On to the issues: I've been noticing for the past while that the oil pan shows a mostly-dry stain of oil and the area around the oil filter shows wet stain/dirt. The source of this oil seems to be from the spin-on filter seal, though I am not 100% sure of this. I lubricate the filter o-ring with fresh oil every oil change and I tighten it to hand tight, exactly as everyone would recommend. It is possible that there are small dirt particles that could be resisting the seal, but this leak appears to be a very slow weep. There is a small "forming droplet" on the bottom of the oil filter, which is what leads me to assume that the leak is coming from the filter itself. I will attach photos below of the filter, surrounding area, and oil pan stain.
The second issue I am curious of is a potential PCV issue. My last oil change ran about 500 miles over my usual 3000 mile interval, though those extra miles were low load and almost entirely highway driving. Due to the extremely cold temps, the oil catch can would not drain at the time of the oil change from congealed sludge at the bottom of the can. After the 250 mile drive back to Indianapolis, I noticed the car behaving strangely when being taken out of gear coming up to a stop: the RPM would drop below my normal idle of 830-850 RPM to around 750-780 and the AFR would be lean between 15.5 and 16.5 for a couple of seconds before it returned to normal idle. After receiving advice from Enki, African, and Matt in Shoutbox, I drained the catch can after driving to have heat in the system, and a considerable amount of fluid came out. This *mostly* fixed the idling down issue, but it would still dip down to about 790 for a very brief time when it would fall to idle, though there was no abnormal AFR condition after the can was drained.
Yesterday, when driving home from the grocery store, I passed someone with a small 4psi pull in second gear. Afterwards, the car stopped dipping into the 700s on idle down entirely, though I saw in my mirror that there was some white smoke/steam/something in my rear view mirror during the pull. It was about 43F outside, though I'm unsure if that is cold enough or if humidity/pressure conditions were enough to cause water vapor from the exhaust to be visible in that quantity. I then began to speculate: if there were enough oil in the lines to cause a PCV issue before, would the excess in the manifold side line not have been sucked into the manifold in boost? Could the smoke have been residual oil in the lines burning through the engine? My biggest fear is that if the PCV is clogged, that smoke could have been oil burning from blowby. I will attempt to open up the PCV system over the weekend, but I will have to be quick on Friday as the car has an alignment appointment on Saturday and I have to return to school on Sunday. There really isn't room for me to make errors and have the car down for longer than Friday. Any advice on either of these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time if you read this far.
The second issue I am curious of is a potential PCV issue. My last oil change ran about 500 miles over my usual 3000 mile interval, though those extra miles were low load and almost entirely highway driving. Due to the extremely cold temps, the oil catch can would not drain at the time of the oil change from congealed sludge at the bottom of the can. After the 250 mile drive back to Indianapolis, I noticed the car behaving strangely when being taken out of gear coming up to a stop: the RPM would drop below my normal idle of 830-850 RPM to around 750-780 and the AFR would be lean between 15.5 and 16.5 for a couple of seconds before it returned to normal idle. After receiving advice from Enki, African, and Matt in Shoutbox, I drained the catch can after driving to have heat in the system, and a considerable amount of fluid came out. This *mostly* fixed the idling down issue, but it would still dip down to about 790 for a very brief time when it would fall to idle, though there was no abnormal AFR condition after the can was drained.
Yesterday, when driving home from the grocery store, I passed someone with a small 4psi pull in second gear. Afterwards, the car stopped dipping into the 700s on idle down entirely, though I saw in my mirror that there was some white smoke/steam/something in my rear view mirror during the pull. It was about 43F outside, though I'm unsure if that is cold enough or if humidity/pressure conditions were enough to cause water vapor from the exhaust to be visible in that quantity. I then began to speculate: if there were enough oil in the lines to cause a PCV issue before, would the excess in the manifold side line not have been sucked into the manifold in boost? Could the smoke have been residual oil in the lines burning through the engine? My biggest fear is that if the PCV is clogged, that smoke could have been oil burning from blowby. I will attempt to open up the PCV system over the weekend, but I will have to be quick on Friday as the car has an alignment appointment on Saturday and I have to return to school on Sunday. There really isn't room for me to make errors and have the car down for longer than Friday. Any advice on either of these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time if you read this far.
