Okay, I'm not sure what causes this. There is a small amount of oil in my intake tube. I did not remove the TB cover part of the intake yet, but I will tomorrow, to see if the TB is coated in oil. The oil was in the part of the tube right by the IAC. In the bendable portion of the tube. By small amount, I mean maybe a Tablespoon.
I just hit 90k, 03 eco, 5 speed.
Also, my eco burns oil. It doesn't burn oil if I drive like a normal person (keeping the engine under 3k rpms, however, when I shift hard, at a higher RPM (usually around 5k or higher) I get a small but noticeable puff of blue smoke from the tail pipe. I have black oil burning soot on the inside of my tail pipe as well. If I shift like a normal person, the motor burns about a quart every 2000-2500 miles. If I shift like a mad man, I can burn a quart in a 1000 miles.
Now, my thought was PCV, but I don't remember if the eco has a PCV. I don't think it does.

is the oil in my intake related to the oil I'm burning? Seems to be the oil is coming into the intake tube, then getting into the TB, and burning in the cylinder from there. At least, thats my thought. So I would assume, if this theory is correct, fixing whatever is throwing oil into my intake, then the engine should stop burning so much oil.

Anyone care to help me out here? I'm not sure where to start, or what to start looking at. Thanks ahead of time.

I just searched a bit and seems like this is common among all the engines in the J Body? A normal occurrence then? Would a quart every 2000 miles be a bit much then? I thought I remembered seeing a quart every 3000 miles was considered normal.

Hmmm this is interesting. According to GM a quart every 1000 miles is normal. If ur puffing smoke it could be bad valve seals or worse case, bad piston rings. The Eco does have a pcv valve and iirc its integrated into the valve cover meaning not replaceable again iirc. Someone's jump in if I'm wrong. Goodluck tho.

Well, I only get a small puff of blue at High RPM's. Above 5000 RPM's, and I get a puff. Normal driving, cold start up, warm start up, I get nothing.

If a quart every 1000 miles is normal according to GM, then thats fine with me. The blue puff at high RPM's is a bit concerning. I actually didn't know about the smoke at all, until my wife was following me, and we played around a little, and I shifted hard through a corner, and she said you got a small puff there. I asked her to drive me again, follow me around. We stayed on the phone, and I did a couple normal shifts, she said nothing. I did a couple higher, but mid range shifts, she said there was nothing. I did a very high, 5500 almost 6000 and she said there was a small puff at that. Could oil be leaking past the valves at that point? Or could the oil in the intake tube be getting sucked in faster?

I have no drive ability problems what so ever. Good power, great response, no miss-fires, good mpg's, smooth idle, no indications that the engine has any problems.

how many miles do you have on it? Depending on what the car is worth to you and how much money you are willing to spend, you might just be better off leaving it, making sure to add oil whenever needed. I would guess at bad valve seals, but no way to diagnose it over the internet. It might be worth it to you to disassemble the motor and see for yourself, but if its a DD, I would leave it but pay close attention to your oil usage. Things like tend to get worse, not better, over time.

^^ 90k miles. Its in the first post as well. I always check my oil level. Its an every other day or so thing. I've been driving it nice and easy, and I really haven't used much oil. I'd say 1/4 quart in the last 1000 miles. Seems to only burn it bad when I drive her hard.
My car is a DD, but I'm planning on Polishing a valve cover probably over the winter, then swapping them next spring. When I remove the old valve cover, I'll look at the valve seals. Anything I should look for in particular? Been awhile since I've actually taken apart a head, or taken off a valve cover. Last thing I did was an oil pump on a Chrysler 318. The car is worth a lot to me. I haven't had a J in Years, and I missed my GT worse than bad. I will probably have this car till I die. I will fix anything and everything. I consider my cavi my child.

Mine has been doing the same thing, minus the smoke and such. It just burns off a quart between changes, and I have to clean out the intake every once in a while. I've kept up with it, had no problems.

I had a hole where the egr was suppose to be on the front of the engine, under the bendy part of the stock intake...no idea why it wasn;t hooked up, but it cause my engine to make a weird exhaust leak type sound, so I just blocked it with a piece of metal, and I don't have oil in my intake anymore. Has run great for about 10,000 miles like that, so....lol.

Sunfiretun3r wrote:^^ 90k miles. Its in the first post as well. I always check my oil level. Its an every other day or so thing. I've been driving it nice and easy, and I really haven't used much oil. I'd say 1/4 quart in the last 1000 miles. Seems to only burn it bad when I drive her hard.
My car is a DD, but I'm planning on Polishing a valve cover probably over the winter, then swapping them next spring. When I remove the old valve cover, I'll look at the valve seals. Anything I should look for in particular? Been awhile since I've actually taken apart a head, or taken off a valve cover. Last thing I did was an oil pump on a Chrysler 318. The car is worth a lot to me. I haven't had a J in Years, and I missed my GT worse than bad. I will probably have this car till I die. I will fix anything and everything. I consider my cavi my child.

Hahaha total fail on my part for not seeing that. Aside from the checking your valve seals, go with Sneezys suggestion to check the piston rings. Did you check your TB yet?

No, haven't checked the TB yet. I'll do that today. I wanted to check and see if it was dirty anyway, and clean it up some.

I would do a compression check.

Miss Jazer wrote:I would do a compression check.

Damn miss jazer, u beat me to it. Yeah compresson test it. That should give u a idea. But hold it, and see if anything leaks down. That will tell you right there if its valve seals or piston rings. Altho it wont tell you which one, but it will narrow it down. Goodluck man. Either way, its not sounding like a easy fix. And any kind of smoke is NOT a good thing.

Compression check coming up. Can't do a leak down test until I'm back in school this semester. Hell, maybe I can even fix it in school... They have valve compressors...

Meh, it stays the way it is right now. Can't fix it atm. All i can do is drive it so it doesn't smoke.

ya i got something like this too on my 2.4L except mine has almost 100k miles on it. I have burned around 0.5 qt of oil in the past 2000 km since my oil change. When I was checking the air filter I found alot of oil in the intake but today I checked and there is only a little bit. Maybe my oil/air separator is gone?

Okay, checked the TB, It's covered in oil, and carbon build up. I cleaned that up with a toothbrush, nice and shiny and clean now. I put the little breather filter on the PCV on the valve cover. I think that my original theory of the amount of oil in the intake was coming through the PCV, then being sucked through the intake and being burned is correct. The intake manifold has a nice coating of oil on it as well when I looked down the TB. I just did this today, haven't driven the car yet since.

Compression check will come soon.

As for the amount of oil being burned, it's now down to about a quart every 3000 miles, and I'm not getting a puff of blue smoke from the tail pipe anymore. I had my wife follow me again, to see if it was still doing it after I cleaned out the OEM intake tube, and she said it wasn't doing it any more.

So as it sits now I have the PCV system separate from the air intake. I will see if I continue to burn oil.

As for the oil/ air separator, are there any cheap ones I can use to see if that's where my oil is going? Or Can I make one myself?

I think the puff of smoke issue (since it has been resolved by cleaning out intake) was due to the higher rpm's pulling more air in faster than at lower rpms, and in turn sucking the oil through intake and burning it.. seems very logical, to me anyway... My mom has a metro with a 1.3 I think... and it smokes almost 100% of the time.. and we have no clue why.. 120k on the motor but its not a car that you would drive hard and mess up the engine... I wonder if it has similar issue with oil in the intake, I will have to check it out later. otherwise I hate to know what the alternatives to the cause would be.. rings/seals etc..

I wanted to update this thread for anyone that searches.
After I installed an intake, and separated the PCV from intake, I stopped burning oil.
Now, about 3 months later, I am still not burning oil anymore. The engine uses about 1/2 quart of oil every 3000 miles, and Obviously, I no longer have oil in the intake.