Well, I have something nasty going on with my 617; last week I made a round trip from CO to NC (about 3000 miles) and had some problems develop. On the way out, I noticed my oil consumption was increasing significantly and it would occasionally run a little rough (slight miss). By the time I arrived the oil consumption had increased to a couple of quarts every 1000 miles. Also, on a couple of occasions I had a sound like something had broken (baseball card in the spokes type mechanical sound) but it would stop after a couple of minutes.

On the return trip I developed an external oil leak from the valve cover gasket (excessive blow-by pressure maybe?) and the oil consumption increased to at least a quart every 200 miles (not sure how much was leaking). I had the same "baseball card in the spokes" mechanical sound a couple more times, but it always went away after a couple of minutes. I drove home at 55-60 mph with frequent stops to check the oil. The strange part is that it seems to be running perfectly most of the time (smooth idle, normal power, normal temperature and oil pressure, etc.).

I need to drop it off with my indy and see what's going on. I'll have him do a compression check, take a look at the valve seals, check the injectors, etc. It seems like the best case scenario is that it just needs valve seals (unlikely) and that the worst case os a bottom end problem (rings). I guess I'll have to decide it it's time to order a reman engine or if it's worth fixing this one. Well see.