I have always worried about the efficiency of modern oils to the point that
I always put in straight 30 weight to break in all engines that I build,
diesel or gas, for the first 200 or 300 miles. Maybe I'm just
superstitious, but my engines don't burn oil. Synthetic would be my last
choice for a brand new engine, anyway. I'd take it out and run something
else for several hundred miles to see if the smoke didn't go away some.

New engines almost always smoke a little for a while.

I would be concerned about the statement that the PO "fixed the problem
ring." It's never one ring, unless it's a broken ring. But when rings get
to the point they are breaking, or if the engine is consuming oil and it
can't be traced to a single cylinder for sure, replace all of them, and
rescore the cylinder. On a 2.1 I could see you getting away with not
reboring or replacing cylinders, they don't wear much unless something goes
wrong.

Jim

On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Paul Rogers <wognacious@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Listies,
> I finally got my 2.1L long block with components from my 1.9L finished and
> It's Alive! It actually works much to my amazement. I'm in the process of
> dialing it in now. I've got the timing pretty close for now and I'm
> attempting to bleed the cooling system. One thing I'm a little concerned
> about is the amount of blue smoke. I haven't run it for longer than about
> 10 mins or so and that wasn't all at the same time. The guy I bought the
> long block from said he had it in his Vanagon but took it out because it
> was using a lot of oil. He said he fixed the problem ring but never used it
> again. I've got Mobil1 15-50 in it and I've read several posts on the Samba
> that the ring won't seat with synthetic oil in. In fact I've read that I
> can do some serious damage to the cylinder by causing it to glaze over and
> the ring will never seat. Can someone please verify this for me. The engine
> is running sweet, sounds good too. But it is spewing blue smoke, I figured
> it would but I have no idea what a reasonable time it should take to stop
> smoking. Any input from the brain trust of the list will be gratefully
> appreciated. I don't want to do something wrong at this point.
> TIA,
> Paul in Tracy
>
>
> Sent from my iPlace