tx_zstang

Keep in mind, the stock crankcase ventilation and "pcv" pulls vapors into the intake and will pul in oil as well, and of course, burn it.
And, when these cars are cold, they will naturally smoke a little.

Depending on how the smoke really is, there might be a serious issue. If the car was bought used, someone could have damaged the engine before getting rid of it.
As mentioned, compression and leak-down tests will test the rings. But also, spark plugs can tell a big story, if there's a lot of oil in a cylinder or two. That's where I would start, try to determine a possibly problematic cylinder.

tx_zstang

(duplicate)

tbear853

Pretty sure that unless the crankshaft or the rods are made of elastic materials .... the rings on the pistons will "go up to" .... and "stop at" .... the same point once on every revolution of that engine's life .... unless a catastrophic failure is experienced .... at which point it's life is likely to be halted in short order.

The ridge is simply the unworn portion of the cylinder wall up where the rings never ride. In most cases it gets cut out with a ridge cutter at rebuild time .... but if not severe and depending on planned use and budget, it may get left in place.

bigblue95z

Only way to verify a ring issue is to do a compression test and/or a cylinder leakdown test to verify you have compression issues. You can do this yourself with basic, cheap tools you can pick up at any AutoZone (plus an air compressor). Look up how to do the tests yourself. Super easy. Give you piece of mind they're not pulling a fast one on you.

99 cobra clone

well if oil is dripping out of the tailpipe, that means he has no catalytic converters, witch means its not stock. He probably has at least one set of rings that are pretty much gone. And I've never heard of someone not running a motor hard and this happening. Are you sure that's his original engine, never rebuilt? Ether way best way to keep your rings in good condition is to use the proper octane fuel, and the proper weight oil.Avoid using fuel and oil additives until your around 130,000mi., and only use one product every 3000mi., to insure you know what a particular product is doing to your motor

trexflyer

Meaning he pulled the drain plug and almost nothing came out? I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure running an engine with no oil is kinda bad