I opened the valve train on my SUV tonight to replace some leaking vc gaskets. I found an annoying problem, that the back upper quadrant of the valve train appears to not get enough oil splash and what residual does, cakes and cokes.
Vehicle is a 1998 Acura SLX (Isuzu 6Ve1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_V_engine), 161k miles. Documented 3~5k Jiffy Lube type changes until 130k. It consumed oil (these do, they have a ring design/drain problem like Saturns or recent Toyota 2.4l I4's). I ran Delvac HDEO to clean things up for 10k, then treated with SeaFoam to soak rings and oil use dropped dramatically. Switched to Pennzoil PP 5w-30, and 500 miles later oil use spiked, I think because of VC gaskets leaking. I found a spark plug journal full of oil, for example.
Anyway, I found the valve train looking OK on opening it up:
But the in the upper back corner it looked like this:
This is the only part that has these fine carbon granules. The cover looks the same.
So I am trying to figure out what to do. I cleaned the cover with a brush and acetone, and left soaking in diesel overnight to get as clean as I can. I can't repeat that on the rear of the intake cam, though.
I haven't taken the cover off the other bank yet, but suspect the same.
Vehicle is a 1998 Acura SLX (Isuzu 6Ve1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_V_engine), 161k miles. Documented 3~5k Jiffy Lube type changes until 130k. It consumed oil (these do, they have a ring design/drain problem like Saturns or recent Toyota 2.4l I4's). I ran Delvac HDEO to clean things up for 10k, then treated with SeaFoam to soak rings and oil use dropped dramatically. Switched to Pennzoil PP 5w-30, and 500 miles later oil use spiked, I think because of VC gaskets leaking. I found a spark plug journal full of oil, for example.
Anyway, I found the valve train looking OK on opening it up:
But the in the upper back corner it looked like this:
This is the only part that has these fine carbon granules. The cover looks the same.
So I am trying to figure out what to do. I cleaned the cover with a brush and acetone, and left soaking in diesel overnight to get as clean as I can. I can't repeat that on the rear of the intake cam, though.
I haven't taken the cover off the other bank yet, but suspect the same.