quote:
My oil consumption continues to decrease on average, but I have two types of consumption presently:
1. Those huge 3mm oil rings take a minimum of 3000-5000 miles to seat properly. I spoke to the only other person I know who has a custom TotalSeal Ring set--a automotive engineer who put them on his "old-school" Audi V-8. He recalled that it took "forever" for his rings to seat, but once they did . . . No more oil consumption past the rings whatsoever.
2. I still have a bit of over-pressure in my valve train due to not finding the perfect diameter breather hoses. What worked well pre-rebuild has not worked too well since the rebuild. Pre-rebuild, you may remember that I had a problem with my stage 3 silicone set-up literally sucking the oil out of the valve cover, and I remedied the problem by using over-sized breather hoses to reduce the vacuum. After the rebuild, at higher RPMs, my crank case pressure went so high that it came out of the front end of my gun drilled cam on bank 1--yes, the end into which the cam sprocket bolts! (It did not come out on bank 2, because that one has the cam position sensor on the back end and goes through the valve cover completely). So I reduced the diameter of the breather hoses and installed an inner liner similar to that of the OEM set-up to catch oil but still create more vacuum to reduce pressure.
So, my oil consumption varies with my RPM's. On the one hand, the engine can eat a bit of oil when I take advantage of breath-taking acceleration and use all 6000 RPM; on the other hand, I have minimal oil consumption with mellow commuting.
Thus, I still have to create more vacuum in breather hoses to keep the oil from seeping past the valve stem seals at high RPMs when pressure becomes greatest.
What level of oil consumption would you consider acceptable for using this Series 3000 5w-30? (Also remember that the oil pressure should decrease with this thinner oil--I feel some what interested in this tougher, cleaner thin oil, because, theoretically, this should also result in lower oil consumption with my particular TotalSeal ring set.)