[Walt Fricke]

Leakdown and compression are the valuable tools for general engine condition. Torquing the head nuts (which you can do any time the valve covers are off) will quickly tell you if there is a stud pulling problem, though often this is announced more dramatically because you find a loose barrel nut rattling around, sometimes with a stub of stud still threaded in. In general, some advice I once received from a shop for my 2.7 was if the heads held torque, don't worry. With regular maintenance you should catch a broken or loose stud soon enough before something really disastrous happens. You can drive for quite a while with a broken stud with no significant extra damage. It isn't a good thing, but it is not like the engine will blow up one mile later.

Smoke on start up, however, is fairly common, and the longer the car sat the more it can happen on an otherwise good engine. There are a variety of theories as to where this oil came from, but as you probably know, after you shut the engine off oil starts migrating from the tank to the sump - think of how much comes out of the sump when changing the oil.

There are tools (one intake, one exhaust) which allow you to change valve springs - or seals - with the engine in the car. Not super easy, but can be done.

The 3.2s had a bad reputation for oil consumption, which I think I recall was thought to be due to over rapid wear of the valve guides. Porsche's spec was something like one quart per 600 miles, which most thought was way too much oil consumption. The usual diagnostic for valve guide wear is oil consumption, which is not the same as smoking on cold startup or dripping, though both can contribute. I suggest you adjust your valves - or just check the lash - and put a torque wrench on each barrel nut to see if you have a head stud issue. If not, watch oil consumption.

If you decide to remove the valve spring to check the guide, or just the retainer, I suggest you use the string method to keep the valve from moving: with the piston below TDC, feed string into the cylinder through the spark plug hole. Then rotate the piston to TDC firing, compressing the string against the valve head. You can also use air pressure with a fitting to go in the plug hole, but the string method seems simpler and more positive, especially when it comes to the task of putting the retainer back on and getting the keepers properly settled.