I've been driving past this guy's house for 5 years and have noticed he has a GSL-SE in his garage. Finally, there's an 82 Vette for sale in his yard, which gave me an excuse to stop in and ask if he's ever going to sell the GSL-SE.

He won't. Damn!

Anyway, we got to talking about the car, and it turns out he's the original owner. It's got 225k or so on it, original engine, and he's having some problems.

What I'm going to tell you guys is all I know about it, so I need to know if you all can diagnose it from what few details I have.

Symptom 1: It doesn't like to cold start. Once he gets it going, it will run, but getting it to turn over is tough. It wouldn't start when I was there.

Symptom 2: "It overheated once. It didn't peg the gauge, but I was stuck in traffic and it got really, really hot. I turned on the heat and all that until I could get moving again."

Symptom 3: It's "going through oil".

Symptom 4: It's fouling plugs.

My initial thought was "Rebuild", but I told him I'd ask you guys what you all thought.

 

first thing is to do a compression test. if its consuming oil rapidly then the oil control seals on the rotors are probably shot. an overheated rotary is not good. fouling plugs and poor cold starting can mean that its down on compression. perhaps stuck/worn apex or side seals or flaked housings.

 

yeah oil use (if its not leaking externally) means rebuild. on the plus side though, the oil using motors usually look nicer on the inside...

plus 225k, it needs the injectors cleaned, etc etc

 

Hard starting:
leaking injectors
low compression/worn housings
fouled plugs
cold start settings on throttle body, thermowax, tps, etc..
carbon build up in intake system

High oil consumption:
worn oil control seals and hardened o-rings

Plug fouling:
leaking injectors, babied too much

With 225k, the housings are most likely toast. Irons will be barely in spec, if at all.