[V8] question about cylinder glazing

[getur at optonline.net]

----- Original Message -----
From: dsaad at icehouse.net
Date: Friday, December 8, 2006 10:11 am
Subject: Re: [V8] question about cylinder glazing
To: v8 at audifans.com

> How much oil are you using George?
> 
*********
Up until a few months ago the V8 was burning through about 1 qt per 500 miles. Then the burn rate started going up to about 1 qt per 250 miles. The car at that point started blowing a lot of blue smoke on startup and also blowing soot under heavy throttle. I replaced the plugs at the time but the startup smoke and soot continued. Last week I noticed  that there was a smell of fuel in the exhaust under heavy throttle. Brought it into the shop and after pulling the plugs they found that they were soaked in gas. They ran some checks on the car and found that the oxygen sensor was not working. I had the heads rebuilt a while back, so I thought that that might be the culprit for the oil consumption, but a compression check showed that everything was good, so far as rings and valves were concerned. The shop thinks that what happened is when the oxygen sensor went bad the system went into default mode, and was running extra rich, which after a while washed down the cylinders, caused excessive glazing, and in turn increased the oil burn rate. At this point they've added an additive that was recommended by the machine shop to try and reduce the glazing to see if the oil consumption will go down. The shop said to run it this way for about 2000 miles and see if it improves. If not then the recourse is to either rebuild, get another engine or throw in the towel with the V8. 

Like Mike says, it's an adventure with this car.

George