Has anyone running small block iron Pro Topline heads w/ Bronze guides noticed quickly worn guides? I'm doubtful that this is my case, but my spark plugs are caked with burnt oil within 200 miles and while it could also be the intake is sucking oil up through the gasket, I can't help but think of the guides too, even through I'm running viton positive seals too. Would you go with the oil sucked up through the intake gasket or worn guides?

I don't know if this is your problem but one of the most common causes of premature guide wear is an incorrectly set up valvetrain. If the rockers are not riding in the middle of the valve stem then the valve is side loaded. This causes wear on the guides.

A leaky intake gasket will put oil in the cylinders. Pull the carb and look in the mainfold. If there is oil inside it, I'd bet on the gasket. Lets hope it is the intake gasket and not the guides.

Well.......as far as geometry, I (lazily) only checked one valve but it was riding right in the middle, so unless the valve heights are all over the place.......I imagine that the rest are all good. I'll pull the carb tommorrow and try and get a good look down the ports for oil. Hopefully that will be it............with all the talk of manufacturing flaws with the PT heads I can't help but blame the heads first, even though they really haven't given me any problems :clonk:.

Our local machinist checked out 3 sets of aluminum PT heads and said that all of them were messed up in one way or another. Brand new out of the box, one set had all the seats crooked and ran, well, you know how good it ran. He went on to say that he sent back all 3 sets and bought some Darts instead. I know that my 421 had the guides wiped out. He rebuilt them and said that the valvetrain geometry was probably way off. I didn't bother to check as this was a complete dynoed crate engine from Dynoflo. Valvesprings had just enough seat pressure for a .500 lift hydraulic cam. Too bad my cam was a .589 solid roller. I guess you have to check most everything now days, even crate engines that have been broken in and dynoed. I heard even GM performance parts had some problems with QC. It's these half A$$ guys who make a lot of people second guess themselves about buying a complete engine instead of building it themselves. One last thing. I forgot what kind of seals they had on my heads, but my machinist said that it was one of those that starved the valves of lubrication. It is such a good seal that it seals off too much oil so the guides don't last long. I think it may have been the teflon seals with that metal clamp thing around it??? Hope it isn't your guides, but just a heads up. Let us know how you make out.


Jay

pull the manifold and look, but don't look in the manifols, look in the ports in the heads. They should not have oil in them. It won't be in the manifold in any case, unless you've got a PCV that sucking oil. Some valve covers are not well designed in this area and the PCV will suck loads of oil in. I'd check those things before assuming the haeds are screwed up.

Does it smoke? if it does, when does it happen. the hallmark of bad guides is a puff of smoke when you pick up the throttle after coasting against compression. Also, bad guides will usually cause it to smoke at fire-up.

Again, check the obvious stuff before blaming the heads.

It will give a puff of blue smoke when I mash the throttle.......but I can't tell how much since I got this info from friends driving behind me.