been fighting a smoke out the exhaust issue with my 440 since it was rebuilt. pulled plugs and they are oil fouled. what would cause this,no vacuum leaks at intake,or valve covers. plugs are wet with oil. any help ? or do i have to pull heads,and or motor?

I'd start with a compression check. I'm assuming you had the heads redone by a shop you turst.

cant tonight ,garage is under kids room. what would i look for besides low readings between cylinders? would the heads have anything wrong to do this? heads had valve job ,bigger valves installed,gasket matched,light shave.

I had a similar issue a few weeks back, though not as global (I only had One plug fouling.)

The engine had had a complete valve-job with New Springs, Seals around six months earlier.

Then, it started fouling the #7 plug. Thought it must be rings (since the valve job was so recent.)

Tested compression, and all eight cylinders were within specifications.

Changed out the Oil-Seals on that one cylinder, and the smoke and oil-fouling ended.

May or may not be your situation. Another possibility, oil leaking past intake gasket.

Good Luck.

440 intakes are bad for leaking on the underside of the intake gasket. if you had the heads milled a bit and not the intake sides or the intake the intake is a little wider than the V it sits down in and does not seal perfect underneath allowing it to suck oil.
often applying RTV to both sides of the intake gasket at the ports tightening snug then waiting 2 hours and tighten good works. don't be afraid to retighten more next morning and again in a week .

I also assume you have a good PVC valve and an open breather on other valve cover

when all this smoke first started i thought it was the intake .had car running hosed it all down with wd40 no leaks.i ll have to do a compression test when im off work.how would i tell a bad valve seal? the engine and heads were rebuilt at the same time .

the thing about the bathtub gasket leak I described it leaks (more allows oil to seep in) underneath so unless you got a way to get down in the motor lifter valley and spray the underside at the bottom of the ports that don't always work. Pull the intake easy 5 minute job and you can usually see if the oil has been getting sucked up into the ports!

Valve seals usually smokes when sitting 1/2 and mostly goes away and under WOT smokes some as it will suck oil past the intake valve.

UPDATE: Did compression test, all 8 cylinders are 160 psi. Pulled intake oil in the ports. Should I use silicone on the valley pan, or just get a new one?

yup clean it real good and and apply a layer of silicone around both sides of the port on the gasket. and apply some to the head around ports too.
then snug up wait an hour the pull down tight. retighten after warm up next day and next week then periodically check!

any special silicon,was thinking the copper silicone? smear it on or lay a bead?.

I think they are all fine!

Either method is okay just make it thick enough to fill any gap you might have usualy about 1/8 inch or so, at least this sounds like an easy fix!!

did all the above ,still sucking oil at the bottom of the ports. im giong to try a new gasket ,then a new intake.
anything elese i shiould look at ??

Does the engine ever puff a cloud of smoke at initial start up? I built a Victor headed 511" engine and used the valve seals that were supplied with the heads from Edelbrock, that engine smoked until the seals were replaced. The ones that were supplied didnt want to stay attached to the valve guides. I dont know how stock heads oil drain back is, but the Edelbrock will pool with enough oil at the top end to cover the tops of the valve guides; so if the valve stem seals seal poorly to the valve or the valve guide, you will have problems with smoke.

you could get them paper gaskets that go each side of the pan gasket. Felpro 1216 plus RTV???
Is the intake hard to get the bolts in??

ive oblonged the bolt holes on my intake torker 2 for a 440,after i siliconed the heads,and valley pan,i also bolted the intake to the passenger side head,and ran a.004 feeler guage along the lenght of the intake.i was bearly able to get it thru. this is driving me crazy!!!!! the car smokes as soon as you start it .ive had the heads redone with new seals at rebuild time,could they be the cause of all the smoke,and oil on my plugs??

What you may have to do is put a little silicone on each side of the pan, then bolt the intake down. Then pull the intake and pan back off and check to see if there's any areas which do NOT have visible contact with the silicone.

Also, what you can do instead of putting silicone everywhere is to do a bead on the front and back valley pan hold downs (which I'm sure you're already doing) plus a bead along the bottom of each cylinder head before putting the pan down. Again CHECK to make sure you're getting silicone contact everywhere. If you do a good bead basically like a rectangle around the valley area and everything is clean before doing so and you checked and the silicone is getting good contact to the pan and the block then there's no way the oil can get out of the valley area.

FWIW I didn't have a problem with sucking oil out of the valley I only had a problem with sucking oil out of the intake manifold bolts. The intake manifold bolts go right through the head material and right into the valve cover area on top of the head. If you don't use some permatex thread sealer on the bolt threads, engine vacuum WILL suck oil right past the bolt threads and right down your intake. On mine it even made a nice little pool of oil on my valley pan so I could take an oil bath if I wanted to.

I always use the black permatex rtv and have had great luck with it. I always give it 24 hours to fully cure. Probably overkill on time but why take the chance?

i am seeing oil on the bolts also.ive never used any sealer on the bolts,ill give it a try.silicone for the end seals silicone around the head ports and i smeared silicone around the valley pan ports both sides ,im using the blue silicone.