See if you can diagnose the problem...

My Bently manual arrived today (e-bay for $87). Man is this book good. It makes the Haynes manual look like "Crib-notes". I can't wait to look into servicing every nook and crany of my car :-)
The manual does a good job of describing/showing the removal of fuel injectors. It looks straighforward.
Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this within the next week or so. All I have to do is wait for the car to come out of the shop (The dealer put a dent in my door at the last service. It took me a lot of whining to get them to find a body place that could repair the damage without filler).
I can't wait to drive around town without leaving a black cloud at every stoplight.
Thanks even more for the advice :-) You guys are the best.

Dan Tolley
1987 911 Coupe (one more month of good weather in Vermont)

Originally posted by JDaniel:
Keep in mind that I'm talking about a 1987 911 Carrera with 55,000 miles. Last summer the oil consumption was about 600-700 mi/qt. Car smoked a little on some startups and let out a bit of smoke upon hard acceleration from 1st to 2nd (between 5000-6000 rpms).
This summer I replaced cat. w/ a bypass pipe, and within a month began to notice more and more smoke (these two may not be related). Exhaust began to smell a bit rich. Oil consumption dropped to less than 400 mi/qt. There is a small oil leak onto the heat exchanger (passenger side) that doesn't get to the ground (just enough to give off a nice burining oil smell).
When warmed up the car will not smoke while idling, but as soon as you start off from a stop a nice cloud of smoke pops out. Not any smoke noticable while driving, but sometimes a bit upon deceleration.
There's no audible valve noise, and mechanic turned up nothing when he checked for valve guide wear 3k miles ago while performing a valve adjustment (although I'm not too sure about his ability).
Motor keeps fouling plug on Cyl #6 (plug is black and sooty, a little wet, but not dripping). The remaining 2 plugs on that bank look slightly used, but the 3 on the other side are perfect. Car runs fine after replacing plug (until it fouls again). New magnecor ignition wires approx. 3k miles ago.

So what does this sound like? The dreaded valve guide wear, broken head stud, piston/ring/cyl problem... other?

Just trying to diagnose the problem before I begin worrying about how to pay for the "Fix".

Thanks,
Dan Tolley
1987 911 (ole' smokey)

my GUESS id that the smoke is from rings and/or valve guides but I suspect rings as it
was similar to mine..however oil leak could be from oil return tubes or heads,cyl base to case...I did a comp and leak down to fnd prblm...know this isn't much help but I just got my CD so wanted to reply..aloha,,merlin 87' 930

i am experiencing exactly the same symtoms in my 87 coupe - how was it resolved?

[This message has been edited by D911_MEE (edited 02-24-2001).]