91 Legacy burning oil

[RFB]

I have a 91 Legacy wagon that smokes like crazy. I bought this car a few months ago and while test driving it it ran fine, no smoke at all in the 20 min I drove it. On the way home, 30 min later it started smoking a little, and got worse the rest of the way home. Now when I start it, just idleing in the driveway it can smoke out the neighbourhood.

 

I have checked the pcv, it's fine, no oil anywhere in the lines.

 

I pulled the plugs and the left front cylinder is the one burning oil, it's the only plug that came out black.

 

First thing I tried was changing the valve seals, didn't help.

 

I checked the compression, got 200 on 3 cyl, 191 on the left front.

 

Could it be rings? This car has 170k on it, but from what I have read, it should go alot farther. It runs fine except for the smoke.

 

Any suggestions on what to check?

 

Thanks.

[BoostedBalls]

Sadly, it sounds like the rings in that cylinder are shot.

 

Now, the compression only seems a little low in that cylinder, the oil in that cylinder is most likely giving you a higher than actual reading just because the oil is helping to seal the gap or crack or whatever the case is.

 

You need to get a "leak-down tester", the standard compression test is not going to help you much here. Check out this link:

 

http://vmaxoutlaw.com/tech/leakdown_tester.htm

 

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