I have been fretting with this car for 15K miles. The engine emits a ball of smoke on start up and loses nearly a quart in 500 miles and not from leaking. The compression was rather even around 175 +/- 5 psi. No oil or bubbles in the water. No water in the oil. So I had a mechanic (painstakingly) replace the valve stem seals without pulling the head. But the oil burning is not better. Now I have the head off. There is no obvious problem with the gasket. And looking at the block design, it is nearly impossible for the oil to get into the cylinders by way of the head gasket. The water and oil would have to intermingle first. I see all six ports of the intake manifold are wet with oil and I see couple tablepsoons of oil in the bottom of the intake manifold. Flame trap was my first guess months ago. Air flows freely through the crankcase ventilation system. The oil separator is clean as is the flame trap. I do not use the little screen anyway. The car supposedly had 69K on it when I bought it off eBay (never again). At least cosmetically the car is nearly perfect. Bad rings could explain the blow by but should affect the compression. I do not plan to remove the rest of the engine without a solid reason. What could be causing this oil consumption? Thanks.