I'm feaking out, man!!! E shaft oil pellet stuck?

[Max777]

That seems to be it about the smoke, it happens on spool down, and just a LITTLE when starting. IF the pellet does fail, will there be no oil AT ALL going to the bearings btw? Or will there just be less of it? If the pellet controls all oil flow, then that's the dumbest bit of engineering ever conceived on an engine.

As far as removing the pellet, is it worth it to do this on an engine that is still in the car? I want to shim it, but I have read horror stories about the front bearing. I also want to replace the front cover gasket, front seal, and the main pulley with a Racing Beat version, so perhaps I should do this project sometime in the future?

Edit:

I did find some stupid stuff on the engine when I took off the intake manifold, the omp lines had bits of rubber hose connecting (presumably) broken sections, the vac routing seemed to be off, the twin scroll actuator was not hooked up to the flapper door, BOV was not hooked up to a vaccum source... etc. summing up that at least SOME of the work performed was not dealership quality.