is it possable to have elevated crankcase pressures bad enough to blow the dipstick out of the tube, but yet not show evidence of burning oil on the exhaust side of things. I am contemplating using my money budgeted for other things to put together a new 6-bolt, but if I can nurse my old 7-bolt until later it would be optimal..... what can I look at to determine what is wrong and how to fix it.

also, I am putting a new turbo on the car and dont want to hurt it, will this situation possably hurt the new snail???

Check the seal on the top of the dipstick. Mine does the same thing. The seal is hard and brittle. Won't stay in place.

yeah that happens quite a bit on the 1gs i think.. there's something about that on vfaq.com and 1000 Qs

http://members.shaw.ca/costall/1000Q/
http://www.vfaq.com/

Very common.. seal goes bad on the dipstick. you can pinch the dipstick with a pair of pliers to get it to stay in place, or buy a new dipstick...

thanks, guys, I think you all saved me from a senseless rebuild.... much appreciated

Good thread on crankcase ventilation:

http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.p...light=crankcase

I just run a straight through barb fitting in place of the PCV valve and T it in with the breather line to the atmosphere. This relieves quite a bit of crankcase pressure. My dipstick stays where it should now.

I did something like this when I installed the intake pipe from Kris. I stuck a breather filter on the end of the fitting from the valve cover, is there something I may have goofed up on this, cause now that I think about it, the problem started around the time I did this.

You may also want to run a straight through barb instead of the PCV valve at the back of the valve cover. This will allow more crankcase pressure to be relieved. I don't run a filter anymore because it just tends to plug up with oil and make things worse rather than better. The cleanest way to do it is a catch can with a breather filter on top.

after reading the thread from DSMtalk.com I now know what I did wrong. I disconnected the PCV valve conpletely, exposing the valve to the atmosphere, thus it no longer vents the crankcase pressure cause it has no vacume to open the PCV valve. that could also be why it would "pop" the dipstick out more often during high boost applications... thanks for your help guys.