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Thread: ca18det rockercover

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    ca18det rockercover

    Can you run the ca18det engine with the rockercovers off, ive seen other engines run with rockercovers off, just put some cardboard to stop oil from running down the side of head (block).

    But im not to sure about the ca18det?

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    Just running with no oil filler cap can spray quite a lot of oil around at medium rpm.

    Crank it with covers off, plugs out and fuel pump fuse removed. Then see how much oil comes out the bearing caps and flows across the tappets and out the exhaust side of the head.

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    Dorset & Hants Rep pointz's Avatar
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    Oil would be everywhere if you did!!

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    Guest ANDY black s13's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pointz View Post
    Oil would be everywhere if you did!!
    yep I can see it making a big mess fast,oil will drop on the exhaust manifold as the engine leans to that side
    and it will make smoke like crazy as it gets hot,soon after you will be tripping over floundering oil soaked Cormorants


    Whats your reason for doing it anyway? Check oil feed to the cams/lifters?

    There was an OPEL cam in head engine that had to be running with rocker off to do valve clearances
    the cam was sunk into the head so the oil flicked upwards mainly,but it still made a mess of the engine bay tbh
    but it wasn't a hydraulic lifter engine so the top end oil feed amount wasn't much,were as the CA will feed loads to the top end

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    Ive just done an full engine rebuild I would list but the list is endless.
    The only thing I didn't change were:

    Pistons
    Cams
    Hydraulic lifters
    Turbo
    Exhaust manafold
    ECCS unit

    Anyway the reason is that when I start the engine on idle and it warms up Im getting blueish smoke coming from the exhaust manifold.

    I did replace valve steam seals but on some Had to dab a little bit of oil on the inside of the seal to get it onto the shaft without tearing the shit out of the seal.

    When I took it up the road (100 metres) Thought I could hear a rattle coming from inside of the rocker cover that I didn't hear on idle b4 I put load on engine.

    Worried that valve steam seal has slipped up but they were prity hard to pull off when they did have a little oil inside so I don't know? !!!

    Also When I first start the car from cold Im getting 61psi oil pressure but as it warms up it slowly drops and the lowest I've seen it get to is 28 psi when fully hot. When you rev to 3000rpm you can get anywhere between 75 to 81 psi. (Running 10w 40 mineral running in oil.)

    Just wanted to see how much oil was getting to the head cams ect.

    Just to add even know there was blueish smoke coming from bad seal on exhaust manifold (ordering new uprated seals double layered as standard are shit throw them in the bin!!!!!) I wasn't getting much or very little smoke coming from the exhaust tail pipe.

    Also when I took it on that initial run up the road, I pressed the throttle and nothing happened,I had to pit my foot flat it the floor and about 2 to 3 seconds later it picked up, didn't have that problem on the way bk down the road it that the ecu reconfiguring as the car had no power for 4 months. Also my braked where kinda locked on had rusted up a bit on disks (it was like really really bad turbo lag.)

    Just to add I tried refitting those old (new) standard exhaust manifold gaskets the other day to see id I could seal it up ended up snapping the first stud so tomorrow I've got to try and drill it out using left handed drill bits, oh what fun!

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    Hate auto correct!

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    Guest ANDY black s13's Avatar
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    your oil pressure readings are normal and good,
    to check for oil supply you can pull the spark plugs and with a good charged battery crank it on the key a few times till oil light goes out
    crank it a bit longer (sometimes you can hear the engine spins a bit slower as the oil draws up and gets pumped around)
    then lift the covers off and have a good look,if the rocker cover bolts are all removed beforehand it won't be draining back

    CA valve stem seals locate onto a groove on the end of the valve guide,it takes a bit of effort even with correct tool to pull them off
    so I doubt one has slid up the valve stem,like some early ford engines used to suffer with (early CVH is one iirc) tbh most of them did

    can't shed much light on the one time it had a mega flat spot,if only did it once I wouldn't worry too much about it for now
    if it does it again it could be CAS ignition timing, or possibly a boost leak from a hose coupling/clip
    or cracked/ corroded and porous wing mount if still fitted?

    the snapped stud is just bad luck and happens to anyone,take your time drilling it as central as possible
    and fingers crossed it comes out ,its a m10x 1.25 thread

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    So installing the valve steam seals with a little bit of oil on the inside shouldn't have been a problem?
    I think I might have even put a little bit of oil on the outside of the valve guide aswell.

    still racking my brain on why the smoke coming up from the exhaust manifold is blueish, sometimes it can be exhaust gas colour or you can really see the blue in it. Also when you see the blue it stinks of burnt oil.

    Also if its not a valve steam seal slipped up what could that rattle be? It wasn't there b4 I put load on it, and it sounded like it was coming from the back left of the block inlet side rocker cover?

    As for the stud ya there M10 x 125 (I think they call it offset thread but I might be wrong on that)

    Just got a woodruff key from nissan cost me a few quid but it took a few days to turn up. (When I rang nissan they told me not until the start of next month! As they don't stock or use them any more. So that was lucky)

    But I noticed on some american threads that if they want something like that they just go to homedepo, where the **** can we go, its not like b&q are going to know what the heck I'm on about.

    Any clue I'm thinking maybe a engineering firm.

  9. #9
    Guest ANDY black s13's Avatar
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    oil on the valve stems is not a bad idea 'really',but it could be the cause of the smoke on this fresh rebuild
    iirc the stock valve guides are phosphor bronze or something very similar,good heat transfer and sort of a self lube material

    engineering firm yep and them sort of places,google search your area, hardware supplies,steel fasteners etc
    agreed the yanks have like auto zone and other huge car supermarkets on there doorsteps it would seem
    but I think they are just a huge ripspeed/halfrauds
    we have good/better quality part suppliers, just smaller scale and less shouty,(and spread thinly across the land in small sheds)

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    Pretty certain I've got a spare stud in my garage.

    I'll dig it out tongiht. If you PM me your address, I can stick it in the post to you.

  11. #11
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    That's ok dude no need I've got a spare 2.0 head for a norris designs build that a friend gave me so ill just pull a stud out of that.

    Cheers anyway

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