Oil burning 5.0, can it be diagnosed without tearing bottom end down?

Agree. I think that would be the best thing to do and then you can be sure that the engine won't burn oil when you install new heads. If you only do the heads, you'll still have that element of doubt and if the engine does still burn oil, you're gonna have to tear it down again.
Do it once and do it right.

Disagree. If he wants a mild stroker in the future....he's not doing it once. So if he doesnt want the trouble of ringing the pistons now....especially if he plans on doing a rotating assembly later.....

i say do the h/c/i and see what happens

Believe me, I'd go all out if I could afford to do both, but I simply can't in one season. The "right" way to do it would be to refresh the bottom end and do an H/C/I, thus removing all doubt.

The H/C/I, supporting mods, and tuning already give me a nice fat bill, I can't imagine adding a rotating assembly, block work, engine lift rental, etc. to that in one season.

Who knows, I may be happy with 290 to 310 rwhp, and if my oil problem gets resolved there will be no need for the expense of a stroker until my rings go south (which may take another 80,000 miles)

If my problem clearly pointed to rings, I'd have no choice, but I'm thinking my issue is 80% chance heads, 20% chance rings. My compression was like... 150, 151, 150, 152, 153, 151, 152, 153 or something like that. I get a puff on hard acceleration, and a puff on downshifting.

wait huh?

I was responding to bullit95 who said just to do the rings now to "do it right and do it once". Not telling u to do it all right now. I know u planned on stroking it later....so would be doing it twice, when u dont even really know if u have to do it twice.

Thats why i said just do a h/c/i now and see what happens.

Meant to quote bullitt95 there, my bad. I know you've got the same idea as me

70 k miles... I would say the bottom end is fine... the smoke symptoms sound like top end to me. Probably lack of use rot on stem seals.

I vote h/c/i now ... you'll be good for at least another 100 k



I have 210k miles.... no smoke. very little oil loss. most loss coming from rear main leak..

The compression numbers look good across the board so I also think there's unlikely to be a problem with the rings (unless you're very unlucky). You might be able to tell if a valve stem oil seal has gone on the no.3 cylinder just by pulling the valve cover and inspecting it. Hopefully the H/C/I swap will be all you need to do to kill two birds with one stone as you mentioned earlier.