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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 02:25 PM
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Ever since I bought my 01 z06 its consumed a bit of oil. Not terribly bad, but enough that I have to add about 2 quarts in between oil changes. Its also always smoked a bit from the exhaust when I snap into the throttle and run it up to 5500rpms. If I roll onto the throttle slowly I don't get smoke at all, and I was reading somewhere that if you roll onto throttle and get no smoke, but get smoke when you jab the throttle that you should replace valve seals.





You can kind of see it in this video, but if the lighting is right it seems much worse than this.

My question is what do you guys think? a compression test a few months ago showed good numbers, all very consistent with the lowest being around 165 and the highest around 175. I've been dreaming of a mild cam for quite some time (228r) and obviously new lifters/springs/valve seals/etc. At this point I could easily afford the work, and my clutch has never shown any signs of distress, fluid kept as clean and clear as possible. I don't drag race or anything, and I'm really easy on the clutch, so i don't think I would have any issues there.
I would really hate to do all this work and still have smoking issues though. What do you guys think?
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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 02:28 PM
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Not sure if those videos are working, so here are links to them.


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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 02:48 PM
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Valve seals are most likely leaking from what you describe.
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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 02:58 PM
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No Catch can right now, I pulled my vararam off to clean the TB and it was honestly almost completely dry. there was a bit of buildup, but no oil actually pooling. TB hasn't been cleaned or touched in well over a year when I last had it ported/polished. will post a pic of it when I get the chance.
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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 02:59 PM
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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 03:28 PM
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Originally Posted by dbgoodwin
No Catch can right now, I pulled my vararam off to clean the TB and it was honestly almost completely dry. there was a bit of buildup, but no oil actually pooling. TB hasn't been cleaned or touched in well over a year when I last had it ported/polished. will post a pic of it when I get the chance.
Do a leakdown test, if it's good then it's the valve seals.
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Old Apr 8, 2015 | 11:38 PM
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So even if a compression test shows good on all cylinders I need to do a leak down test?
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Old Apr 9, 2015 | 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by dbgoodwin
So even if a compression test shows good on all cylinders I need to do a leak down test?
You need to determine where the leak is (top or bottom of the cylinder-i.e. rings or valves). I you hear air leaking out of the crankcase it's most likely your rings causing the oil consumption. If you can get a look at the top of the valves, you'll be able to tell if the oil is leaking down the valves.

Compression tests alone don't always tell the whole story.
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Old Apr 9, 2015 | 04:23 PM
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I just always though a compression test was a pass/fail thing, and if it failed you needed to do a full leak down test.
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Old Apr 10, 2015 | 09:05 AM
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Originally Posted by dbgoodwin
I just always though a compression test was a pass/fail thing, and if it failed you needed to do a full leak down test.
Nope, as oil slings around during the compression test, you would expect compression to rise as oil helps seal the rings.

Pulling the intake on theses cars is simple, you could do that and look at the top of the intake valves, if they are covered in coked up oil deposits you found the issue.




The leakdown test would tell you the issue is not rings but I'm betting with the way you describe it, it's valve seals.
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Old Apr 12, 2015 | 11:18 PM
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I'm starting to wonder if my tune just isn't rich up top at full throttle or something. I did quite a bit of testing today and no matter what any time I made it smoke it was black, not blue at all. Since I've had the car it's been dyno tuned twice, and the tuner said all looked good, but I don't necessarily trust the shop that tuned it.
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