This sounds like a noob question, but does this oily area indicate a leaking upper intake manifold gasket?
It doesn't look like it is leaking off the back of the valve cover, so this is my assumption.

 

I would say it's your intake but leaks can tricky. So I would do a complete replacement both valve gaskets and the manifold gasket

 

No. Unless you're boosted, it would be drawing oil in, not spewing it out.

There's not even any oil in the UIM...

Something is leaking oil, most likely the front valve cover.

 

I would wipe the spot down and check it again and see if the mannifold does get wet.

I am having the same problem it can be the front valve cover gaskets. Just

to make sure Is the black gasket the mannifold gasket? and under that are

the valve cover gaskets?

 

Do what? The thick black rubber gasket, you mean? That's the UIM-LIM gasket.

The valve cover gaskets have nothing to do with that, they're on the valve covers.

 

I was wondering the name of the black rubber gaskets and I was making

sure that there is nothing there beside the black rubber gaskets.

 

The VQ has no less than 5 black rubber gaskets, exactly which one are you speaking of?

 

I was talking about the front intake mannifold gaskets, black rubber gaskets and whats the name?

 

It's called the intake manifold gasket...

You already had the name of it

 

They don't have a special name for them like the (mannifold Air Sealants) If

there is no special name for them than that's good,because Nissan parts

website has weird names for all most all of there parts. It gets confusing

when your trying to figure what's what.

 

Nissan's official term for it is 'GASKET-INTAKE MANIFOLD'.

 

Ok, Thank for the clearifcation.

 

when was the last time you cleaned out the ol' EGR...... my plenum had the same thing and i had several mechanics tell me cleaning the EGR would solve the problem..(ya i know that this sounds rediculous.....) me not wanting to pay them for something that i could do, i pulled the plenum and cleaned all the tubes and plenum of carbon deposits. Problem solved. i know that you may think it is a load of BS, but after doing that, i havent seen any more deposits. keep in mind that i did this all about 30K miles ago..... Just my experience..

 

i wouldnt even worry about it.. just wipe it down and call it a day...

 

Hmm, this is interesting. I have a friend who used to have a white 1997 SE and his intake manifold looked just like this, however where the valvecovers meet the heads they were spotless. Is that weird or what? Maybe resonance under part or heavy throttle and shoot little bits out the intake manifold gaskets even though it normally is under vacuum? With the PCV system there definitely are some oily fumes which pass through the intake.

This could be absolutely ridiculous but it is just a theory to try and explain this phenomenon which I have only seen once before on my friend's old 97.

 

alright, well it was just confusing since i didn't see any sign of it leaking from the front valve cover. i cleaned it all up right after taking the picture so we'll see what happens.

 

dirt and dust from radiator fan is what i always thought it was.

 

4-25-2009??????

 

2+ years here and resurrecting old threads to add NO useful information

SMH

 

and an error in posting a sig picture....

 

travis is a jinxed max owner, ( or maybe just a noob? )

 

nope no noob here. thats the front valve cover gasket spooling oil when crankcase pressures get high..