I went to a car show on Saturday, and when I got there I noticed the A14 was smoking, just idling. When I rap on the throttle, thin blue smoke comes out. This is with engine fully warmed and on a warm day. Not clouds and clouds of it, but a fair amount and more than I should be driving. I'm taking it off the road till I figure out the cause.

Here's what the plugs look like.

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Is it left to right 1st to 4th? If so ones oily the others look a bit ok, #4 thread bit oily as well

Burnt lean lean burnt?

What happened I wonder? Is this the motor with the twin phh mikuni's?

Hopefully its just the valve steam seals need replacing.
Mine had the same deal recently on the engine with head
stud issue so while head was off I just replaced them
as they are cheap. Just as easy to do with head on as you know.

yes it is left-to-right #1 through #4
I read it: oily, just right, bit lean, bit oily

It is my A14 with twin Mikuni PHH 40s. It has a ported A14 head and extractors/header.

I can't see in the pic. So they are oily not burnt/melted?

Nice extractors by the way.

Yes, they look oily, no burnt electrodes. There is some deposits on the plugs, it seems to be burnt oil deposits.

Click this photo to see it in high resolution

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If the oil smoke is mainly on take-off after sitting idling at traffic lights for some time but generally not noticable the rest of the time; then it is most commonly valve stem seals

If it blows oil smoke all the time - but mostly when under load (up hill full throttle)then this is most commonly the rings

Or in the case of most of my a series, both lol

Only the a15's were not smokey. Old sedan one needed valve stem seals

it is smoking all the time, unfortunately

I will do a compression test followed by a wet compression test.
+ look for overfull oil sump
+ remove rocker cover and see if I can spot a valve seal problem