Moparts
another broken valley pan!!
Posted By: hornetnut
another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 05:47 AM
i know theres probably lots of threads for this, but i went through 25 pages before i gave up..
i broke another valley pan last weekend, right down the middle, again!!.. so ive been told i need to switch to an evacuation system, i found on at summit for 38 bucks and was wondering if you guys have any dos or donts for me when installing it..
i have been running a pcv on one side and a breather on the other and everytime i run at the track i break a valley pan and im really tired of it...
Posted By: rebel
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 06:06 AM
can you post a pic so we can see what the damage looks like?
Posted By: Jeremiah
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 06:21 AM
Quote:
i know theres probably lots of threads for this, but i went through 25 pages before i gave up..
i broke another valley pan last weekend, right down the middle, again!!.. so ive been told i need to switch to an evacuation system, i found on at summit for 38 bucks and was wondering if you guys have any dos or donts for me when installing it..
i have been running a pcv on one side and a breather on the other and everytime i run at the track i break a valley pan and im really tired of it...
Power adder combo? What are the ring gaps set at?
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 06:30 AM
i dont have a way to post pics but i guess i should elaborate a bit,
its a 67 440 with eddy perf rpm heads, milled down to 79cc's port matched and a perf rpm intake, 030 over bore with forged pistons, steel crank and rods, old ultradyne solid cam, all packed in a 74 amc hornet hatchback, now the first time i really stood on it it pushed the dipstick out a lil and pushed oil out on the header, so i figured at the time i must have over revved it, i went racing shortly after and it got really bad at the track and i noticed when i got it home that the valley pan was cracked, after some research i figured out that i had too much crankcase pressure and replaced the pan and added a breather to the opposite valve cover, i drove it in town for a while and thought i had it fixed, went racing again and it doesnt push the dipstick out anymore but it still cracked the valley pan
Posted By: rebel
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 06:52 AM
are you using the bathtub valley pan?
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 01:21 PM
Quote:
i dont have a way to post pics but i guess i should elaborate a bit,
its a 67 440 with eddy perf rpm heads, milled down to 79cc's port matched and a perf rpm intake, 030 over bore with forged pistons, steel crank and rods, old ultradyne solid cam, all packed in a 74 amc hornet hatchback, now the first time i really stood on it it pushed the dipstick out a lil and pushed oil out on the header, so i figured at the time i must have over revved it, i went racing shortly after and it got really bad at the track and i noticed when i got it home that the valley pan was cracked, after some research i figured out that i had too much crankcase pressure and replaced the pan and added a breather to the opposite valve cover, i drove it in town for a while and thought i had it fixed, went racing again and it doesnt push the dipstick out anymore but it still cracked the valley pan
You still have way to much crankcase pressure... you
need to watch some of those breather caps.. the port
in the cap(the hole) on some is actually restricted
alot with the stuffing in them... I had a pair of
Summit ones that I had to bend open the metal tang
in it and pulled out over half of the stuffing to get
it to flow... just try blowing into the breather from
the engine side.. it should be fairly easy... on the
E-vacs.. if you run muffs you CAN run into problems..
the e-vac will pull about 5"HG and for every inch
of back pressure in the muffs you decrease the vac
by the same amount... until you start making pressure
and blows the check valve out and starts pressurizing
the crankcase with exhaust gasses.... the thing is
that the higher your RPM goes it wants to make more
pressure... thats why on the city driving you figured
it was fixed(low rpm) and at the track you spun it up
Posted By: BigBlockMopar
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 02:10 PM
The valley pan is due to it's size exposed to a much larger area of pressure then the dipstick-seal. Therefore it will buckle much easier, even with it's concave shape.
I once had a totally worn 440 which had broken rings in about 3-4 of it's cylinders. This motor pretty much inverted the shape of the valleypan and was pushed tightly against the intake manifold.
Posted By: 72Swinger
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 02:17 PM
Have you tried lightening up your oil?
Posted By: dennismopar73
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 02:40 PM
Timing is the normal issue here.
once you get to 38 deg and depending on the amount of blowby at that point you will see valley pans blow up, I tried the pcv way even with 2 clear vents wouldnt blow oil out but still pushed the valley up , done this three times,,
Finaly went to lean burn dist, set my timing at 34 , no more blowing up!
some of those fine really nice looking dist can go way beyond 45deg total
Posted By: Crizila
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 02:54 PM
Might want to consider running a leak down test to see where the leak is at and just how bad it is.
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 03:29 PM
im running a 440 source fluid dampner so timing could be off, i do have mufflers, they are the summit racing street/strip flowmaster knock offs,two chamber , three inch pipe with turn outs after the muffs,
the oil is kendal 10w30 with a bottle of vinc, the first time this happened i was running 5w30 but i didnt like oil that light.. the dist is an electronic unit that uses an hei module, timing makes sense as at the track in the staging lanes it acts like it has too much timing when trying to restart
Posted By: Thumperdart
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 04:31 PM
Quote:
Might want to consider running a leak down test to see where the leak is at and just how bad it is.
