Beware.. More Gasser Questions lol

[8v-of-fury]

ok so. 84 1.7 CIS. 186k 4K trans.. so she sits high in the revs alot sadly

It drinks quite a bit of oil. from the time of last change.. January.. 5 or 6th till today, it was at the very bottom of the dipstick, and i think i added almost a good liter to it to bring it back up to the top.. I don't know how many kms ive put on since then but.... thats quite a bit of oil. I think i may run some SEAFOAM in the oil before i do the next change, loosen up some crap and maybe swell some seals and rings

SOO the question being, what other culprits could be at the helm of the oil shortage issue I know its probably rings due to its hard life at mostly 4k+ rpm. :(but are there other things that could be causing it.. It doesnt leak too much.. a small dribble on the front side of the head from the valve cover gasket.. its gonna be a "Slow Stove" as my buddy calls it soon enough but i may want to rebuild this engine for a hotrod mk1

P.s according to the vortex its not worth it to use a 1.7 to modify.. Why not i already have the engine.. lol and all i'd be doing is.. small... bolt on type mods. Maybe get one of them Unobtanable Heron heads ! run a dual turbo setup some porting, probably stick with CIS for its reliability.

What do you guys think about the oil consumption.. rings right?

EDIT: Look at all the frigin emoticons! LOL

[cyrus #1]

Do you see much smoke at all?  It could quite possibly be the valve seals.  My gasser was using 4-5 liters between oil changes with no visible smoke.  I rebuilt a head and slapped it on.  Now my oil consumption is virtually 0.  

[jtanguay]

oil consumption will be a combination of things.  my dad bought a '92 golf that had a messed up computer.  it flooded the engine a couple of times... and by flood i mean there was so much gas in the cylinders that it wouldn't even crank over!!!  :shock: needless to say the oil buzzer went off and the oil was so diluted...

now i'm not saying your oil is that diluted, but a lot of unburnt gasoline can mix with the oil and lower its viscosity.  i don't personally think that the oil shear alone will be enough to lower the viscosity on a good quality oil.  so the mix will lower it, and allow it to seep past rings/seals.  probably the only way to find out if your oil is being diluted would be through used oil analysis.

[burn_your_money]

Heron heads require Heron pistons as well :wink:

You could smell the oil to see if it smells like gas

Isn't this the car getting the diesel in it anyways?

[theman53]

http://www.autohausaz.com/search/product.aspx?sid=5zg1pc45zhwikub1d5c0hn45&makeid=800026@VW&modelid=1285477@RABBIT%20L&year=1984&cid=20@Engine%20Parts,%20Seals%20%26%20Gaskets&gid=5770@Valve%20Cover%20Oil%20Deflector

If you don't have one of these I think it would help. Every time I put one on my older diesels the oil consumption went down dramatically. Usually the valve seals were the culprit.

[8v-of-fury]

Hmm, The car doesn't smoke ever. I never thought about valve seals! When i checked the oil yesterday it looked like when i put it in. I had some money at the time so I treated her to some nice Synthetic high mileage stuff I'd say its holding up well to me anyways lol.

Well I guess when i rebuild I'll have to find the Heron head and pistons

Yes the oil does smell like gas, quite strongly actually. Bad thing isn't it? what does this signify? that the gas is in fact diluting my oil?

Will getting a cam baffle thinger help with the valve seals? how does it do that? to make sure as much oil as possible is making its way back down through the engine?

Yes Tyler this is the car getting the diesel soon I hope!!

[theman53]

basically the cover keeps the big oil from comming up and the mist goes around some...I think. I know whenever I put one on where there wasn't one it cut oil consumption down a ton. And usually when it came time the entire head needed done not just the valve seals.

