Well, I haven't stopped working on the ZL-1 but autumn is always a busy time with a lot of other things to take care of.
But here is an update to keep you guys warm!
Regarding the rather high oil consumption that we have had since we fired the engine up it was a huge approvement when I mounted the oil bypass valve that was missing and didn't come with the ZL-1 block! I still think it smokes to much when you hit the pedal-to-the-metal but I don't know...it´s a complete new engine with very few miles on it and maybe its normal?
Then I remembered something that my engine guy said about the valve stem seals and that he had to reuse the ones that came with the heads from US because he had trouble finding seals with high quality to fit inside the double springs....you can see the white and rather stiff seals through the springs here:
Hmm, could changing the seals be a solution for decreasing the oil consumption?
I had to try so I took a valve cover of, removed a set of springs and checked the white seal....it was very loose on the valve guide but ok with the valve stem.
Could these little suckers really work as small pumps and shot so much oil into to the cylinders that it would cause gun smoke from the exhaust!?
Well I think they can so I will change them and preferable without taking the engine out too...
I asked some of the big block buddies I have and they all preferred the seals made of Viton.
Checking the interweb gave me a company with a lot of fun stuff for us Chevy-guys, LPC or Liberty Performance Components
https://www.libertyperformance.comLPC had the perfect Viton seals for me that actually fit the valve guides on my heads so I don't need to machine the guides to make the seals to fit!
I placed an order and had the lite bag with the seals within a week here in Sweden!
Not hard to see the difference between the seals, huh?
Test fitted a seal and I think this is going to be just perfect:
Sadly I couldn't finish the job cause the spak plug because the air valve holder didn't fit my heads when the manifolds are mounted and I don't want to take them of. I ordered this one below that will make it easier to mount but it hasn't arrived from the US yet:
So this is how it looks in the engine bay right now:
I will take my time to finish this properly and do the valve adjust next spring and hopefully we will have a ZL-1 in the Hugger that's smokes a little bit less!
