inactiveuser92616

This weekend I was driving my car over to my friend's place (car has sat since last weekend) and smelled some nasty oily/burning rubber smell. i was behind a beater, so I figured it was them. Later that night, I am still smellling it so I popped the hood, and there is smoke coming off of the header runners. I am not positive if it is oil smoke, or power steering. I know its not coolant (I know that smell too well)

This morning, I took a look and I am pretty sure it is oil, the tops of the 3 and 4 exhaust runners are damp. Also damp, is the area on the edge between (the head and cam tower?) right above the #4 exhaust outlet. (I am counting cylinders from front of car... #1 at radiator and #4 at firewall). There also seems to be dampness along that side of the bellhousing, but I dont know if it is new.

Bottom line... its smoking like a pig and definitely was not before. I think it is the valve cover leaking, but before I go buying parts and ripping off hunks of metal, I thought I would look for the rennlist insight into the problem. May or may not be contributeing, I recently (~1000 miles ago) switched to mobil 0w-40 synthetic, from valvoline 20w-50 synblend.

Any odd brand of gasket work, or is this one of the "only porsche has good quality" things? Do I need a gasket dressing, like silicone? Could I possibly get away with just tightening it?
Thanks!

KLR

That'll do it. It sounds like the cam tower gasket, which is a common issue that crops up with age/mileage. This is a fairly involved job (do a search) that requires removal of the timing belt. If you pay a pro, expect to be billed for five-six hours. If you're due for belts and/or a waterpump, then you're in luck.

Another potential source is an inexpensive cork gasket at the back of the cam tower that seals a round cover with three bolts. This is a 20-30 minute repair and can certainly cause smoking (particularly on 951s, where the oil will run down the back of the block and land on the crossover pipe), but I don't see how you'd have oil all the way up at #3 in this case.