Earlier today I had a tussle with a new Mustang, a contest in which the Impreza faired pretty well managing to pull out a few car lengths between roundabouts, any way I had to fully extend the Scoob to see off the big Yank, this resulted in a strong smell of oil in the cabin.
There was (is) no smoke either out the back or under the bonnet, just a hot oil smell, I’ve had a quite look around the engine bay and can find no evidence of leaked/burnt oil. I had a problem with a leaking turbo oil feed hose after refitting the turbo, but apart from a tiny bit of residual oil around the turbo end banjo I can’t find anything likely to have cause the oil smell.
After a couple of miles the smell dissipated, and under normal driving no smells, the fact it's coming from the front rather than the back would suggest a leak type problem rather than a combustion issue, anyone any thoughts on this? should I be worried? or just ignore it ?

 

Probably just that - a 'very hot oil' smell.

I've experienced this (it does worry you though, as it raises alarm bells in your head). It's not nice.

 

i think the safe bet is get the car on a ramp/pit to make sure .Better to be safe than sorry.

 

+1 ^^^

 

yeah I plan to have a proper look, possibly a crank case vent issue may be it needs a catch can??
If it turns out to be some sort of leak it should resonably easy to find as I had the engine out only a couple of months ago and it's pretty clean.

 

my head immediatley thinks of the rocker cover gasket, but i would get it on some ramps just to be sure mate.