Agreed, you`ve got bigger problems that a new pan probably wont fix. 
Posted By: Biginchmopar
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 05:06 PM
You need to run a leakdown test........way to much back pressure!
I can tell you from experience some of the rings might be in upside down.
A pan-a-vac will help if you don't run mufflers
Keep us posted.
Posted By: rowin4
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 10:54 PM
Well my experience both times that the valley pan raised up and split down the middle was a worn exhaust cam lobe. might want to check that first. :scopeout
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/25/13 11:49 PM
i pulled the intake and valley pan, checked the cam lobes and all look great, i did notice that the second cyl back on the pass side shows signs of the intake valve not seating correctly, theres black soot, looks like exhaust around the valve seat area and up.. maybe a valve too tight?
Posted By: dOOc
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 01:01 AM
Quote:
i pulled the intake and valley pan, checked the cam lobes and all look great, i did notice that the second cyl back on the pass side shows signs of the intake valve not seating correctly, theres black soot, looks like exhaust around the valve seat area and up.. maybe a valve too tight?
Horny ... you have more serious-issues than soot or a valve tooo tight. The last split/blown-up VP I saw had a hole in a piston the size of a nickel 
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 01:27 AM
Quote:
Horny ... you have more serious-issues than soot or a valve tooo tight. The last split/blown-up VP I saw had a hole in a piston the size of a nickel
it doesnt run bad at all, no missfires no popping or anything weird, it runs awesome, the last time out it cracked the pan and i stuffed a bunch of rags under the intake to soak it up while i finished running that night, it still ran 11.60's just had to change the rags every round... leak down test it is... 
Posted By: dennismopar73
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 02:41 AM
Yes you can do the leakdown test never hurts to know where your at there, But my bet still on timing and dist deal!!!
Add in it looks like it may also be fat on carb setting/jetting this to will add to the issue
Posted By: dOOc
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 03:32 AM
Horny .... just do a simple compression check .... I will bet you - you have a hole that is almost "dead".
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 06:24 AM
ill be pulling the plugs tomorrow and comp test, the carb i started with was a holley 750 dp, now has an 850 dp holley, same issue with both.. now time to spend a lil diag time...
Posted By: 70Cuda383
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/26/13 09:23 PM
If there was a dead cylinder, wouldn't it be blowing the pan at any engine speed? He only cracks the pan at WOT
My engine cracked 2 of them, one was a used original so I thought maybe it was already weak, but a week later the brand new one did too.
Only at WOT
I checked my breather (remember, PCV only works when there's manifold vacuum, at WOT it closes, so the only way to evac blowby at WOT is through a breather). And I could barely blow through it by mouth. I pushed open the metal more (it resembled a pop can that was just cracked open) and then removed a big wad of padding. Replaced it with some paper towels to catch any oil vapors and never cracked another pan.
At engine idle, air would suck in at the breather, which is another check the OP could do... Of it was cracking from excessive blow by due to bad rings, hole in a piston, etc, wouldn't it be lightly puffing out of the breather at idle?
Posted By: rowin4
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/27/13 04:59 AM
The engine is basically a compressor , the faster you run it the more pressure will build in the crank case . So at wide open throttle if there is a problem there becomes more crank case pressure than the PCV or vents can dissipate. So what is causing the crank case pressure to build up to push the valley cover inside out. Broken rings, hole in the piston, wiped exhaust lobes all would be likely candidates. It might seem to you that it's running OK but your engine has a problem that stuffing in a rag is not the proper fix.
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/27/13 06:04 AM
Quote:
The engine is basically a compressor , the faster you run it the more pressure will build in the crank case . So at wide open throttle if there is a problem there becomes more crank case pressure than the PCV or vents can dissipate. So what is causing the crank case pressure to build up to push the valley cover inside out. Broken rings, hole in the piston, wiped exhaust lobes all would be likely candidates. It might seem to you that it's running OK but your engine has a problem that stuffing in a rag is not the proper fix.
i knew it wasnt the proper fix, but we all do weird things at the track to keep going rounds.. 
ill keep you posted as i get things sorted out... thanks guys
Posted By: 493_DART
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/27/13 06:14 AM
my stock valley pan expanded all the way up to the intake one day-----it was the one day I didn't have my collector vacuum lines hooked up.
Posted By: rebel
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/27/13 07:12 AM
Quote:
i knew it wasnt the proper fix, but we all do weird things at the track to keep going rounds..
tell me about it, i cut a daiper into sections & foil taped it over a crack in the pan between rounds. only had to get past the startline without being seen dripping oil. made it all the way to the finals.
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/31/13 03:28 PM
comp test was perfect, so i used a friends timing light just to be sure mine wasnt bad... boy was it off!!! initial was at 25 and total was over 50.... i did check the marks with the num 1 plug out at tdc and they are in place so im in high hopes that this change will fix it, its getting a pan a vac evac this weekend anyway.. set total timing at 34 degrees and it def likes it...
so i guess because i run 110 fuel thats why it didnt ping??
