My '91 Formula has started to burn oil...all the time. It used to just occur at start-up, and I figured that it was probably seals because the car only gets driven once every other week and only has 14K miles on it. Last week I noticed I could smell burning oil while I was stopped at a traffic light, but thought it was due to an intake manifold oil leak that I knew existed. When I got to work I left it idling and got out of the car and noticed it was puffing a pretty good amount of oil smoke out the tailpipes. The car doesn't really have enough miles on it to have a ring problem...what else could cause this? It came on fairly suddenly. I am planning on replacing the Trickflow heads and the cam in the near term, and that in itself may correct the problem, just need to know what else I should be possibly looking for while I have the engine apart.

TIA

My car was burning a lot of carbon, which at first I thought was oil (dark smoke, bad smell). It was due to a vacuum leak at the MAP sensor.

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Godti
'89 Trans Am (Red)
305 TBI 5spd

...actually, I noticed a vacuum leak when I checked under the hood, and found that the vacuum line nipple had broken off the charcoal canister purge line connection. Just plugged the vacuum line temporarily until I can replace the canister. The smoke is definitely oil though...blueish white in color...

Jimbo, make sure you do not plug the line going into the canister from the gas tank. That line relieves the pressure from the tank. Push the hose out the inner fender opening to reduce the smell of fumes.

You might know this already, just making sure. Lots of people block the gas line and wonder why they cant fill the tank more than half way or split the tank from excessive pressure.

...that line is still attached to the canister, but that's a good point to bring up for those that don't realize that...for sure...

thanx