map before the soak but instantly equalized after the Marvel soak. Even if that does not cure your ailment I would then get a couple oil filters, a bunch of oil, and a couple quarts of Marvel, and go for some extremely hard/hot drives for an hour or so. Change the oil, filter, add a quart or so of Marvel, and repeat once more. If you have any stuck/dirty rings this should help, kind of a quicker way to put some miles on the car. Again, I would really expect a car that has sat for this period of time to exhibit some signs of tightness and smoke upon first start up.
I have never heard of Marvel Mystery Oil and googled it to find its a gas treatment. Should I be running the gas with the mystery oil all the time or a few tank fill ups? Also, there was a question on spark plugs. I need to look again but my records indicate that I used NKG BP8 ES plugs. I recall that the "hot plugs" were not available and I took what they had since I'm not an aggressive driver anyway. Perhaps this is making the smoke issue worse and contibuting to the hot re-start issue? Lastly, when I chose the oil, I searched some threads and came to the conclusion that most people use the Mobil 1 15w50. Is there a better choice?
Marvel is much more than a gas treatment and has been in use closing in on a century now. You could use it in gas as a fuel injector cleaner and carb jet cleaner, but as stated it can do wonders on 'sticky' rings as well. Like I said just pour some in the combustion chamber, turn motor over by hand a couple times, and let sit overnight. It also fine to ad small amounts to oil (or even larger amounts if you follow the prescription in my earlier post about some quick, hot oil changes, the key is to make sure everything is hot). I believe you said that you have a fuel injected car. Not sure about FI 308s, but for the carbed 308s those '8' plugs are going to be way too cold, I believe I am running NKG BPs in my car. They are available, just takes some looking (as with everything else with these cars). I think that you will find the consensus on what oil to use in these cars is that there is no consensus.
Plugs need to be BP5ES for around town, IMO, then the colder (higher) number would be for Track use, extended high RPMs and engine temps...also pay attention to the spark gap, on my older cars it's quite small compared to "out of the box".... So I think your '8's are too cold.... My Engine Plate calls for Agip 10-50w, I use 20-50w in summer and a 5-50w in winter. I don't think you'll find an exact 10-50w in the USA......maybe Mobil 1????
Marvel Oil has been around a long time, and has properties that tend to awaken engines left dormant a long time......
