All,

I was on my way to a shop today (ironically) to get an oil leak which I thought was the pan (what they told me last time I was in) sealed up, because I had tried it twice and was pissed off it was still leaking. The good news is they said the pan isn't leaking, proving I'm somewhat competent. Bad news is, they say it'* the lower intake.

Anyway, on the way there I pulled over because I had smoke coming out from under the hood. After looking under the car, I saw the cat was smoking very badly. So I drove it the rest of the way there, it was only a few minutes out. After doing diagnostics all morning, they told me the plug #5 wire burned up on the exhaust manifold. Very possible, but would this cause a smoking cat?

Your cat more than likely has a hole in it or has(d) something stuck to to it.That or its plugged up

They claim everything looked fine with it. They want $993 for tune up and replacing oil pump gasket / timing cover gasket. It looks like the timing cover gasket set comes with a water pump gasket. Does the water pump have to get pulled to do this?

Yes. The water pump sits right on top of the timing cover, with, I believe 3 bolts, that go through the timing cover to the block. If you are going that far, why not replace the timing set as well?

For the price tag, that is a lot, but I have no point of comparison. It was a good full weekend project though between me and my dad when we did ours on the '90 SSE.

Usually for underhood smoke, biggest offender is valve cover gaskets leaking on to manifolds, but if you had a bad spark plug wire, that would likely send unburned fuel straight to the cat, which there it will burn, and heat the cat that much more.

I went ahead and had them do it. I did the water pump a few weeks ago so I'm familiar with the process. A lot of effort to put in to have to go through it again. Oh well, life goes on