Posted By: 68LAR
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/31/13 05:12 PM
Quote:
The engine is basically a compressor , the faster you run it the more pressure will build in the crank case . So at wide open throttle if there is a problem there becomes more crank case pressure than the PCV or vents can dissipate. So what is causing the crank case pressure to build up to push the valley cover inside out. Broken rings, hole in the piston, wiped exhaust lobes all would be likely candidates. It might seem to you that it's running OK but your engine has a problem that stuffing in a rag is not the proper fix.
Absolutely correct. For some reason, the engine is building too much crankcase pressure. Timing has nothing to do with the problem. I'd bet there is either a broken ring or too much ring end gap. 
Posted By: camastomcat
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/31/13 05:25 PM
Quote:
Quote:
The engine is basically a compressor , the faster you run it the more pressure will build in the crank case . So at wide open throttle if there is a problem there becomes more crank case pressure than the PCV or vents can dissipate. So what is causing the crank case pressure to build up to push the valley cover inside out. Broken rings, hole in the piston, wiped exhaust lobes all would be likely candidates. It might seem to you that it's running OK but your engine has a problem that stuffing in a rag is not the proper fix.
Absolutely correct. For some reason, the engine is building too much crankcase pressure. Timing has nothing to do with the problem. I'd bet there is either a broken ring or too much ring end gap.
Either one of these things would cause excessive smoke and leakdown, I would do a leak down vs. a compression test. What CI? Is it blowing oil out the breathers? Perhaps too much oil causing windage?
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/31/13 06:36 PM
440 ci, eddy heads, .030 overbore, its a truck pan with a windage tray and only put 5 quarts in it.. it does show a lil over the full mark
Posted By: camastomcat
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 07/31/13 07:28 PM
Quote:
440 ci, eddy heads, .030 overbore, its a truck pan with a windage tray and only put 5 quarts in it.. it does show a lil over the full mark
Does the oil want to come out of the breathers, and does it smoke out the exhaust?
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/01/13 01:21 AM
absolutely no smoke out of the exhaust... i have seen a lil oil dripping from the breather but only at the track
Posted By: ZIPPY
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/01/13 04:11 PM
Quote:
comp test was perfect, so i used a friends timing light just to be sure mine wasnt bad... boy was it off!!! initial was at 25 and total was over 50.... i did check the marks with the num 1 plug out at tdc and they are in place so im in high hopes that this change will fix it, its getting a pan a vac evac this weekend anyway.. set total timing at 34 degrees and it def likes it...
so i guess because i run 110 fuel thats why it didnt ping??
Last 440 I saw that ran around that way for a little while, ripped the mains right out of the block. The spot where the main bolts thread in, just broke.
The guy set his timing by ear, and he said he ran race gas because he liked the way it smelled. I believe he had 55 degrees in it.
anyway good catch, hope no other damage was done.
Posted By: camastomcat
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/01/13 09:21 PM
Quote:
absolutely no smoke out of the exhaust... i have seen a lil oil dripping from the breather but only at the track
I would try running a tad less oil, maybe a 1/4-1/2 qt. I would prefer you do a leak down, but if you don't have the gauge or can't borrow one,that's your only option. The only other thing I can think of that would cause crankcase pressure other than a worn out engine, worn cam,etc. is too much oil. Are you sure you only have 5 qts? Stupid question....how old is this motor? If there is any way you can leak it down, do it.
Posted By: jyrki
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/02/13 06:06 AM
Is there only a crack but the shape hasn't changed? Because when you really have excessive crankcase pressure, the bathtub will balloon "upside down" before cracking. If not, then I believe you've got somekind of harmonics that crack the pan. I believe that's the reason why factory also used a "sandwich" between the intake and valley pan, to avoid cracking caused by harmonics.
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/07/13 05:52 AM
that makes sense... the second pan wasnt ballooned at all, just cracked.. another question though.. i installed the panny vac and while the engine is running im only getting a pulse type vacuum, not solid, is that normal?
Posted By: Sb Valiant
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/07/13 06:39 AM
I'm surprised you don't have a messed up head gasket with the timing being way off like that
I could be thinking way wrong
Posted By: mac56
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/07/13 11:02 AM
When I had this problem it was an over site on my part. My breathers were too close to the deflector inside the valve cover and wasn't letting the CCP out until the pressure built up a little causing the valley pan to pulse. I corrected this and never cracked another valley pan.
Posted By: hornetnut
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/08/13 06:21 AM
so is the pulse vacuum from the header normal? it is a vacuum, just not solid so if its normal then im going racing...
Posted By: dennismopar73
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/08/13 12:08 PM
2 other things can cause the 'pulse' , could be the evac tube is in wrong place on the collector, to clost to a tube end? or the evac insert is improperly put in??
just sayin!
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: another broken valley pan!! - 08/08/13 01:56 PM
Quote:
so is the pulse vacuum from the header normal? it is a vacuum, just not solid so if its normal then im going racing...
At low rpm its the slow pulse of the engine... pretty
normal.. if the rpm were up higher it wouldnt do it