And I want to not spend money. But that never works out right. I'm going to at least take this b20b head off and see if it's worth reusing after putting in some new valve guide seals. If not, I'll just toss in the recently redone b20F head that I have lying around... I will get to use some decent oil because I won't be going through a quart of it after 500 miles of driving(hard, and high rpm of course). And I'll get to see what condition my cylinder bores are in.

Turbobricks thread in more depth, and discussing whether I want to get a cam as well. I don't have money so I think not. But maybe...?
Turbobricks thread

Turbobricks thread on the progression of the 145 and the 142...
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Kyle - '68 142? - Oregon Volvo Tuners?

A quart every 500 miles is a lot worse than the just old valve seals & worn guides. If each cylinder has good compression your engine probably has it's original one piece oil rings in it & needs new ones.

I see I see. Well, I drive the car very aggressively 75% of the time, and even when I don't there is still a small puff of smoke that escapes in between shifts. On my dyno runs, if you've seen the video, you see my car let loose a lot of smoke after doing a 6krpm pull, and on one run they had me keep the car in gear! And when I did that, it just smoked and smoked and smoked. So whenever I'm on the highway going 70+(which is almost every day that I drive it) I'm sure I burn quite a bit, and then not to mention when going to portland, which has happened a LOT over the past three months, way more than I can afford, I go up to 85, which is somewhere around 4500rpm for an hour. I don't expect the engine to keep all of it's oil when I drive it like that. But still. And I'm not sure on how many miles per quart of oil, that was just a guestimate, which may be pretty accurate.

Original rings though definitely sounds like something that could be one of the problems. How could you determine if they are bad? Will a leakdown test show this?

Hmm, maybe I should toss my 74 engine together with this better F head I have lying around. It had been rebuilt in the four years before I owned it. And the one piston only has a little bit of damage from the little screw. No, I don't want to F with that... Argh. Where's the time/money damnit.
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Kyle - '68 142? - Oregon Volvo Tuners?

Alrighty, here's the dilio... I'm going to do a leak down test next week to see what the general condition of the engine is in. If everything is tight, that narrows it down to the valve guides, which I already am 100% positive the main thing is anyway. The engine itself(rings) though, I am not very confident in. I don't think this engine has the compression in it that it had when I did my last dyno run, but who knows, we'll find out next week. In any case, this head will come off and I might put new seals in it to mask the worn out guides, or if the head has some noticeably recessed valve seats, I'll take a look see at the "refurbished" F head that I have and toss it on the car if it's in nicer shape all around(which it better be, because I want it to be).

Then, it's on to the porting of my Alloy SU manifold. I just found some rough sandpaper in my bedroom, so I'm going to use that on the manifold sometime soon, just smooth things out in there a bit. If I end up going with the F head, I'll do some more work on the ports that go into the head to open them up and get rid of the ridge for the centering rings that are used on the B head. I'll have to go back into the manifold as far as I can to not make the inherent "bubble" in flow be too bad.

No cam for now... No money for that, and if I did it(and even if I do the F head), I will be changing too many things from my last dyno run. And with now knowing where my timing is set at, last time I ran on the dyno, it wasn't as retarded as I thought it was. Well, actually, it was, nvm. How much power do you think I lost from being 10 degrees retarded from what would be making peak power? We shall find out what the correct timing, the correct mixture, a pertronix Ignitor, a better flowing intake(read:nothing, well, for my max hp runs anyway, I'll try out my CAI and Stock filter/no top setups also), an electric fan instead of the DIRECT DRIVE cooling fan, and a smoother flowing manifold will do. Then playing with different settings for the fuel mixture on the carbs and different maximum timing advance settings for best power. I think it should be good enough for 15.5more hp at the wheels don't you? Well, I hope so anyway. Now if only the rings and bores are still good and not too worn out compared to last time... And then what if I put the F head on it... Hmmm, fun stuff. Next month will tell! w000!

Peak power then was 84.5hp at 5200rpm(with each run going up in power, engine was getting cooler...) and 103.5lb/ft at 3200rpm. I'll start my pulls at a lower rpm too... Last time I went I was hitting my trq peak right as the engine started getting in it's groove, so the peak might actually be below that. I'll start my pulls at 1500rpm and slowly get to full throttle by about 2000rpm so it doesn't bog at all.

And I was looking for some of my old timeslips(different engine) just for fun, but I can't find them. Dangit!

Thank you to all who I have emailed and gotten responses from!
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Kyle - '68 142? - Oregon Volvo Tuners?

So what is you cheatin' on us now or something? Hanging out over on turbobricks? I just feel so left out, you know...

Throw some moth balls in the gas tank. Bang for the buck, I don't think you'll beat 'em. That is of course if you don't like your engine :-)

I actually tried that with my '71 142e parts car just before I parted it out. Me and a friend went out with his little gforce meter to an empty back road and did 5 or so runs without, then 5 or so runs with mothballs. The meter showed about a 5-10% improvement with moth balls. Likely just my enthusiasm causing me to have a heavier foot... don't know for sure on that.

-Matt
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-Matt I ♥ my ♂

Mothballs contain napthalene. Washes oil from internal parts, causes scraping noises.

Kyle, putting a tight head on old rings can worsen your oil consumption becuase of excess blowby forcing more atomized oil out through the breather into the intake.
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MPergiel, Elmhurst, IL '74 145e T-5 'Orange Alert'

I forget, but as I recall, there's a couple types of mothballs... one that helps, one that don't. In any event, they ain't good for engines. As I said, I did it with a worn out parts car to give it one last hoorahh before I killed the poor girl.

But she lives on in my 145...

And yes... a very good point about putting a good head on worn short block. Not necessarily a good idea.
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-Matt I ♥ my ♂