So for the past couple years I have had a tiny bit of smoke coming from the engine area here and there at random. Naturally every time I tried to find the source, there was no smoke at the time, never any fluid on the ground, eventually just kind of forgot about it. Very slow leak. Anyway finally found it - engine oil dripping onto driver's side exhaust manifold/egr area. The pic below is of the back left corner of the engine (and you can see egr pipe on right side) which is where it appears to be coming from - you can see on the left that the oil is further up towards the front as well but that's about as far forward as any heavy oil residue goes. I'm assuming it's coming from the seam there on cam cover?
Two questions:
1) seems like this is coming from the seam of the cam cover, does that look about right to those more experienced than myself?
2) I had seen some threads on issues with messing with the PCV system causing the cam cover gaskets to go out but that may not be such an issue for my car from what I read, which engine-wise is all stock. However, I did install an oil catch can (which has gotten a lot of oil!) and am wondering if that could possibly contribute to this? The smoke started happening right around the time I added that can in after cleaning air intake manifold. I used metal electrical conduit as the piping for catch can, so there is nothing collapsing or anything, should be functioning as normal, though if catch can set up was leaking or something could this cause issues like this?
Have read some threads on cam cover removal, noted that driver's side is easier so that is just dandy. Assuming this is the issue, any part number suggestions for the gasket? I am about to start searching but know some people have them saved
Thank you as always