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I'd say - change the oil again before you do that, or at least drain some out and see if it looks, feels and smells like oil.
Help with a piston soak problem aka did I destroy my engine?
- Thread starter jsean
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4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Change it again and let it slowly reach operating temperature … ?
I'd say it's safe to rev it up and 'blow out the carbon'. But I'm not there and did not see what actually happened. What gives me hope is the smooth initial running. As long as you have sufficient oil, it is likely there will be oil pressure.
If it was mine, that's what I would do. Rev it and clear it out. Maybe some residual that just needs to be cleared out
Thing is the variables changed pre/post B12, so you really don't know if it was an issue before or now. Start with the basics and keep moving up the chain as each checks out.
I thought about that. But B12 is likely to be be a 'thiner' and dissolve. At this point I'd say rev it up and drive it.
That is why I don't like piston soaks, I know it is needed when the masses did not have knowledge, we also did not have the oils or did not know about oils available to possible fix these problem slowly, by just driving. I was going back and forth on doing one, but my problem went away after having Redline Performance ester clean my ring pack and un-jam them. It was by accident and not by design I chose the Redline Performance, just trying another oil and boom massive fuel dilution was gone after 3+ years. Now I run Valvoline Restore and Protect during the winter, and add HPL 40EC to my 5w-40 during the summer to keep my ring packs clean.
Will it even rev?
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Context. OP specified in the first post that oil consumption was by moments 1qt per 300 miles. This is pretty much two-stroke territory, at 50:1 ratio if you're doing 25mpg you're doing precisely 1qt per 300 miles.
At this level, it's all or nothing. You'll clog more expensive stuff downstream if you go for the gentle oil way for thousands of miles. I'm 100% with the OP on that one.
Good point - I tried this earlier today. Drained out about 5qts from the drain plug and another 0.75qt out of the filter. Smelt like oil, maybe a very faint hint of the b12. Didn’t notice anything funny in the filter pleats or at the bottom of the drain pan.
Does she crank and fire up now?
This was my concern as well. But outside of a big chunk having fallen into the sump, I’m not sure if this is possible? This is my first piston soak, so kinda learning along the way. I spent over an hour vacuuming out and blowing compressed air in the cylinders. At least for the stuff at the top, I think I did pretty good compared to the YouTube videos because very little actually came out when I used the starter to spin the engine.
Yes sir, she does. Here’s the latest:
1. Drained the oil and verified I had the right amount and nothing funky came out
2. Pulled the plugs out and stuck the endoscope down each cylinder to verify nothing had changed and that all the valves were intact
3. Attempted the start up procedure 5 times and tried to give it some gentle throttle upon start up - no dice. Did the same thing each time.
4. Repeated start and this time got more aggressive on the throttle at startup - had to get it to about 4000 rpm for it not stumble and die. Oddly enough the misfiring and stumble were happening only at low idle revs.
Tons of white and brown smoke came out just like it did yesterday during the initial start up after the piston soak. The smoke gradually died down after 5 mins but every so often with my foot still on the throttle, the engine would start cutting out and the tach would start dropping. Each time this happened, the only way to get it to not die was to push the throttle to floor - let it catch up and then back to modulating at 4k RPM. This odd high revving and then randomly wanting to stall continued another 15 mins. Once it smoothed out fully and wasn’t threatening to go out every few mins, I let it idle another 10 mins.
Took it for a drive, about 50 miles. Ran it in sport mode (about 4k rpm 90% of the drive).
Got back and let it cool down for 2 hours (an hour more than yesterday’s time between drain and fill) and she started right up. Tomorrow morning’s start up will be the real test I suppose.
So I think I’m on my way of monitoring oil consumption now, post piston soak.
But I’m still unsure - was there a little bit of b12 still in the engine somewhere that caused all of this to happen? Every YT video I’ve seen just say start up, change oil immediately or run it till it’s smooth and then change oil.
In my case, I started it up post soak, ran it till it was idling and revving smoothly, did the oil change and had to go through some of the start up oddities post soak again!
Correct, I’m not one to jump all in on a piston soak. But 300 miles for a quart had me worried about the cat converters - which are expensive on this thing.
lol at the 2 stroke territory, the tail pipes on this thing would get coated in thick layer of soot within a 100 miles. Never had that ever happen on any other vehicle.
The car’s up and running for now. If it starts up tomorrow morning, I’m going to say I’m all set to start monitoring oil consumption again.
Almost like your idle circuit or injectors were messed up but possibly the valves could not close all the way
) had worn away a bit, I had the same though. Which is why I wanted to verify that the were opening and closing ok with the endoscope.
After some thought on this, I think you filled up the exhaust system.
I’ll post back here on the results. If I can get away with 1qt every 2500 miles at this point, I’ll be happy.
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