Blew a gasket?
 

Well when I was running sea-foam through the intake the car it died and than back fired with a larde white cloud of smoke blowen outta the throttle body intake and inbetween the upper intake and lower intake. (the plastic pice and the aluminum piece on the bottom if i was thinking wrong names) Along with this could be seen was an oily type residew all around that area. I got the car running and let it vent out than took it for a quick drive and noticed a lot less power but the gauges read as to show nothing was wrong. Later that night as I was driving to Wilmar (about an hour drive) I had passed a friend who had then shortly after called me and said my car was smelling really bad, after I herd that i looked at my gauges and saw my oil pressure was below 40 psi, in overdrive w/ engin working (lot lower than normal). I pulled over in the next town and checked my oil, it was at a good level but it had a red color. Well I got to Willmar and back home were i am leaving it parked to wait for repair, but when i got home my idel oil pressure was inbetween the marker on top of the redline and the next marking after that i think thats about 15 psi (SSE gauges). whats happening?

Sounds like you are losing oil pressure and running weak.

Change the oil out immediately and get a better look at it. Red would be transmission fluid. The backfire you had could be considered normal having the car stall and restarting while adding seafoam..

I'm concerned about the upper intake gaskets though.

I knew red = tranny fluid but why would the oil have a red color?

When the engine backfired, it also blew the diaphragm on the transmission modulator. Therefore, the engine vacuum is sucking your transmission fluid into the engine. :shock:

Can you explain more about that? Personally, I dont know exactly what you are talking about and would be interested to know.

What? Have we seen how small the tranny Modulator line actually is? And the tranny fluid will not manage to get mixed with the oil, it will be burned off and create a pretty good bit of smoke in the process... we have seen a few Upper intake blow up and caused no damage to the Modulator... ;)

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Sigma,

Change the Oil and the Plugs... Try Mobil 5w-30 or 10w30 depending on where you are, Or Havoline... I would reccomend one or the other... They are my oils of choice... Also Please use an AC Delco PF47 Filter, If not an AC Oil Filter, Try the Puralator... Both good filters...

After using the seafoam you may have fouled the plugs as well, Go ahead and replace those as well.. Stock AC Delco, AC Delco Rapidfire 14 or NGKTR55's... Even Autolite would be a good plug...

Do these items above and see if they help you at all... Good Luck and let us know what happens ;)

And while you are at it, check that Modulator... Make sure there is no trans fluid in the Vacume line or the vacume port of the Throttle Body, Then check the Tran Modulator Vac port... If there is no fluid present than the modulator is still good..

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Re: Blew a gasket?
 

I personally would take that statement and look deeper. if there was smoke comming out from between the two intakes, then there is a gasket problem that MUST be addressed.

Re: Blew a gasket?
 

True....

Is this a 93 with the Plastic Upperintake? Or is this an SSE Supercharged?

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Re: Blew a gasket?
 

Gotta forgive me... :oops:

Very very bad long week... :oops:

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no worries...any ideas on the gaskets?


Sigma: any chance you can get some clear pictures of your intake area and what your oil looks like. Also, check your tranny fluid level, that would tell if it is indeed leaking somewhere.

Lets look at what we know so far...

Smoke came out between the upper and lower intake... This is not so good... If memory serves there is no gasket snadwhiched between the lower and upper, I think GM just used a type of glue as the 2 halves were never to be taken apart during the life of the engine... So the Upper may need to be resealed or replaced and resealed...

As for the oil being red... I'm almost lost on that one... I have seen some dealerships that used red dye to spot leaks with a blacklight later... Wondering how much seafoam was used...

More info and pics would be great... ;)

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Well I am unable to take any pics I have no digital camera the fluid level was a little low but it always looses a little oil and i use mobil 1 synthetic. Damage cannot be seen. I'll keep you all up to date I wont have any more info till monday so far thank's for the suggestions keep them cummin if anymore ideas

Mecanic found it to be a blowen lower intake gasket. another 350 down the hole

Blown lower gaskets...those will degrade over time..I doubt this one incident was the single contributing factor.

well I had my car for one day... 200 miles later it was broke down in a gas station (same night). I had noticed a strange drop in oil pressure again and pulled over to check it out at idle verry low oil pressure gave a little rev and a sucking sound followed by a loud clattering clanking noise happend. I decided to get it to a gas station but going that one block car lost nearly all power so i gave it more gas and well, she had it somthing blew with a loud clank and oil pressure dropped to zero and car died, It wouldent barely turn over. The next day my dad went to go get the car and he said it started right up w/ oil at 40 psi. It is once again at a shop. What happend now?

i dunno if this helps but heres my 2c on the red oil, sometimes its normal instead of turning brown the oil will turn a dark red, the oil in my moms 03 saturn l200 did it every oil change, never had a problem with it, ive seen other 2.2l ecotecs do it too so maybe its just the oil he has in it getting old.