[Dakotakid]

Lucas is right aboot the cam cover. The other guy is right about the valve stem seals as well. There is probably valve guide, valve, and ring wear. There is a cost to the engine when running these close ratio-high rpm transmissions. You are sliding the pistons, rings, and valves over their correponding surfaces at a higher rate (more times) and there is simply more wear.
Team this with a previous owner who may have delayed oil changes, etc. and this compounds the amount of wear.
You can lean out the fuel injection if your adjuster has been drilled out in the top of the air box on the air plate arm.
Other than that, the CIS injectors wear or wear and stick slightly open and then drop their pressure after shut down and sort of floods the cylinder they feed. Nothing last forever.
Pull your large air plate bellows off and see how much oil is all over the air plate. Also, look in the bottom of the air box and these two places will give you an idea of whether you have vast amounts of blow-by.
Spend some time with a cloth and carb cleaner and clean your plate and big venturi in there.
It has been my experience that the 1.7 engine simply does not last as the 1.8's with the same CIS inj. system. I believe VW added a bit more nickle to the cast iron on the 1.8's and they give much longer cylinder wear.
Closing: buy your oil in 5 gallon buckets!!!!

Edit: see if the 5th inj. is staying open.

[lord_verminaard]

The 1.7 isn't worth it.  Find a solid-lifter rabbit GTI engine, JH code, and drop in the 10:1 pistons from a later GTI.  Run the G-cam with some headers and exhaust and have fun embarrassing Mustangs and Camaros.  The Heron head isn't worth the money it takes to find one, when a mildly ported JH head will outflow it all day long.

These 8v's are built to handle sustained RPM's, don't worry about it.  The 4k trans is one of the best street transmissions ever put in a FWD car.  I drove my '84 Scirocco that had 190,000 miles on it in 4th gear with a 4k from Baltimore, MD to Ohio- (lost 5th on the way there)  I figured if it would live through that it would survive anything.

Rings don't normally go bad in these engines unless they have been detonated repeatedly or neglected with oil changes.  I'm with everyone else and going to say 90% sure that it's the valve stem seals.  Only way to know for sure is a compression test.  If you have any CIS issues let me know, I'm pretty well versed in CIS by now.  

Good luck,
Brendan

[8v-of-fury]

The 1.7 isn't worth it.  Find a solid-lifter rabbit GTI engine, JH code, and drop in the 10:1 pistons from a later GTI.  Run the G-cam with some headers and exhaust and have fun embarrassing Mustangs and Camaros.  

Hah, oh well I guess your right. the 1.7's are little screamers though.

Would valve stem seals cause it to have an erratic idle? When its just started it will idle at 1000-1050 like it should. after warming up it will climb its way to idle at the lowest 1400 and the highest ive seen probably 1850.

Or is it more likely i have a good size vacuum leak somewhere causing a lean condition?

[theman53]

The super high idle might be that little bolt on the back of the intake that pushes on the butterflies ever so slightly. It has a 7mm head and the spring that holds it wears out over time. *engine off but warm for adjusting idle later* take it all the way out and put a MEDIUM strength thread locker on it. Put it back in all the way and back it out a little. Start the car and adjust idle where you want it. Ask me how I know about this one

[8v-of-fury]

Lucas, you seem to have quite a few "ask me how I know this" experiences

Yeah but won't that screw with my idle when it hasn't risen? The high idle only comes after it has warmed up. It's worth a try I guess lol Its just that it idles fine when its just started

[lord_verminaard]

You should never adjust idle by turning the screw that moves the butterflies.  There is a separate idle adjust screw that has an o-ring around it, it's a flat-head screw that is recessed in a hole, perpendicular to the butterflies on the throttle body.  That screw can back itself out sometimes if the o-ring is old and brittle, but that would be pretty obvious when you started it up if that happened.

Most idle problems on CIS are caused by vacuum leaks.  Check, double check, and triple check anything that uses vacuum.  The old trick of spraying carb cleaner around hose and vacuum connections while the car is running and then listening if the idle goes up is the best way to check.

Brendan

[theman53]

Yeah that is the screw I am talking about ^. The one hardly accessable because of the raintray, that controls the idle. Mine did the same thing, when cold it would somewhat idle, when warm it would scream about 17 or 18  hundred RPM. If you don't find a vacuum leak I would check there.

[8v-of-fury]

I just got Rick Roll'd  :evil:

Thanks for that! LOL!!!

I knew about that screw but was hesitant to touch it because it seems to idle fine on startup, so i thought if i touch it sure it will idle after it warms up great.. but when cold it wont idle at all!

I will have to get some carb cleaner tomorow :wink: