The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop 383 "New build" smoking

Man, sorry to hear that. If it were mine, I would leave the engine in the truck and pull the heads. The 355 that I built years ago was drinking oil at an alarming rate, when I was farming out the machine work originally, I took the heads to a shop that was recommended, bronze guides, 3 angle grind, umbrella seals. I pulled those heads and replaced them with another set of cast iron medium valve units but had another machine shop do the head work. Along with the head swap and pulling the big block oil pump and putting in a small block normal capacity pump, the oil consumption problem disappeared.

I considered leaving the engine in the truck but working over the fenders to remove much, especially heavy things like the heads doesn't sound like a plan. I may take the carb and intake off to check for oil being sucked in from the valley (wishful thinking, I know) but that would be the limit I think.

If you still have the 235 , get it rebuilt. At our age , who cares about how fast we get there. Most important ...how it sounds.
Making a bunch of noise but still cannot go faster than a hyndai, seems silly.
Only thing I pass out here are tractors and amish buggies.


Or buy a crate 350 and sell the 383. Quicker that way.

I don't have the 235.

I built the 383 and need to understand what I did wrong so no plans to replace it and I am not in any hurry.

Sorry you’ve got to deal with pulling the engine but I’m with you. I’d want to know what went wrong.

I finally decided to determine what my approx fuel consumption is and based on one fill and roughly 100 miles I calculated it is in the 8 mpg range. I knew it wasn't good, but didn't expect it was that low, so I am wondering if my oil consumption problem may be associated with excess fuel washing down the cylinder bores resulting in bore and ring wear.

The engine has always started and run well, generally starting without the aid of the choke so I should have suspected it was pretty rich and I do not expect the fuel consumption to be very good.

If the oil problem is associated with excess fuel is it likely that the 1000 miles I have on the engine has worn it to the point that it needs to be honed and new rings installed or can I lean out the carburetor and avoid pulling it out and apart? I know there are a lot of piston miles traveled in the bores for 1000 miles but if I can avoid pulling the engine out/apart it would be desireable.

Regardless I need to detmerine how best to get the carburetor calibration closer to desired (whatever that means). Is there a good way to determine the proper jetting other than trial and error? I do not have an exhaust analyzer but may have a shop nearby that could help with this if that is the way to go.

I should add that the engine runs very well, pulls good through the rpm range with no bogs or indications of being too rich. The tailpipes have black soot and while it has been a while the plugs indicated (see earlier post in this thread) it was running a little rich but not so much so that they are sooted.

What carburetor are you running? Make, CFM, spread bore/square bore, vacuum/mechanical secondaries, air filter size, intake manifold style?