Upper intake
 

It definitally sounds like the night you put Sea-Foam in your intake it blew the intake manifold. I noticed mine starting to fail at about 247K with traces of oil between the lower and upper intake. I took my family out to eat @ IHOP one night when the cold weather hit about two months ago, was there about 45 minutes, got back on I-10 to San Antonio, and whammo it started surging and my oil pressure was REALLY low, oil was red cause the Dex-Cool (which is red) mixed in with my oil, then as it ran some more it turned a chocolate color. I spent $600+ to fix it myself, and runs good even with a bad EGR and hard to start conditions. But with 251K+ I'm not worried, she's had a great run. Sounds like yours just needs a little TLC. ;)

fially found out the outcome. I threw a Rod too much money for repair rplacement engin cummin soon blown at 152,000 is this a record?

its a record in that this is one of the only times i can remember hearing about a 3800 engine having some sort of internal failure like that, it sure doesnt happen very often thats for sure.

as for a mileage record...nah not even close, my SE had 157,xxx(its in the sig) when i killed it, and it still ran like a champ. and there are several cars here with more than that, and i believe the record is somewhere close to 300,000? and thats just what we know of.

Nah...Jessie's is at 247+ and we have seen 300K miles.

It's a good durable motor though.

That'd be a record low! :lol:

Highest we've seen her is 340,000 on an L36 and 383,000 on an L27. Not sure what the record is on an L67.

I have seen as much as 320,000 on an LN3( still good ) and about 300,000 on an L27 and 340,000 on a series II member here in Melborune FL...

I have seen other LN3 bonnies in the junk yard with 290,000-300,000 repeatedly... They just keep going ;)

The one I got for cheap in the middle of my sig shows 250,000 8)

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Re: Engine Failure
 

252,100 miles 8) Great compression, oil pressure, and still accellerates VERY well. Fixing to take her to Houston in two weeks so I can pay for a speeding ticket ;)

Actually i meant a record for lowest milage to blow an engine as one understood

I'm sure others have blown them quicker.

I repaired a '97 SSEi that had spun a rod bearing at 102K mi. Here's how I think it happens. You have probably heard drivers do this too. Person starts car and immediately revs engine really high or repeatedly races the engine before the pump has a chance to pump oil to the bearings. All the bearings and journals have for lubrication is the film that remains from the last time it was run. So, if a car is overdue for an oil change and the lubricity of the oil is questionable, and the car has been sitting for a while, and some fool does the high rev deal, I can see premature bearing damage as a result.

I had a neigbor lady destroy the engine in a new Mercury at less than 30K mi, because of this foolish behavior.

I have pretty much never seen a 3800 pop in the early miles... Thats not to say it can't be done... The earliest I have seen a 3800 II L36 pop was at 116,000 miles... The rod just snapped in two... We never did figure that one out... we were thinking manufacturing flaw, as there were no other problems...

I have seen a few 3100 V6's pop a rod before the warranty ran out...

A coworker a while back bought a chevy Malibu loaded with a 3100 V6, brand new off the floor... At 900 miles as they were coming back from Orlando the engine all of the sudden went boom... Rod went right through the block... He was doing about 70mph in top gear... The old 2.8 V6 in his GMC S15 I think it was had 250,000 miles on it and was still running... He fought with chevy and finally got another engine... He never had another problems with it for the next 3 or 4 years he had it...

We knew another lady that had an Olsmobile Cutlass( same as the malibu ) it too had a 3100... At 26,000 miles while they were going 75-80 in top gear down I-95 it tossed a rod right through the block, it was still full on the dipstick too...LMAO... Chevy replaced that motor too...

I haven't heard much about the 3800's tho...

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