Hello my hairdressing friends.
I have a 1993 miata with a 1.6L longnose out of a '95.
The motor (supposedly) has 54k on it. I feel like its gotten worse recently, but it originally smoked a little bit on cold start, and about 3-4 minutes after driving. After that, it was completely fine, high rpms, decel, etc.
Month or so goes by and now its getting worse. Absolutely puffs (blue) smoke on cold starts, as I let the car warm all the way up before I drive it, and it smokes 4-5 minutes, maybe even slightly longer after driving it all the way warmed up, after that its perfectly fine, no smoke on decel or high RPMS.
BUT MAN, SHE PUFFFSSSSS at cold start. Like, smokes up my driveway kinda puff. Its getting out of hand and I obviously dont want to procrastinate as burning oil can cause gunk buildup and potential detonation.
Valve seals or piston rings?
And if you cant answer that, whats HARDER?
Id imagine piston rings but id like to know forsure from my fantastic mazda buddies.
Thank you friends! Let me know what you think is wrong with my car.

 

Rings is my guess.

 

Sounds like typical valve stem seal failure to me. They are much easier and cheaper to replace than piston rings.

 

Awesome! Job doesnt seem too hard, just a ton of organization and time! Thank you man!

 

Even if it is rings, doing the valve stem seals first would make the most sense IMO. If it's bad rings you'll be fully rebuilding the engine anyway. Replacing the 20+ year old valve stem seals would be something you would want to do during that rebuild.

 

There's a way to test the rings.

 

You can test compression rings. AFAIK there isn't a conclusive test for oil control rings.

 

I bet it tells you what you need to know.

But I'm already sure its rings from the description, unless something important was left out.

 

1.6 with a long nose out of a 95?