Reddish Varnish Inside Valve Covers and FrontCover

[BaReinhard]

Good Morning All,

First off a bit of background:

I have a 2008 Pontiac G8 GT (#880 of the first 888), its a 6.0L V8 that is fitted with AFM/DOD. The car has 93K on the clock and I first got the car at 82K. I recently had a sticky valve/lifter (not completely sure as I am more of a computer guy than a gear head) on a compression check I was getting practically 0 psi. Anyway, I decided to go with a DOD/AFM delete with requires a new cam. I took it to a local guy who does work on LS motors and has a G8 himself. As he got the valve covers off he asked me what oil I had used previously then sent me a couple pictures, they were stained pretty bad with a reddish residue. When he got to the front cover he sent me another cover, again stained with reddish residue.

After some reading on this site, I have come to the assumption that the reddish stain is varnish (best guess). However, I haven't seen anything quite like mine in any other pictures.

I am here for some advice and hopefully some edumacation.

First things first, here are the pictures:










Next, what would be your advice in going forward? Once I get the car back from the guy I will be running brand new synthetic oil (mobil 1) and probably change it halfway through the OCI(possibly use some risoline or kreen near the tail end). I am open to suggestions.

Lastly, what do the different colors of varnish say as to whats going on inside the engine? Most of the varnish pictures I am seeing are more yellowish/orangeish hues, could this just be due to the previous owner completely neglecting the engine or OCI's?

Is this even varnish, or did the previous owner possibly use some dye to check for a leak/ try to clean something with a red colored cleaner?


Follow Up Information:
Since I have had the vehicle, my drives to work (5 days a week) have been on average 10 miles and take roughly 15-20 minutes (from engine start to ignition off). On the weekends I don't drive my car very often so it will usually sit. I will allow at least 20 minutes for the engine to warm up on longer drives before driving more 'spirited'. That being said, I typically will not beat on the car and I would describe my driving as mild, not slow but not fast either.

Thanks for the listen,

Brett

 

[FCD]

Doesn't look bad, it's just varnish, it won't do anything to your engine.
Maybe use Pennzoil Ultra Platinum, it's known for being able to clean well.

 

[901Memphis]

Just a by product of the DOD and maybe conventional oil, nothing to worry about

 

[zeng]

It's harmless varnish ....... it's not harmful sludge, as yet.
I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[BaReinhard]

That being said, is there a recommendation I should follow to ensure it doesn't become harmful sludge? Should I worry about cleaning the varnish off with something such as kreen?

 

[OVERKILL]

Varnish is sticky and at these levels can most certainly cause things to stick. it is not harmless. Ring sticking, which will cause compression loss, blow-by and oil consumption is a byproduct of varnish in the ring land area. Given the condition under the valve cover, what's going on in that area is likely not pretty either.




My recommendation would be to do some short runs with M1 0w-40, Redline or something along those lines. You should be able to see the results of some of the cleaning in your filters, particularly from the ring-land area.

What you will find should look like this:

 

[demarpaint]

Devil's advocate here. I'd run a short OCI with Kreen and conventional oil, follow their directions. Then switch over to a synthetic oil and change it once every 5K miles or 12 months which ever comes first.

 

[Maxima97]

What color is your coolent? some antifreeze has redish color. Might be antifreeze combind with vanish.

 

[tig1]

As Overkill said, varnish is not harmless and does cause ring coking. M1 is well known for preventing varnish and ring coking.

 

[Brybo86]

Maybe they were using ATF instead of motor oil?
Or red coolant leaking into oil

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Brybo86
Maybe they were using ATF instead of motor oil?
Or red coolant leaking into oil


It looks like varnish [fairly heavy varnish], and I would start addressing it.

 

[gomes512]

Nice ride, that 6.0 must be fun.

As others have mentioned, varnish can be removed but I'd avoid the use of any cleaners or additives. It built up slowly over time, I'd remove it in the same fashion. Short OCIs with Mobil 1 or Pennzoil Platinum will take care of it. I had a 4 banger Toyota that looked just about the same (well, with 4 less pistons). Short 5k OCIs with Mobil 1 made the internals look bright yellow after 20k, all the dark brown varnish was gone.

 

[WobblyElvis]

Regular oil changes with any synthetic oil will slowly clean it. I ran a cheap synthetic 7,500 miles OCIs in a slightly varnished engine and it slowly removed the varnish. The filter and oil would come out with a red hue to it.

 

[Linctex]

Instead of tying to wash all the internal surface areas, how about a tsp. of MMO or SeaFoam in each spark plug hole for 48 hours?

 

[gallydif]

First off sweet ride!! Want to trade engines? LOL. I'm thinking it could be the antifreeze that's giving it the reddish color. No need to use M1 unless you want to. I'd say PP, especially since theyre having a rebate going on right now too. Enjoy that ride.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

No reason at all to do short runs of a quality synthetic. You can't 'use up' it's cleaning ability so just use something decent for normal OCIs. If you're worried about it, change the filter halfway through and open it up to see what's in there.

Do not start using magic elixirs or any odd oil regimens like "Use the cheapest oil and filter you can find for 500 miles and do that three times, then use a semi-syn and a decent filter for 1000 miles and do that twice, then nothing but a mix two quarts of 20w50 Royal Purple, two quarts of 0w20 Amsoil, a quart of T6 and a quart of MMO for a year, then you should be good to go. That's what my friend's brother-in-law who just opened a racing shop does on customer cars because he read it on BITOG.".

 

[aquariuscsm]

PP and an AC Delco filter. No additives.

 

[Ohle_Manezzini]

I've cleaned an engine in that condition with an 15 minuts idle flush (those kerosene flushes). Some solvents are good to dissolve a still soft not caked coked varnish.

 

[paulri]

Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
No reason at all to do short runs of a quality synthetic. You can't 'use up' it's cleaning ability so just use something decent for normal OCIs. If you're worried about it, change the filter halfway through and open it up to see what's in there.

Do not start using magic elixirs or any odd oil regimens like "Use the cheapest oil and filter you can find for 500 miles and do that three times, then use a semi-syn and a decent filter for 1000 miles and do that twice, then nothing but a mix two quarts of 20w50 Royal Purple, two quarts of 0w20 Amsoil, a quart of T6 and a quart of MMO for a year, then you should be good to go. That's what my friend's brother-in-law who just opened a racing shop does on customer cars because he read it on BITOG.".


Can you explain your approach a little to me? I'm seriously thinking of doing 2 short OCIs in my Sienna, from 143K to 150K, at which point I'll take it to 10K runs on M1. Since it has been averaging 8K OCIs on conventional for most of its life so far, I'm concerned that if I just go straight to a 10K OCI on synthetic, there will be a lot of varnish and grime that will be suspended in the oil for a very long time (if not clogging up the filter). For me, the point isn't that M1's cleaning agents would be used up--its just a matter of not wanting to push a lot of gunk out into the oil, during that first long OCI.

In which case, wouldn't it make sense to do a short OCI or two, to get out a lot of the gunk that would come off quickly, so your 10K runs don't result in clogging oil galleries?

 

[BaReinhard]

Thanks bottom_feeder, I was worried there was some protocol after doing a cam swap, as I've heard mixed reviews.

Thank you all for your help and input.

It looks as though I will be taking the long-game approach, like gomes512 suggested it built up slowly, so I may as well dissipate it slowly.

Normal if not slightly shorter OCI's with quality full synthetic oils. Ill be sending in some oil after the next oil change to get some tests run and see what my engine is running like.