Newbie intro and question

[BumperStumper]

Hi I'm new to this forum and new to the Mazda family. I just purchased a 2003 P5. Love the car and such a fun car to drive. I'll be honest I'm a domestic car guy and thought I would give this P5 a shot. I find the car under powered but then again I'm not use to driving a 4 cylinder. Anyways I did a search of the forums and couldn't find answer to my question so that's why I thought I would write this post. So please you long time user of the site don't rip me a new one if this topic has been brought up before lol. Recently I've noticed my P5 blowing excessive amount of smoke after sitting over night. Since I bought the car a week ago I thought I would perform a tune up on the car and noticed when I removed the spark plug wires and coils the spark plug bores were full of oil and all the boots were swollen. So I figure the cam cover is leaking? My question is if the cam cover is leaking that much would that be my cause of oil burning or am I looking at piston rings or valve seals/guides? Any help would be awesome.

Thanks

 

[i12drivemyMP5]

Valve cover gaskets would be leaking, mess, and screw up plug wire boots. The valve stem seals being toast would most likely be the smoke.......if you aren't losing coolant and/or the rings are still good. If you have oil in the overflow bottle then head gasket time. If over 100k miles then time to do timing belt, tensioner, tensioner spring, water pump and cam seals.

 

[BumperStumper]

Thanks for the reply and the great info. Don't have any coolant problems right know. Knock on wood. I thought valve stems seals for sure. I was thinking of doing and engine upgrade. The car has 257,232km on it. I guess engine swap ideas would be good for a different thread.

 

[hornsfan10609]

Not many engine upgrades unless you want to go with the KL series V6. Easiest upgrade is to turbo and run about 8lbs of boost. Most likely valve stems but definitely replace the VC (cam cover) gasket and all the plug boots and wires as well as the PCV just in case.

 

[BumperStumper]

Thanks for the replies. I've read a few posts about the turbo upgrade. Not sure how costly it would be but something I might definetly consider. I wanna have fun with this car but it definetly needs more power. Thank you again.