Rings?

[John Birone]

87 SSP Notch, 5-speed, 170k miles give or take. Swapped out headers tonight and saw this in my #6 exhaust port. Guessing it’s rings. Less than 10k miles since a basic rebuild 20 years ago. It sat most of that time until just under two years ago. I’m not noticing smoke or oil loss, so it isn’t a lot of oil getting by. Complete tear-down? Just replaced upper and lower intake gaskets and everything looked good in there.

 

[Noobz347]

Perhaps. Also: Valve Seals? When were those looked at last?

 

[General karthief]

What's the plug look like?

 

[AeroCoupe]

What’s a “basic rebuild”? I’m with Noobz in that this looks like a valve seal and/or valve guide issue. Are the heads stock and never touched?

 

[John Birone]

What’s a “basic rebuild”? I’m with Noobz in that this looks like a valve seal and/or valve guide issue. Are the heads stock and never touched?

Bored 0.030” over and reassembled with stock valve train using new seals and guides. I’m hoping it’s in the head as I intend to do the typical HCI upgrades in the future. Focused more on the body and paint right now.

 

[dcm0123]

You sure this is not a fuel mixture issue?

Suggest you run a compression check to verify it is not poor compression.

Does not look wet like oil would be.

 

[General karthief]

Run a compression test, toss in some new plugs although those don't look bad in a pic, send it. You said no smoke, runs good right?

 

[John Birone]

Run a compression test, toss in some new plugs although those don't look bad in a pic, send it. You said no smoke, runs good right?

Correct, no smoke and runs good. I did have an exhaust leak at the collector on that side, which is why I swapped in new headers.

I’ll check compression and if that’s good I’ll run it until it’s time to upgrade the HCI combo.

 

[John Birone]

You sure this is not a fuel mixture issue?

Suggest you run a compression check to verify it is not poor compression.

Does not look wet like oil would be.

It didn’t look like oil when I tried to wipe it with a paper towel, either. Just darker than every other port and shiny as if it was wet.

 

[John Birone]

Appreciate the help everyone!

 

[Praetorious]

I had a issue like that with a brand new engine but I knew it wasn't oil, it was fuel, the end of my tailpipes had more soot than a chimney, once I got my fuel under control tailpipes are nice and brown,soot is gone,I think it was my mass air or something I can't remember at the moment,like others said, it doesn't look like oil.