No oil in New motor after 450 miles HELP!!!!!!!!

QUICK SIX

New Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
I have just had my motor rebuilt and I had been drive the car to break it in and get the rings to seal, after I had drove it for about 450 mile and I heard some ticking, I checked the oil and it showed that the oil was fine, than the ticking stopped so I drove it 30 more mile and notice it coming in and out so I took it home. I let it set for about 2 hours and than I started it back up no ticking and no smoking, I drove it about two miles with no problems I cut the car off for about two minutes started it back up and it sounded like the Gap band was up under my hood, I drove it back home and on the trailer. When I got to the shop and pulled the oil plug there was only about a 1/2 a Qty in it, there was no oil stains anywhere. After I put some oil in it and started it up again the ticking went away and it sounds fine but does any one have any ideals, one where did all the oil go and what all do I need to check to see if there is any damage to the new motor.
 
it can only be bad if the oil is disapperaing that fast and there are no leaks of any kind.
is there oil in the exhaust pipe? what do the plugs look like? oil getting past the pcv valve?
 
For the first half of the mile it was smoking off and on and than after about 400 the smoking had stop and my builder said the rings most have seated. I haven't found any oil leaking form the block and no oil stain any where I have parked it. Could it have bruned up 5qtys of oil?
 
Oil drainback holes in heads?, a long shot becasue i dont think the valve covers are even going to hold 5 qrts. also possibly leaking inside rad
 
Oil drainback holes in heads?, a long shot becasue i dont think the valve covers are even going to hold 5 qrts. also possibly leaking inside rad

I don't think it is in the head because when I changed the oil and put the oil back in it the oil gauge was there and reading good.
 
take covers off and inspect the holes, maybe somthing got messed up when the block was being put back together,.........i acutally just went out and looked at the holes, there located at each end of the heads they drain into the lifter valley, hope this helps
 
That's a lot of oil in a short time. Did your engine have a catastrophic failure since you had to rebuild it? If it did it probably took out the turbo too. With no visable oil leaks on the outside of the engine and with the engine running smoothly I'd guess that the turbo seal on the exhaust side is probably bad.

To test that you will need to start the engine after it cools down. This will tell you if it's actually the turbo that's causing it. The engine should not smoke when it's first started from a cold start within the first minute of running. Once the exhaust side of the turbo gets hot it will start burning the oil out of the downpipe and start smoking ONLY IF THE TURBO IS BAD.


The engine is most likely ok but running it very very low oil pressure didn't help. I'd put a oil pressure gauge on the engine and let it warm up for about 30 minutes at an idle so the oil will get hot. If the pressure is OK hope for the best in the miles to come...
 
take covers off and inspect the holes, maybe somthing got messed up when the block was being put back together,.........i acutally just went out and looked at the holes, there located at each end of the heads they drain into the lifter valley, hope this helps
I will check first thing in the morning, thanks for your help with this.
 
That's a lot of oil in a short time. Did your engine have a catastrophic failure since you had to rebuild it? If it did it probably took out the turbo too. With no visable oil leaks on the outside of the engine and with the engine running smoothly I'd guess that the turbo seal on the exhaust side is probably bad.

To test that you will need to start the engine after it cools down. This will tell you if it's actually the turbo that's causing it. The engine should not smoke when it's first started from a cold start within the first minute of running. Once the exhaust side of the turbo gets hot it will start burning the oil out of the downpipe and start smoking ONLY IF THE TURBO IS BAD.


The engine is most likely ok but running it very very low oil pressure didn't help. I'd put a oil pressure gauge on the engine and let it warm up for about 30 minutes at an idle so the oil will get hot. If the pressure is OK hope for the best in the miles to come...
Yes I had spun a bearing and I did find that the exhaust side of the turbo that three of the four bolts were loose, also after I put the oil back in the engine I let it run for about 20 min. and there was no smoking.
 
There's only four ways oil can get out of an engine in such a short amount of time...

1. An oil leak. Which would probably show up on the bottom of the car somewhere. (you said no oil was under the car so we can rule this one out)

2. Out of the tail pipe. It's caused by rings, seals, busted pistons, blown head gaskets...turbo included. (most likely one of these is causing the problem)

3. Into the radiator. This is due to a crack in the oil pressure feed ports to the coolant passages. Or a gasket cross leak from oil to water. (not the case you have either so we can rule this one out)

4. It was never put into the engine in the first place...:eek: (Not the case either because you knew it had oil in it before your 450 mile trip)
 
There's only four ways oil can get out of an engine in such a short amount of time...

1. An oil leak. Which would probably show up on the bottom of the car somewhere. (you said no oil was under the car so we can rule this one out)

2. Out of the tail pipe. It's caused by rings, seals, busted pistons, blown head gaskets...turbo included. (most likely one of these is causing the problem)

3. Into the radiator due to a crack in the oil pressure feed ports to the coolant passages. (probably not the case you have either so we can rule this one out)

4. It was never put into the engine in the first place...:eek: (Not the case either because you knew it had oil in it before your 450 mile trip)

during the first 300 miles it did smoke when I came to a stop or the car was idling and when I jumped on it I would get a puff of smoke and the builder told me that was because the rings wasn't seated?
 
The bad thing is once the oil is out of the engine it's not going to smoke any. ;) Once you put oil back in the engine, check your oil pressure (manually), and see if it starts smoking again. Take notes of when it smokes.

One more thing to check...inside of the intercooler. Could be it all went in there from a leaking turbo?? Probably not though...


One more thing.....ALWAYS check your oil on a newly rebuilt engine every day or every 50 miles. Especially since it was smoking. Could have saved you from running it dry.
 
The bad thing is once the oil is out of the engine it's not going to smoke any. ;) Once you put oil back in the engine, check your oil pressure (manually), and see if it starts smoking again. Take notes of when it smokes.

One more thing to check...inside of the intercooler. Could be it all went in there from a leaking turbo?? Probably not though...


One more thing.....ALWAYS check your oil on a newly rebuilt engine every day or every 50 miles. Especially since it was smoking. Could have saved you from running it dry.
Thanks a lot I will be dig in to al of these suggestion first thing tomorrow. Once again I really appreciate every ones help and I will give everyone an update tomorrow.
 
Check the plugs too. I had a SBC with a really bad intake manifold leak that wasn't detectable until the car had a hard vacuum on it. It would then pull oil from the lifter valley into the intake passages and it would burn it up. I ran through 2 quarts of oil in about 50 miles. The plugs were totally fouled. It matches your symptoms of no smoke under boost but a ton at idle. Something else to check anyway.
 
Was the oil level checked before first running the car? Never take anyone s word for it, Has the oil cooler in radiator been checked or reused? How old are the oil seals in the turbo?
 
Off topic but you mentioned this a few times in your posts. You said the engine builder said it smokes cuz the rings arent seated even after 100 miles. I call BS on that. I rebuild my engines every season with new rings & bearings & NEVER do they smoke from unseated rings. Just broke one in Sunday morning. Rings these days seat pretty fast & dont need more than a few miles to seat. They do need some short spurts of power a few times & not long steady cruising. Stoplight to stoplight kinda stuff.
It wasnt the rings fault unless he screwed up building it. I hope you know 100% there was enuf oil in the motor from day 1 & not just assumed there was? That would really suck!!

PS: I would check the intercooler & TB area as well as plugs. Can give you some good info along with all the other ideas mentioned.
Good luck & I hope its ok.
Also, cut open the filter & check for anything that shouldnt be there!
 
"You said the engine builder said it smokes cuz the rings arent seated even after 100 miles. I call BS on that.
+ 1 here...
20 mins on the dyno @ low load. Cool down, check the valves, the plugs, and it's HAMMER TIME

Look on the trunk lid... Most likely your 5 qts of oil are there.
 
Oil

Is it possible that the oil is mixing in with the coolant somewhere in the radiator? Check the coolant my guess is that it would look pretty bad if that was the case. The only other way I could see the oil disappearing is if the block was running really hot due to a cooling issue like a stuck thermostat or blocked coolant passage. I overheated my first car as a kid and it needed 4 quarts of oil after fixing the leaky radiator. Good luck.
 
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