350 Smoking Bad

[Clinical]

Ever since I got my 350 Formula it has smoked a bit.

The motor itself runs beautifully and definitely isn't lacking on power - for a third gen its pretty decent - I've beat a couple basically stock LT1's and a bolt on 02 GT.

Pretty much since I got it it has smoked quite a bit on startup - and then lightly smoked while being driven. Although a lot of times when stopped at a light for example, soon as I push the gas to start sometimes it'll put out a good cloud of smoke.

It burns about 1qt a month - and considering how much I drive it, that isn't too bad.
Today I washed the car, then started it up - and a lot of smoke from startup - oh well I figure just the usual.

I go to pull out and as I'm driving along I realize more smoke than I'm used too. I'd say is smoking 2x as much as it was originally. Idling it's smoking quite a bit. Startup it smokes much worse than it used to.

The guy I bought it from said something about the valve job he had done on it probably being the source of the problem.

Anyways, I was wondering if it just sounds like I need new valve seals or something?
Also, if so - how extensive of work is valve seals? I'd like to try to tackle it myself although I'm mechanically retarded pretty much. I have a good deal of tools and a chiltons manual and I'll have it stored for about 4 months starting in October - so I'd like to finally say I fixed something like that myself.

Anyway - thanks for any help.

[sLoWnStEaDy]

If it is the valve seals, that isn't too bad of a job. IIRC, basicaly just pull the heads, remove the valve springs/retainers etc... and the stem seals "pop right on"

I risk sounding retarded but am going ot say it anyways. you might not have to even pull the heads, you could probably pull the valve covers, springs/retainers and then just replace the seals. You'd have to make sure you don't drop a valve into the cylinders though. if you do it with each cylinder TDC you shouldn't have to worry about dropping the valves in either. If you do, you'd just have to remove the head anyways so...



Now I will let the "O.G." engine people take over since i don't know all that much about the older stuff...

I feel your pain my mustang is smoking but I cant tell if its from the motor or from the tailshaft of the trans leaking on the exhaust but I can only see the smoke when i'm at highway speeds. thats weird.

I would do a compression check first. then look at something else.