Ruh Roh....puffs of white smoke, and its not the chronic.
 

So I was a red light today coming home from work and I was looking in my rear-view mirror, making sure the blond milf on the cell phone didn't ram her Escalade emblem up my ass, I noticed white smoke trickling away from the rear of my car. A little shocked, i revved the engine and nothing happened. Thinking it was the jalopy next to me, I moved on.

At the next red light (and clear of the jalopy and the milf), I looked up and saw puffs of white again! Argh. Once again, I revved the engine and nothing happened. For the next few miles home, I had my eyes glued to the rear-view and still no smoke. Once I got home, I let the car cool down a little and did some revs in the driveway, only once did a little white puff of cloud came out and I couldn't repeat it after trying for almost 10 minutes.

I have no clue what it could be, anyone?

Engine runs excellent, no overheating, normal oil pressure, normal a/f. The only thing I could think of is that my catalytic converter has seen it's last days due to the AWFUL smell it is emmiting and the constant rattling. Could that be the culprit??

Thanks.

White smoke is water/coolant.

white smoke = coooooolant burning normally and that normally leads to a head gasket.... *Shrug*

Black = Rich
Blue = Oil
White = Coolant

thats the rule of thumb if i remember right

I believe so.

I've never seen or experienced a leaky head gasket before, are you guys SURE it couldn't be anything else? Vacuum lines? Little gnomes smoking crack?

I researched it some on m.net and someone mentioned a liquid head gasket/block sealer. So I drove to the Vatozone with my loud pedal to the floor to buy some and still no smoke!!

At least I have the sealer now, so I'll start with that on my next day off.

i'm not sure what your exhaust setup looks like, but on mine, after a good rain, if my car is parked in such a way where rain can get into the exhaust, i'll get a bit of white smoke pouring out for a bit until it burns the moisture out.

That could just be a south Louisiana thing.

EDIT: I see you are from SoCal, so let me explain the above. Rain is moisture that falls in in the form of droplets from the sky. Perhaps you've seen the phenomena on TV.

I wouldn't dump any "sealer" into your cooling system until you're more confident what is going on. A head gasket rupture usually has other symptoms as well, like milky coolant in the rad., watery oil, losing coolant, etc.

It could easily be condensation in the exhaust burning off.

just watch your water level. Its not like a head gasket is difficult to swap out, it just takes some time.

It could also be a leaky turbo seal. I know I'm in that boat right now.. My engine leaks down less than 8% on all cylinders and it smokes sometimes.. in my case, it's the turbo on there.. shaft has more play than House Party on DVD.

diff leaking on exhaust....parking brake left on?

OK guys, went out for a closer look today. Here's what I found:

1)Let the car idle for about 5 minutes and white/greyish smoke started blowing out of tailpipe slowly. It comes and go. I went down and smelled it and it smelled like burnt oil mixed in with normal exhaust smell.

2) The Bailey BOV is covered with a thin coat of oil, as well as the stock air pipe right below it.

3) Pulled spark plugs (colder plugs from FAQs) and numbers 4 and 1 were significantly darker then numbers 2 and 3. Not sure if that means anything, just an observation.

4) Coolant looks like coolant.

Ideas?

Thanks guys.

Nester, does the turbo seal leak at boost or at idle also?

most times if your engine bay is covered in oil it's leaking from headgasket or the valve cover seals.

sounds like a blowed the fuck up turbo.. ;)

Valve cover gasket is new, the oil is just coating a portion of the BOV, and INSIDE the bov and directly underneath it. I'll try to get pics if it happens again. I wiped it off and went for another drive....

Welps, right after that I typed the above update, I capped off the breather vent on valve cover with a little air filter I have laying around and blocked off the nipple on the greddy u-tube with a rubber plug, went for a drive. No smoke. It's idling right now, but so far, no smoke.......

Nester, you meany. :P

when you fist turn ze car on is there a white puff? Have someone stand behind ze car when you turn it on. If any white puffs say Headgasket ze bye bye.

But only if the white puff of smoke is a German puff.

