EMS's question is still unanswered: black, blue, or white smoke? If it's white, you might have coolant getting into the cylinder. Especially considering your description of excessive heat. A little extra heat would be expected from from a freshly honed bore, but not excessive amounts...

 

Hopefully for you it's just a ring issue. However, I'm interested to hear if it turns out to be a failed head gasket or cracked sleeve.

 

Speaking from personal experience, did you forget to put coolant in the engine?

 

What kind of idiot would forget to put coolant in the system?...Geez, Darren!

But seriously, the coolant/head gasket issue has come up a few times here on post-big bore kit installs, hasn't it?

 

The smoke was grey I was surprised that I couldn't tell immediately if it was oil or coolant. It didn't dissipate like you would expect water to, but it also didn't smell sweet nor particularly oily. Holding a paper towel again the exhaust turned it black immediately, and there were black oily spots on the back end, so I'm still presuming oil. Shop still hasn't gotten the head off... stay tuned.

Yes, I put coolant in it.... sheesh, no-one would forget such a simple step!

 

The only thing the shop could find was that the ring gap was about double the recommended limit. Doesn't answer why no smoke one week, then lots of smoke two weeks later. Everything else looked OK.

 

blocked crankcase vent?



.

 

I had a very similar smoke issue right after the 351 install, but no overheating. My smoke was coming from the radiator area and went away after about 50 miles. My friend and I did a compression test and checked the plug and they both were OK.

 

Did you mix up your gas can with the 2 stroker weed eater?

 

Finally, an answer!

The cylinder and piston ended up back with Bill Blue, and after puzzling for a couple days, he determined that the spacer ring between the oil rings was broken, and the oil rings were not maintaining their distance. In the meantime, he's already shipped a new set of parts... no charge.

I'm relieved to finally know what happened, and continue to be happy I bought the kit from Bill Blue.

Maybe next week I'll have it back and ready to try again...