For the past few months my coolant level has slowly been going down on my supercharged vette and I see more and more white smoke coming out of the driver side tail pipe for a few minutes on a cold startup. I figured I had a blown head gasket so I pulled off the heads a few days ago. I inspected the gaskets and I could not find anything obvious. I drain the oil and it doesn't look like there is coolant mixed in. The pistons all look ok from the top with just some carbon deposits on them that comes off with brake cleaner. I brought the suspect head to my dad's machine shop to check if it was warped but it is fine. The only thing that looked strange was the drivers side front intake passage on the head was all black and had a nasty burnt smell. Is it normally obvious by looking at a gasket to tell if it was leaking? Is there anything else this could be that I am not seeing.

 

coolant leaking into the intake port is a possibility

 

how would that happen?