I agree with the worn rings theory.
Before I pulled my original never rebuilt 216 of my coupe, it used over 1 quart per gas tank.
You could not see any smoke at the exhaust and the spark plugs were dry.
It had no tail pipe after the muffler and while driving you could smell oil vapor mixed with the exhaust fumes. Especially when accelerating hard.


On the road every day...
1952 Truck - 235
1948 Coupe - 261