For the last few months after my heads/cam swap, I noticed my car "appeared" to be burning oil. Well today while letting it idle, I was looking at the color of the exhaust, and it had a very very light tint to it, but it didnt smell as if it were burning oil. I opened up the butterfly's to the throttle body, and noticed oil behind the butterfly's, and inside the intake. I took the valve cover breather tube that connects to the throttle body off, and it had oil all through it, going into the throttle body. It appears that the vaccum is pulling oil from the valve covers into the throttle body, and into the intake, and of course mixing together to create my nice light blue idle smoke. Is this the result of a bad pcv valve? Or what else could it be? THis is just the conclusion I have came to...any other ideas?

 

Yes it could definately be your PCV valve. I had this problem on my Integra. It would use some oil, but not alot. I changed the PCV valve and after that no more oil consumption. Does the PCV valve still rattle if you shake it? If not it is time for a new one.

 

It could be a stuck PCV valve, as noted in the post above, or it could be excessive "blowby" on the piston rings. With the engine idling, take the oil fill cap off, and listen for a "huffing" sound, and then hold your hand lightly over the opening to see if there is a puffing of air out the fill pipe.

The line from the TB to the valve cover is supposed to flow clean, metered air from in front of the TB blades (not as much vacuum there) to the valve cover, where the air is pulled through the crankcase and lifter valley, and out through the PCV valve. It only flows vapor and entrained oil droplets from the valve cover to the TB if there is an obstruction in the PCV valve, or if you have excessive blowby (or if you are running an S/C ).