Dropping in for an update. I removed all air piping and thoroughly cleaned everything. I also found that the EGR delete only included the valve and not the cooler, so I removed the cooler and made all necessary hose adaptations. I left the pipe feeding the intercooler disconnected for monitoring and I replaced the oil and filter. I used Delo 5-40 because I had already picked it up at Walmart due to not having time to get to the local Napa. I also replaced all of the injector return hoses because they were deteriorated pretty badly and I could hear them 'hissing' when I was pulling vacuum with the Might-Vac to prime the IP the other day. I think that's all that I had done since my last post.
Oh...and I did install a small catch can. I think it's too small, and I'll likely replace it later, but I will use it to see how much is passing through the valve cover.
I started the car, and it started faster than any of my gassers ever thought of. I was impressed...I mean key turned and 'snap', it was running. It idles great, but has a random 'stumble' that causes the engine to rock in the engine bay. Dog bone looks good, so it must just be a substantial miss that causes it to rock pretty hard. I ran the car for an hour. The temp got up to 178 and stayed there. I think that toward the very end, the thermostat 'may' have started to open because the lower radiator hose only barely, maybe started to warm up a tiny bit.
Here is what I have come up with so far. From cold start to temps of about 150f, the charged air(pre intercooler) is very clear and has no odd smells. After maybe 15 minutes or a little more, I start to see some 'foggy' vapor coming from the charge pipe and I can also see it if I remove the oil fill cap. Once the engine is up to temperature, the vapor is heavier, and I see an oily drip from the charge pipe about every 10 seconds +/- a second or two. When the engine does its 'stumble' that I mentioned earlier, the puff of vapor is greater. I do not notice any bubbling in the overflow or anything, but there is definite blowby in the upper end.
I'm wondering if it could be a stuck ring/rings. I will drain the catch can tomorrow to see what is in it. There's no level indicator on it. I'm not seeing any hints or indications of it trying to hydrolock in any way at this point, so it may have been self-induced by the POs friend...I don't know. Maybe the intercooler got too full of oil and pulled it up, but I don't think the car had a runaway, so I'm just not sure if that happened or not.
The car runs pretty darn well, despite the occasional stumble thing it does, and I'm getting anxious to drive it down the road, just to see if it runs out ok, but I want to see just how much 'muck' is in the catch can after an hour of idling. Would I stand to have less blowby if the engine is driven and warmed up enough to open the thermostat, or will I likely blow by more with the increased rpms?
Anyone have any ideas with this additional information? Thank you for any thought or ideas!