Sadly my 2004 SS monte is burning up a good bit more oil than she should be 1 quart every 2000 miles currently using 5w-30 full synthetic oil (guessing head gasket or piston rings).

She also has a slight leak of transmission fluid (few drops a day) coming from under the engine. Doesn't look like it is coming from a CV joint so I am guessing a transmission gasket or the front transmission pump seal (tranny to engine).

In any case it looks like it will need some work, which I might be up to the task. If I were to open her up, what recommendations would people have to add for maintenance or maybe performance adders. I was thinking maybe a top swap but not sure if I will go that extreme or is it not much work at that point since she will be pretty open at that point.

She only has 87k miles on her. Too soon to have those kinds of issues.

 

I can't imagine your rings are shot at 87k unless the car has been beat on pretty hard.

You sure the trans leak isn't just the pan gasket? That could be a simple fix.

As for mods, a top swap isn't a whole lot more labor if you have to get into head gaskets. The only additional labor will be swapping the balancer, and adding the other SC drive belt components.

 

Yeah, bad rings seem unlikely, I don't really beat on it, rarely go over 4000 rpms, I do drive around 70mph though. Mostly city miles on her.

Good to know a top swap isn't much more work.

 

sure your oil pan gasket dont have a slow leak and you think your burning oil when really your leaking oil?

a top swap is best bang for your $ or if that engine is that bad just find a used l67 and swap the whole engine, trans and be supercharged. or buy a used turbo kit and make even more power. dont forget once you start making more and more power the trans doesnt like it and will fail a lot quicker than normal so plan on upgrading the trans.

 

sometimes when people change the pan gaskets they tighten them too much and it pinches the gasket or they don't set it right, I like to keep my engine spotless so when I do get a leak its easy to find

if you do a top swap most of the SC cars I see are the buick Riviera's or the regal's

 

Haven't had to replace the pan or gasket but I checked the pan gasket for leaks and found no leaks. I do have some black soot around the tailpipe, clean it up but it comes back when i check it when I remember (usually after a month or two).

I'll try to get some tools from harbor frieght to check piston compression and see what the deal is

 

Is this the trans pan you're talking about here? If so, that narrows your search for the trans leak down pretty quickly - especially since you already said it wasn't coming from the axle connections. It's either coming from the side case gasket (which would be very easy to tell since it's far away from everything else), the input shaft/TC area (would be coming out from the plastic inspection cover area between the trans and engine), or somewhere in the trans cooler loop (which is also easy to see since all of the connections are fairly out in the open when looking from the bottom up.