I pulled the motor yesterday and tore it down this afternoon. This was my first full teardown since the smoking issue reared its ugly head a few years ago.
No smoking gun was found, but here are the findings. Maybe some faithful members can shed some light on the following:
Both head gaskets seemed to be sealing well. There was some uneven torque to crack the head bolts loose though. All lifters and cam lobes looked great, so I have some newfound faith in the flat tappet cams since I switched to the valvoline VR1 oil last year. I kept the lifters in order so I may actually keep the cam and reuse it. All rod and main bearings had some slight wear, but nothing bad. The crank journals look great. There was some very slight pitting in the oil pump rotors, so I will replace it. The skirts on the pistons had some scuffing, but not too bad. I'll let the machinist determine the severity and if they can be polished or coated and reused. ALL the rings look fine, not sharp edged or chipped. The tops of the pistons and the combustion chambers were uniformly colored, slighly caramel brown in the middle, and the exhaust valves were tan in color. The cylinder walls were smoother than I expected, but had no up and down scratches. I would have expected a 3000 mile motor to still show some cross hatch pattern.
The smoothe cylinder walls have me curious. Can THIS be partly responsible for oil consumption? I also suspect the valve guides, since 2 years ago I had to replace 7 intake valves and one exhaust valve due to stem wear. I wrote on this subject before: The Bronze valve guides should have worn before the Stainless Steel valves, shouldn't they?
I'm taking the block, heads, pistons and rods in tomorrow. I'll report back as soon as I know more.