Definetley blow by, just depends how rich you are running. The richer your car runs, the more gas that gets by the rings and into your oil. Real rich from the factory, for those like me at higher elevation it's running even more rich. Nothing that fuel tuning won't fix.

 

I smell fuel in my oil also. A little might be normal, but to much can wreck the bottom end. I.E. my 99 gsx

 

My car has this gas smell in the oil.

It was broke in on synthetic oil for 1k miles. it was broke in easy too (stayed under 1/2 throttle/4k RPM for 500 miles, then WOT but under 5k RPM for the next 500).

Also my car is running horribly rich, it puffs blacks smoke out when I hit the gas.

Motor is totally stock right now.

 

or people are not changing there oil at 3000 mi...

 

I change my mobil one every 2000 miles. As soon as it starts to get dirty. Around 2000-2500 miles. Smells like mobil 1 to me

 

Been a while since this poll surfaced, maybe some new evo owners have more input...

 

My car has 21 miles on it and I got it at 6 miles, Smells like fing gas. I know my VW VR 6 has no gas smell and over a 100000 on the clock I run mobile 1. This turbo break in worries me... WTF know one has any concrete info reg oil or syn.

 

IMO you want to run synthetic oil. There are reasons why Synthetic is put in from the factory, turbo coking aside.
Mitsubishi has to be using diamond hones these days as many manufacturers are doing. If so then they are also plateau honing the cylinders because of the finish a diamond hone produces. Plateau or brush cylinders provide a much smoother finished cylinder then 1 stage stone honing. Therefore the cylider finish should be such that the rings are not being used to clean the bores. What this means is, unless Mitsu f'd up the finish, regardless of how you break the car in you are not really doing so to seat the rings.

The convential oil arguement stems from the old method of cyliner honing and finishing where the peaks required reduction.

The prescribed breakin is more for the clutch and brakes etcthen it is for the rings.

 

I have 7300 on my x and have not smelt gas on any of the oil,changes 1st at 1500 & 2nd at 5200 my motor was very tight, when I got the car ,and it already had 54 miles on it .As for break-in I pretty much followed the manual not to a T but close and the car runs fine I'm sure the above is true when it comes to seating the rings with synthetic vs mineral oil, I build power train systems and get the inside scoop from some very reputable engine builders . and over reving a new motor will glaze the rings and cause them to not seat correctly,same goes for your clutch ,you need to seat the clutch disc to the fly wheel hence breakin .