Brian, that is a very good point about there most likely being a film of oil below the egr. I will indeed check for that. Let's say that is the case, then is that a "bad sign". As I mentioned in my first post, a long time ago I had removed this crossover pipe and there was soot build up, but not one trace of oil. It was bone dry. Now, and who knows for how long, oil is getting into the intake system. This would be the classic blow by. I haven't tried to run the engine with the oil cap off, but I will now. What's puzzeling is that the head was completely rebuilt only 2 yrs ago.

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1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member