fiveoformula

First of all, a few months ago I decided to rip apart my L03 and put some better heads and a cam in it. I aquired some '062 vortecs, had them shaved .030" and had screw in studs put in. My cam has just a hair over .500" lift. Runs pretty strong!

The problem im having is now with about 1500 miles on it, im starting to burn more oil than ever. Im thinking its because I didn't have the valve guides cut for the extra lift, (didn't know I needed to at the time). I heard that there are spring and retainer combos that I could get that would give me more retainer to guide clearance. Is this true or am I just going to have to bite the bullet, pull the heads and machine them?
Just looking for the next step right now, any help greatly appreciated.

Dougs91

I had the same problem. But mine was the intake gaskets! I had used the Edelbrocks since I bought a performer EPS intake. Was fine at first then it started using oil like crazy and there was also oil in the tail pipes. Get the original GM gaskets they are a little pricey "70 bucks" but they saved the day.

midias

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ade/index.html

fiveoformula

Very interesting article, so to me it sounds like I could safely use a cam that has .550" lift without modifying the guide at all? correct me if im wrong...
I am still sort of confused how the beehive spring will give me more retainer to guide clearance, I understand that you would have more room before coil bind.

fiveoformula

Im running felpro gaskets I believe. I will check to see if there leaking.

Dougs91

I don't know how good the Fel Pro's are but I torqued the intake per the patern at the correct torque and it still leaked. When I took off the intake you could see the gasket soaked with oil! Not to mention the intake port had oil in it also. My first hint was the spark plug was fouled with oil. That made me nervous because it was a new engine from GM (96-99 truck engine) but I read a few articles on those aftermarket vortec intake gaskets leaking. It's been a year and a half and the GM's are just fine.

fiveoformula

That is a possibility, I am still worried about having an issue with guide clearance, anyone one else out there run into this problem?

midias

The kit has different retainers as well

DBLTKE

iTrader: (1)

Interesting, are those steel retainers? Would titanium retainers generally give you even more room?

midias

I have no idea the best bet would be to call comp cams and see what they have for you.

fiveoformula

Well I filled the shopping cart, think Im gonna do a compression check first before I buy. Would suck if the problem is the rings or something.
Bad rings would smoke all the time though right?

3rdgenmaro

iTrader: (9)

Not always. You should always measure the actual distance between the retainer and the seal on YOUR heads.

I went with LS6 springs and comp retainers. There was no way I could get to .550 I even didnt try to go to .525 because the tolerance was too tight for my liking.

If you pull the heads for some reason, do it right and have it machined. You should have had new guides installed and machined to the correct height in the first place. I would have done that the same time you had the screw in studs installed.

fiveoformula

I wish I had, I just didn't know the lift limitation at the time. I didn't research aswell as I thought. The machinist didn't even mention that problem even though he claimed he had built several vortec headed engines for circle track cars.
But since it is all together now, I was looking for alternatives to pulling it all apart again. lesson learned I suppose.