my brothers '92 camaro rs has 130k miles on it and we think the engine is going. we installed a open element filter on it, and we have now noticed that it has white smoke coming out of the breather tube, which means the piston rings are fried on the motor, right? the other thing it is doin now is the coolant tube going into the motor sucks inward when you rev the car, might be a thermostat problem? the car does not run hot, it gets up to 200 degrees really fast but it stays there. the car is running very rich too... the cat is collapsed so maybe the o2 sensor is getting messed up... it also sounds like he has a bit of rattling in the motor. 130k isn't much for that motor to be going i don't think... should have a lot of mileage left on it. the car feels a little hesitant past 3.5k rpms sometimes but it is normally pretty solid. the car has 60psi oil pressure on start, 45 while driving normally, and 50 under full thottle, hope this helps thank you.

edit: oh the dealership he took it to did a compression test only on the #8 cylinder and got 180........ they did not say anything about piston rings. they said the car was OK but now it seems to be acting up..........

 

180 is good compression, i would check the rest of them though. as for the coolant hose sucking in when revved, sounds like there is no cooling system pressure, pressure test the cooling system and look for coolant in the oil and oil in the coolant, run compression tests on ll 8 cylinders, it sounds almost like either a blown head gasket or blown intake seals, im leaning more towards intake seals

 

okay thanks. he's been really stressin out about the whole thing. he's losing alot of money on that car. we can check the rest of the cylinders........ is there any thing else the white smoke could be from????

 

could be blowby gasses from a worn out cylinder, like i said, compression tests, and a cooling system test.