leak down?

[slider_buck]

can you do a leak down on a new engine that has never been run since rebuild? i just got done rebuilding my 302. i was curious to see how a leak down would be on a new motor and heads. i can feel air blowing by the rings farely good. will it just take awhile for the rings to seat in?

[UNTCHBL]

good question. I'm sure someone will chime in

[slider_buck]

i sure hope that it is just going to take awhile for the rings to seat in. i made sure that everything was done right putting it together. my ring end gap was .018" and i put the rings on the way it said to in the instructions. hopefully everything is ok. probably find out this weekend anyways. going to get it put in and fired up.

[Rob Shackleton]

The rings need to seat first. You should wait 500 miles or so before testing.

[John91coupe]

Engine needs to be as close to operating temperature as possible to get a good reading for leakdown testing so trying it on a cold/new engine will be useless.

[slider_buck]

well i got it in and running. getting it running initially was a pain. had the distributor off a tooth plus i needed to set the idle on the new throttle body. after getting it running i noticed a new problem, i was leaking oil from the oil pan. anyone ever use a proform oil pan? its suppose to be designed to clear girdles but wouldn't clear mine. then the pickup wouldn't clear the pan. well i finally got it to clear everything but when i started to drop the engine back in i noticed that the oil pan was hitting the k-member alittle bit on one corner. well i was able to use my dotco motor and grind down where it was hitting and it was ok. then aother problem with it.i have hardly any clearance at all between the pan and the rack. so after all that i now have a leak also. i just cleaned it off real good with carb cleaner and took soem rtv and packed it all around the pan where it drops down around the crank. hopefully the rtv will seal it up good enough. hell of a way to have to seal it up when you just spent a crap load of money on it.

[Doug]

You are going to have to pull the motor back out and fix the oil leak. The first time you put it under boost, it will leak really bad. Congrats on building and getting your first motor running.

Doug

[slider_buck]

i'll just run it the way it is unless it starts to leak. then i'm going to ditch the piece of junk proform oil pan and get a real one. i was ole happy and everything and then the let down. it definately has a nice little idle now with the trickflow stage 1 cam, nice and lopey.

[John91coupe]

My Canton pan leaks also so don't I think it's just the Proform pans.

[slider_buck]

is it leaking in the same spot as mine? right where the seal curves down around the crank.

[John91coupe]

Mine is leaking in the back where the pan goes around the rear main cap.

[slider_buck]

mine has a slow leak back there also. last night when i first fired her up she had a real bad leak up front where it goes around the cap. i rvt'd it and let it set over night. this morning i fored her up and it doesn't appear to be leaking in the front anymore just still in the back alittle bit. i'm going to let it go for awhile and see what happens with it.

[slider_buck]

does your oil pan hit the power steering rack? i have very little clearance between the pan and the rack. i know it is going to hit when the engine flexes. think i might go with solid motor mounts or something to keep the engine from rocking now.

[John91coupe]

No clearance problems with mine. I guess that's one good thing I can say about this Canton, but that's about all.

[slider_buck]

wonder if there is anything at all i can do with the rack to avoid solid engine mounts. i thought about making up some brackets at work to try and lower it some but i don't know what that is going to do with the alignment, haven't looked at it yet.