I have been having a weird idle problem and tonight i took at look under the hood. I took off the intake, then the throttle body. I noticed oil all over the manifold. There is also a pretty big puddle in the manifold itself. Is this normal? Probably not. But i think i have a lot of blow by. What is everyons suggestions besides compression testing.
BTW its an Ecotec with 70,342 miles on it with over 200 passes down the track.

I don't know anything about the Ecotec's, but oil in the intake is generally due to the PCV and is perfectly normal. Oily air is drawn from the crankcase into the intake in order to burn it and make all the tree huggers happy.

2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"

PCV or excessive ring wear

with over 200 passes down the track, I bet your rings are a little toasty. Like you said, compression test is in order.

I cleaned out the intake/pcv! Compression test is fine. All cylinders within 5% of eachother and withing 2% of the compression when i built the engine. So rings are good. I checked the vacuum. Its 22 at idle STEADY!! Valavetrain is good. So hopefully it was just the pcv

Normal, like they said PCV valve. I replaced my engine 2 weeks ago and there was oil all over inside the manifold and the throttle body plate.