I am watching "FantomWorks" on Motor Trend, which is based on a shop in Norfolk. I'm always been a fan of this show, and the guys all seem to take their work very seriously. However, the episode I'm currently watching features a 1961 Corvette that has an engine with good compression but high oil consumption, and their troubleshooting left me scratching my head. The guys seemed baffled about where the oil could be going if the cylinders all had good compression. In my novice, shade tree mechanic head I was thinking, "the oil's getting sucked into the intake through a leak in the intake manifold gasket", but that seemed to obvious to me, so I figured they must have known what they were doing when they yanked the engine to tear it down. Lo and behold, upon deconstruction, they realized the intake manifold had been planed at the incorrect angle to match the angle of the engine block, so the gasket couldn't achieve a good seal.

I guess they needed to do their due diligence for their customer, but to me it sure seemed like it would have been easier to begin by checking for a vacuum leak or removing the intake manifold before going to the extreme of completely removing the engine. Maybe this was just one of those reality TV manufactured drama scenes, but it seemed a little extreme to me.