The pic isn’t my plugs but another helpful members, mine were a good colour and seem to be indicating a good state of tune.
I have recently replaced the cam cover gasket with one I bought from my local motor factors, it isn’t leaking outward but maybe internally
Could the smoke in the morning be it burning off the oil from the plug threads rather than stem seals / oil rings etc???
There was no oil on the top of the plugs
Pattern cam cover gaskets are rubbish and not worth using.
Typically, when a gasket is really leaking, you might get a little stuttering on start-up. The amount of oil that can be physically on the plug is miniscule, so I would not expect a failed camcover gasket to give any noticeable smoking at all.
Ideally plugs should have a brown/grey appearance as in the pictures displayed in the old Haynes manuals. Exhaust endpipes should also show a grey rather than black tone. From my experience of the MK1 car, the plugs should appear as described but the exhaust will show signs of apparent rich running.
Hi all, yes the plug pic is of my plugs to show a common-looking “oiled” plug thread far left and to explain the reason why, which is nothing to do with smoking in that case.
Pay no attention to the colour of the plugs either, mine had been shunting around the garage cold many times without having a good run and Qdogs may have been too so it won’t mean much. The only time a “plug chop” to check colour is of any use is by hitting neutral and cutting the engine, then pulling the plugs immediately, during the throttle setting you wish to check. If you drive home after a run on various throttle settings it will mean nothing much. Similar for the exhaust pipe but delayed effect, expect earlier cars to look a bit sooty round town, due to rich acceleration mixture, which should turn light grey on a long run. Newer cars have more tightly controlled mixture at all openings and show less soot.
Nor would a failed rocker gasket cause his problem.
Qdog, did you check the pcv?
I have tried blowing through it and its clear one way and hard if I blow hard the other way
Engines running rich have sooty plugs, oil burning gives a hard black glaze to the electrodes.
I would keep running it if it’s not too bad, if the cat is disguising the oil smoke by burning it off therein, eventually it will give out and show that your rings/bores are duff. If not it’s only the valve stem seals. That is what I suspect as you are using little oil ,if any and you only make smoke when the engine has stood for a while.
If you have time in the morning before you start the engine, it may be worth pulling the plugs and shove a long “Q” Tip down the hole, see if there is any oil on the top of the piston. It should show no trace at all. If it does show then valve stem seals it is 
Drop another low mileage engine in,while they are still cheap enough to buy.
M-m
Wayne - how much would you charge to swap(labour cost) a MK1 1.6i Eunos engine?
Is it definately oil smoke and not condensation in the exhaust. Or is it using any coolant.
Or this may be of interest to you.
Chris Shears posted in MX5 Forum<o:p></o:p>
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92,000 kms Taken out of a rotten car. Nice quiet engine. Pulled well As you would expect |
I had this problem on my 1.6 Mk1 racing car. Very embarassing creating smoke in the paddock in the morning. It cleared after the first couple of laps. I tried ‘Stop Smoke’: no success. So I removed the head and found the backs of the valves in two cylinders covered in sooty oil. Installed new stem seals and decoked the head. When I put it all back together it was still smoking. My local friendly garage guy thought there could be oil residue in the exhaust. Suggested taking it for a good run. The car is de-registered, so I took a chance and booked a track day. After three laps the smoke stopped and it’s been ok since. What the garage guy said made sense. I did the job myself. It took me a long time but I saved a fortune on labour - although the parts: head gasket oil seals etc came to quite a bit. My compression test showed good results, that’s why I took a chance.