Well it's been 2.5 months since I did the valve adj and since then I have never had any smoke at all, not even a single wisp, none, and I don't have a cat conv either. Before I was puffing out a big cloud of white smoke at say maybe 90% of cold starts. I didn't expect the valve adj to change that, but at this point my money says it did.

^^^ I'm curious as to what your oil level was when you had lots of smoke at startup compared to what the oil level has been at the last 2.5 months.

What you have observed is incredibly strange since valve lash has absolutely nothing do no with oil getting into the combustion chamber.

I've never overfilled. I maintain the oil level towards the lower mark, let it run below it, refill and record how much it takes in my maintenance log.

When I first purchased the car 15 months ago it never had any smoke coming out of the pipes. It was overdue for a valve adjustment time-wise but not been driven hardly at all for the previous decade, however I drove 4k in the first year including a 2k mile trip shortly after buying it. Slowly it started to develop the smoke on cold starts and kept getting progressively worse, including an overly rich smell from the exhaust, hence the light black smoke for the first couple minutes while warming up too. It seemed as though I could never lean it out enough before, but immediately after doing the valve adj the rich smell was gone along with all of the smoke.

Each of my valves were slightly too tight, only 2 were too loose, but all were out of spec. I didn't expect the valve adjustment to have such positive effects on the startup smoke and the A/F ratio but this is what I'm seeing, and hearing too b/c now it has a much more recognizable air-cooled engine sound.

hi All,
I mainly find with my 3.2 that if i wait until the oil tank level rises to its maximum before shutting the engine off, the next time i start it [within a few days] the car seldom smokes on start up, of course' if you let the car sit for a couple of weeks or more, the oil from the tank will slowly seep back down into the crankcase, and will eventually creep past the rings and into the cylinders, where on start up it will get burnt off...
As others have said, depending on where the engine has stopped can have a more or less affect too on the amount of smoke produced...
Anthony...

Went to Germany for Oktoberfest so my car sat in my garage for nearly 3 weeks and on the first start a small puff of white smoke came out and was gone in a couple seconds. First time I've seen any smoke at all though since the valve adjustment.