Long story but I swapped out the short block on FA20 engine because of rod knock with brand new OEM block. I reused the valve heads but had a machine shop resurface and do valve job. I didn’t think to ask them to replace the valve stem seals so not sure if these are new or old.

After getting the engine together and running it for some time it really started to burn some oil. We are talking about 1qt every 200 miles. Not good. Figured it was the valve stem seals since it initially smoked on startup and idling. I’m now replacing seals and saw that the old seals weren’t even seated on the head and were floating along the valve stem.

My question is, is this something that’s common when seals go bad or did machine shop not set them right? Or something else entirely??

Thanks for any input you might have.