Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Well BP I had worked in a engine shop for several years, I just thought may be someone else had ran into the same problem.

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Jim, when you say they are race rings...are they AP steel.coated rings, a barrel faced back cut moly, etc?

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Good morning to all,
Something Alan said struck me, as we might be looking at this all wrong. What kind of an oil pump are you using? The reason I ask is it possible that the oil pump in pumping a great deal of oil up to the rocker arms and flooding the valve cover area and I'm going to guess that you aren't using a valve stem seals on the exhaust valves. If you have excess oil in the valve covers and you don't have exhaust valve seals, while the engine is running the puffing through the breathers could be caused by oil blown back from the exhaust stems.
Take a valve cover off and remove the distributor and install an oil pump priming tool. Put a 1/2" drill on it and spin it up, then observe the amount of oil being pushed through the pushrods and out the rocker arms. You might be surprised how much oil can flow through there. I have a Schumann pump in my engine and it does a VERY Good job of oiling the engine. When I first primed my engine the oil shot out the rockers like I never saw before. I had to restrict the oil flow and got that under control.
I'm not saying that's your problem, but lets assume just for a moment that with the pistons and rings being new and good quality and you've had this engine apart a couple of times, maybe its not the rings or pistons or even the cylinder sleeves. but we're looking in the wrong place.
I still believe you should put this engine on a dyno at this point and put this situation to rest. On a dyno you'll also know just how much Power this puppy makes. The best of luck on you're search here, keep us informed as to what your conclusion is.

Respectfully,
Henry Kunz 1534 H/SA

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

While the #401 heads are notorious for poor oil drain back, the haze from the lifter valley area (coming up from the crank case) doesn't fit with that either.

Tough to diagnose stuff like this long distance. If the leakage numbers are in fact fine, the dyno is where you'll find the answers.

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

The rings were from Greg L and they were back cut. The pistons were cut for the rings at cp. 12 lb oil ring..

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Al it’s not like I havent done this before ,the heads are 291 cast iron they have never been on any motor but this and a427 I ran. Matt hone it last time I followed his recommendation on assemble. I upped the oil ring from 12 to 14.5 no help. It does look like an oil temp problem but what is causing it ?.?the only time I have seen this it was the cam going flat.Its not.

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Oil temp is not hard to measure, you can put a cheap sending unit in the drain plug.

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

Didn't mean to offend you, Jim...just trying to pull out some info (ring material, etc).

Wishing you all the best as you work through it. -Al

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

The part that doesn't sit right with me is that it sat for 3 years, and somehow became a smoker

Re: 402 stocker engine
 

You didn’t Al