Posted: Apr-30-2008 09:16AM

DO NOT TOUCH MY HORNS OF DOOM!

Posted: Apr-29-2008 04:52PM

"eventually" could still be a long ways away. No rush here.

 here's a test:

 run the car (when warm) in third gear up to 5000, then decelerate still in third gear down to 2000 and then floor it, and look into your rear view mirror.

the extra intake vacuum while you are decellerating may draw extra oil past leaking valve guides/seals .If so, when you hit the accelerator again, you may see a puff of blue smoke,

Interpretation (this is a bit vague):

momentary blue puff is mild condition, prolonged puff is worse, continuous blue suggests bad and/or it is another source like bad rings. 

Also, do a compression check. If you have one or more bad cylinders, then the head might need to come off anyway. Harvey

Posted: Apr-29-2008 01:56PM

DO NOT TOUCH MY HORNS OF DOOM!

Posted: Apr-29-2008 12:13PM

My guess is valve guides are worn and you could at minimum use some new valve seals.

When there's a lot of vacuum, the cylinders suck in some oil past the seals and into the combustion chambers when the intake valve is open and charging the cylinder with air/fuel mixture. You may also see the same blue smoke when you idle at lights and first pull away, and even possibly when you go up hill/under load.

When the engine sits for a while, the same oil drains down past both the intake and the exhaust guides and pools on the backs of the intake and exhaust valves and also in the piston dish (leaks past the valves). When you first fire up the car, it takes a bit to burn that oil off. You can confirm this somewhat if you pull your plugs one morning before you start your car and rotate your engine by hand. You can shine a light in your spark plug holes and see your piston dish and if there's a little oil in them. It won't always be that extreme/visible but if it is then you know it's valve guide seals.

Other possible causes of smoke are worn/broken rings and/or over-rich fuel mixture ( but that's not generally blue smoke)

--Spank