Hi Greg & Murry,
Thought I’d comment on the SuperVerde’s oil consumption. I rebuilt a 3.0L myself a while back and experienced the same oil consumption problem. I installed upgraded S-pistons/cylinder barrels but changed out the supplied rings with TotalSeal gapless units. After putting approximately 1000 miles on the engine I couldn’t stand the fog of oil smoke following my car every time I took off from a stop light or accelerated hard. Note that I had no oil smoke that I could see on over-run which might have suggested leakage past the valve guides. Observations of the spark plugs showed them all to be quite black and oily.
I’ve rebuilt four engines so far in my motor-head hobby history and this engine has been the only problem one. My 3rd engine was an Alfa 2.5 V6 and had great results so I don’t think I’m a total klutz when it comes to this kind of activity.
I think the problem source for me was breaking in of the engine. I just drove it normally without revving it excessively for the first few hundred miles. Kind of like commuter driving, i.e. varied revs and loads but no hard running. This may be the source of our problems.
I guess it’s a controversial topic but here’s what I’ll do next time: Keep the revs reasonable but RUN THE P**S OUT OF IT ! Or to put it more specifically, load the rings against the cylinder walls with high cylinder pressures. I have two sources of info on this, my Dad who went through a Diesel technology program in the 50’s, and this web site:
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm
Both said the rings must be loaded against the cylinder walls with high cylinder pressure to wear in a good seal. The web site says to pressurize the cylinders by loading the brand new engine right after it’s fully warmed up. Load the engine pretty hard and unload it (over-run/high vacuum) on a dedicated drive for at least 20 miles. Recommended driving location? A racetrack! Continue this aggressive break-in for a good 200 miles to ensure good sealing. The web site goes into reasonable detail with justifications for this argument.
I’m wondering if the TotalSeal gapless rings are extra sensitive to break-in and that’s why there’s been some oil burning problems. I’ve decided to go with standard rings for my fix and not take a chance on another set of TotalSeal units. I would still try them again on a future engine as I really like their concept. For the moment though, I just want to get my car back on the road.
Merril