Alright, first it started with a leak on the valve cover, the area around spark plug wells was filling up with oil and oil had filled up most of the 1st and 3rd wells. I replaced the valve cover gasket cleaned out everything and all seemed well. I got home (did it at friends garage 45mins away) and see smoke pouring out from under the hood, apparently we had overtorqued a couple of the bolts so like the first millimeter of thread on the head is stripped so the bolts won't catch (only on a couple though not all) I figure I can rethread the holes for the bolts using a tap and dye(sp?) kit. Anyway I replaced another gasket and this time used some sealant and its holding oil a lot better. When I started up the car oil flowed up out of the 1st spark plug well and now its starting to get into the 1st 3rd and 4th well and will come back even if I clean it out, the seals between the valve cover gasket and head around the spark plug wells are good, nothing wrong with them so I'm wondering where the oil is coming from. Right now it's not bad like once a day I'll get smoke from the motor, and thats if I run it really hard for whatever reason. Now I've got a sort of squeeky crackling sound coming from the belt compartment to the left of the valve cover and it only happens above 3k rpms. What should I do and what could be the problem? Not to mention my car doesn't like to start, sometimes I have to crank it for a good 15 seconds before she starts.

It is possible that when you are putting the VC back on, that the spark plug well seals fell off into the valvetrain. Those things like to pop out when you tip it over to put it back on. Take the VC off again, and double check your gaskets.

nah the seals are fine we checked from the inside of the wells and also used a tiny dab of sealant to hold them in place when replacing the VC.

I would bet that xtremers is right. I've had that same problem a few times now because the spark plug seals just love to fall out. Mine have fallen out after using a lot of sealant to hold em in place before. If you have oil in your spark plug holes, there is nothing else it could be other than the oil cap (physics ).;)

Yea, I'll probably need to get new ones because they are all in place, what about the stripped thread on the head? What can I do about that, and the squeeling?

the stripped thread u can either tap it out or u can heli coil it..

replace those spark plug seals and use some more sealant and u should be good to go...

Bill

squeelign could be oil on the belts and they are slipping... fix the leak and go from there.



15.9 @ 86.7mph
97 Eclipse RS

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Stage 2 Cams, Hooker Header, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC