Update: I was correct. Towed the car to my mechanic, who ended up taking the head off and seeing that there was in fact a gasket leak in the rear most cylinder in the exhaust valve area. It was small but there. No coolant in the oil, thankfully. Hopefully this will help others doing a SEARCH for possibly headgasket leaks. They are sometimes hard to verify without either waiting until it totally blows or being more proactive and taking the head off to make sure.

I am getting a Cometic MLS gasket installed, new Kevlar T-belt and rollers, seals , WP changes if needed. Also getting new coolant hoses, vacuum lines, oil cooler seals, and engine mounts done while we are in there.

The car may be for sale after its fixed, sooner or later. I had orignally planned on selling in the spring, anyway, so if so I will post.

 

Wow. Nice car. GLWS (really, you should keep it)

 

Since you have the head off, consider doing the oil seals too! The parts are cheap, and are very accessible with the head off. I'd be a tiny bit leery of the HG being the cause. It's clearly possible, but often hard to confirm. I would think if you had an obvious failure of the gasket --i.e., deformed, blown out, or otherwise leaking in a way that your mechanic could verify with confidence-- your symptoms would have been worse. Not necessarily, of course, but since it's so easy to do the seals with the head off, I'd double my chances of success for an extra hour of labor and $50 in parts...

 

I've had a HG fail on an NA 928 due to mere corrosion of the gasket...it can happen.

 

Oh man do I like that eruo bumper...

GLWS!

 

Yeah, the oil seals are getting changed too. I'm not going to cut corners. If I end up spending too much and can't recoup the money (not that I expect to) I'll be fine with keeping it longer and selling it later down the road, too.