Thread: Oil burning... shatty

So my car was fine the whole day and night until we went to Denny's at abour 1:30am. Ate, came back out, started the car and let it idle to warm up while I played with Shanes SAFC. When I walked back to my car I noticed some nasty smoke that was part blue/grey and that awful smell of oil burning up. Drove it home back to YC and I could still smell it every time I stopped at a stop light and could see the smoke in my rear view mirror when head lights were behind me.

Pulled the plugs and oil was on the threads on 3 ouf of 4 but the electrodes all looked perfect as far as color and the piston tops are still nice and clean. There didn't seem to be any oil besides maybe a drop or two coming from the spark plug hole gaskets for the valve cover. Did a compression test today and it read 191 190 187 190 WOT cranking. I just had the head rebuilt 2000 miles ago including new valve seals when I changed out my dead head gasket. Just changed the oil/filter about 300 miles ago. Haven't modified or changed my tune in a long time besides little stuff like mounts and clutch line. No oil in coolant, no coolant in oil.

I didn't even beat on my car at all last night so I'm not sure what happened here. Any ideas?

I'm positive this is related to two things. First, two other Spyders died that night so I was jinxed. Second, I told someone there that "I never have stupid DSM problems that everyone always complains about" so I jinxed myself again... :) I need to keep quite lol

A litte more info. Car runs, idles, and boosts perfectly fine like it always has. Oil level hasn't seemed to drop.

I backed off the boost last week and I've only been running like 17psi with a fairly rich mixture. Knock gauge hasn't picked up knock at all that I can remember for the last couple weeks.


Temp gauge stays put while accelerating, while boosting, while idling, cruising, anything. No heating issues what so ever. Oil pressure reads fine and consistant. No wierd noises... ok that's all.

How old are the spark plug gromets and valve cover gasket? Do you have a crack in the head?

Just consider everyhing related to the head less than 2000 miles old. All gaskets, all seals. Everything.

I think a crack in the head would bring a lot more hell than a little burning oil. No oil/coolant mixture. No over heating. No other problems that would lead me to believe it's a head gasket, head, anything like that.

Only thing I can think of is the rings are bad and the oil in the combution changer is giving me that "wet test" effect and I'm getting good compression readings. But when looking down there, I don't see any excess oil in there or buld up on the pistons.

Edit: The only sure thing I can think of is the spark plug hole groumets though. My stupid valve cover gasket has always leaked so I'm sure they're leaking a little too. Just seemed like a lot of smoke and smell for a little leak like that and not much evidence in the spark plug holes besides the threads.

Mine leaves a smoke trail all the time. Isnt that normal for DSMs? Haha j/k

sounds like your turbo might be going. pull an intercooler pipe and see if theres oil in it.

I just had a pipe off on thursday and there was no sign of oil, I'll check again though. Spool up is as good as ever, no wierd noises, no shaft play as of last thursday. I hope it's not the turbo, it's less than 5k old.

Double checked the lower intercooler pipe, bone dry, no oil coming from the turbo.

Blue smoke is coming out of the actual exhaust, not from under the car or anything. I can't even smell it from the front of the car unless the wind blows it back at me. And if oil was dumping into the hot side of the turbo, it would never reach the spark plug threads.