Anal Leakage

[Dan Bocek <dan@di.com>]

No, I didn't just fill up the old UrQ with Olestra instead of oil, but
maybe I should have.  Guess what folks, yet another problem in the
continuing saga of getting the quattro into a condition capable of
sustaining a drive of more than a few blocks without something disasterous
happening to the engine. 

Update:  As some of you know, after the head self-destructed at the
Virginia City Hillclimb in '94 (God, it's been that long since this things
been running!!!!!) I upgraded to a hydraulic head and RS2 turbo.  Got that
all back together, only to find out that the head was seriously warpped
(these lessons come hard, folks, so repeat after me: "I will *NEVER*
*EVER* put a head on an engine again without first checking the cam tower
alignment and the flatness of the bottom with a straight-edge, and
checking the cam bearing clearances with Plasti-gauge").  Took the head
off and had it straightened by a shop in LA who used a torque plate in a
giant oven to re-aneal the thing back into alingment (probably worthy of a
seperate post in and of itself), put the head and yet another new turbo
(RS2 Competition :-) on over the weekend, started it up, and was met by a
James Bond style smoke screen coming out the tailpipe.  Shit!!!!!! 

Took it for a ~4 mile spin last night, and by the time I got back, she was
about a half quart low.  Pulled the plugs, and #2 looked like it had been
dredged through a tar pit, #3 was bad, but not like #2, and the rest of the
plugs looked OK.  There's no oil in the intake plumbing, so the new turbo
is not at fault.  The car didn't burn a drop of oil up until now, so I'm
sure the bottom end is all right (besides, the bottom was rebuilt just a
few thousand miles ago).  That leaves three other possibilities that I 
can think of:

1) Valve stem seals.  After the head was straightened, a valve job was
done.  Maybe a seal or two were left out or not put on all the way, but my
thinking on this is that even if a seal were missing, if the guide
clearances were in spec (and the head guy assures me they were), it
shouldn't have dumped a half quart through the guides in 4 miles.  That
just seems a bit much to me.  But, this is getting into some unexplored
territory for me here, so I could be wrong about the consumption. 

2) Head gasket.  The oil feed for the head comes from the block between
cylinders 2 and 3.  Sound Suspicious?  Maybe, but in order for this to be
the path into the cylinders, I would have had to have done something
seriously wrong when I installed the gasket in order for that path to have
formed right off the bat.  Besides, there's no oil in the water.
Again, I'll bow to other's experience on this since I have little. 

3) Crank case ventilation.  Looks like I hooked it up correctly.  
Besides, if oil were pouring in through this path, I would expect a more 
even oil distribution in all the cylinders, rather than just the two 
that it appears to be going into.

I have a friend with a leakdown tester who'll be coming over soon.  Since 
I've never used one (or seen one being used, for that matter), anyone got 
any tips for how it might be used to diagnose my problem?  Any other 
suggestions for the path into the cylinders that I might have missed?  
Thanks for the input.

                                                         Dan Bocek
                                                         dan@di.com