Have you guys ever experienced out-of-control blowby, but when checking the plugs they were all clean? To reiterate from my last post, I have a dead #4 cylinder...installed rebuilt head, new cam/lifters. Came home yesterday and their was oil all over the place. I came to find out oil was leaking from my airbox...the filter was SOAKED in oil, and the bottom of the airbox had about an 1/8" of oil as well. Pulled the PCV tube and she was puffing smoke. Dipstick had crankcase blow-by all the way up to the top as well (snot)...at first I said son-of-a-b***h but after checking the oil many times it's OK. It also looks like I'm getting a slight amount of oil in the exhaust,heh. The condensation on the ground had tiny drops of oil residual in them, and the back of my Jeep had really small splatters of these oily droplets as well. What gives?
I think Jim is p'd off at me...I wish he'd give me his 2 cents!!!

You are descirbing symptoms of a blown head gasket and/or a cracked head or block. Blow by alone doesn't put "snot" on the dipstick or oil and water in the exhaust. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Ok my 2 cents..
The first thing I would do is to clean up the intake. Then I would take both hoses from the top of the valve cover and attach them BOTH to a constant vac source without a pcv devoce in the hose.. This will pull 4 or 5 times the amount of blowby out of the engine. Then I would run her around town and see if I had relieved the internal pressure.
Then if I had relieved the pressure I would make up my mind what I wanted to do with that ride... SELL it or put another engine in it!
I would either sell it right away or I would build myself a stroker.. or a simple rebuild.. or the v-8 of my dreams..
In any event I would be about it right away.
Big Jim <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Jim...I figured I wuld just pull the engine and get it rebuilt...heck, the head is already done (although obviously I will get it looked over) as well as the cam and lifters.

This little 2.5 would be a piece of cake to pull, too. Lots of free space. All I want is a basic rebuild...so that all 4 cylinders will work again!

Heck, the head cost me 135$ to do...how much could he want to bore the block? I can get my hands on a master rebuild kit for 300$ as well.

Actually, my dad said he used to have a Pinto back in the day, bought new, that would drip oil from the tailpipe...my grandfather would make him put a coffee can under the exhaust, and when there was enough in there he would pour it back into the engine, heh. POS, huh?

Reminds me of the Detroit Diesels one of our boats has...no matter how new the gaskets were they would leak oil out of every possible orifice...now THOSE things are POS's...no power and very unreliable. I couldn't tell you how many turbos we replaced, either, along with after-coolers, liners, sensors...man.

I guess thaT's why the DD marine powerlants are one of the most widely used and popular in the world. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> I've worked on and around boats with Detroits and other diesel engines all my life. I can tell you, you can believe it or not, they are one of the most reliable engines in use. They do have their bad points, everything does. I would never have one thet was tubo charged, the extra HP is not worth the extra expense IMO, and though they are famous for leaking oil I've seen plenty of them properly maintained and asembled that didn't. Sounds like you AND your dad need GOOD mechanics. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Pete...the DD's I was referencing were the diesels one of the Coast Guard boats used...the '47 MLB to be precise. They are 6V92TADDECIII...6 cylinder 92 series or CI per cylinder, Turbo After-cooled, DDEC III is just the electronics package...I was an engineer on all of our platforms, and I think these things are garbage. Our 41 footer used Cummins (903 VTM's) circa 1975 and we NEVER worked on those...just kept up on basic maintenance. Those DD's weren't problematic in our platform alone; it's a recognized problem throughout the CG. The DDEC system itself was a headache...i think the most reliable part of that boat (BC you never heard of problems) was the Marine gear which was a Reinjes...German built...the DDEC would actually translate the electronic output signals from the marine gear from German to English, which I always thought was pretty darn neat.

Oh, Coast guard, say n' more! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> It sounded like you were saying all DD's were Junk and that just ain't so. Since you mentioned your Dad then said Our boats I figured you meant his boats. I' guilty of reading in between the lines, so to speak. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" /> The problem with the engine you speak of is the fact that they rum them at high speed to force a good engine to work twice as hard as it was originally designed to. the Coast guard bought them because of the good HP to weight ratio vs cost. They would not be my first choice for a boat of any kind but the fact is over all they have an excellent reputation world wide and are, in general very reliable. They are not as efficient as 4 stroke diesels and don't go as long between overhauls but can be overhauled at half the cost of a Caterpillar or Cummins so it works out.

Pete, we always joked about how advanced that boat is (the enclosed bridge looks like that of a Boeing 747 cockpit...learning about EVERYTHING to become qualified was NOT fun) but that it runs on ancient engine technology. Cruising RPM was 1700 at 26 knots (yeah right, maybe with gail force winds on your stern following a 5 knot currrent, buit that is what the manual insists) so we were pretty darn easy on them.
Our Merc's (I hate new 4 stroke outboards) had a 2500 RPM limit (well, on a search and rescue case it was obviously much higher, but 2500 was not to be exceeded in all other situations)
Actually, our new 25 footer had the Honda 4 strokes, and I liked them now that I think about it.
Our Johnsons got phased out b/C we were constantly blowing them up. The only 2 strokes we still have are on the 23'...Merc 150's...they have been BEAT and beat and beat...but they still keep going!!!

A broke piston skirt will also cause massive blowby and is more likly than a cracked block.

Have you checked for oil in the Radiator? Did you do the Oil in cyl compression test?