LMAO

shit man...i'm having the same problem...cept when mine only smokes when I'm at like full boost... turbo seal? headgasket? who knowss

when your head gasket is bad,dont you get bubbles in the coolant...?....

yes

I opened the radiator cap and watched it earlier (at work right now). Nothing unusual, just a nice and steady flow of diluted green water. No bubbles, milkiness, or particles.

The car's been in the garage since the start of this, just to be safe, and I've been driving my OTHER turbo car. Yay for gas prices! Anyways, I'm planning on driving it in the morning to see if it still smokes. And I dunno if it's the lighting or what, but I can't seem to distinguish between white and blue smoke, it looks more like bluish.....

O rings on top of valves, dont know how you call them...sorry :confused:

A faulty PCV valve can let boost pressure into the valve cover(and thereby the rest or the crankcase) and blow oil into the turbo inlet, which you may have proved out in your edit of post 14, above.

now where have I seen that before....

Yeah, I hope that's the case...:sadwavey:

I'm finally going to get a chance to test my compression today. I'm hoping it was just a bad PCV valve letting in a crapload of oil into my crankcase at 12psi. I don't think it's a ring as the car limped home running reasonably well out of boost. Middle of the road would be a bad valve seal/guide.

You're saying it's puffs of white smoke... but puffs of light blue smoke could look similar in the rear-view mirror. Best bet is to drive behind the car while somebody else drives it to get a better idea of the smoke color.

If the water-jacket is still good (ie, nothing foreign in the coolant and you're not losing any coolant), then it's most likely that the smoke is slightly blue in color and you just can't tell real well from the drivers seat.

So, we can probably assume it's oil. You say the compression test is good, so we can rule out rings for now. Next troubleshooting step is to test the PVC valve. Guy at the dyno the other day said just to blow through it... one way works, the other way doesn't, It's basically just a check valve.

Even if the PVC valve is good, you might replace it anyways with a 323GTX valve you can get at any autoparts store (I think they're a little stronger).

Next, are you running your valve cover breather line back into the intake, or does it have a filter on it? If it's filtered, better get some vaccum on that sucker and route it to the intake (NOT THE IC PIPING!).

And last but not least... and my personal vote. Your turbo is going bad. The seals are wearing out, either due to long life, excess oil pressure, abuse, etc... Rebuild kits are $75 and you can do it yourself, or send it away and have it done with a guarantee for like $200. Take off your IC pipe at the turbo and check it for oil.

If it's the turbine side, it'll probably leak the most when it's cold, right at startup. You could take the DP off and start it to see if it blows a little oil (cover everything it could blow on with a towell, maybe soak the towell in water to keep things cool). When the engine is cold is when the oil pressure is the highest... won't take more than 30seconds to see if the turbine side is leaking. BE WARNED: I've never tried this or even heard of it being tried, or even know if it would work. I just thought it up... you might kill yourself.

Some more troubleshooting. Go for a drive with the wastegate disconnected. Run it hard w/no boost and see if that changes anything. You could try to run a restrictor in the oil feed line. I use a 1/8" pop-rivet.

sam said all the things I was thinking of but too lazy to type myself...

Thanks Sam (Sir) for the quick guide!

I'll start with the PCV valve in the morning and work from there.

Ummmm..so I'm assuming the PCV valve is the metal piece coming from the left side of the valve cover connecting to the intake manny by a rubber hose, right?

Does anyone have a part number for the 323 part? It'll make things easier on my patience since my typical encounters with the parts-counter boy is usually like this..

Me: I need a *insert part* from a *insert car*
Parts Monkey: What car do you drive?
Me: It doesn't matter what I drive, I just need that part
Parts Monkey: I NEED to know what car you drive
Me: No, you don't, I just need the PART
Parts Monkey: But I need to enter it in the system....
Me: I just told you the car it's from.
Parts Monkey: But I....

Hopefully, it's just the PCV, thanks guys!

i was reading that 2jz motor pcv valves are good when we boost are motors.

im going to grab one from my friend and compare or run it for a while.

Well, the good news is that I just did a compression check (dry)

175
170
175
180

Happily shocked since the engine has 170k miles on it. I also replaced the oem PCV with an OEM 323 part.

Bad news is the only things left are the expensive parts to troubleshoot....like the turbo.

Time to take it around the block and see if there's smoke still......

Shit.

Can a bad o2 sensor cause it to smoke?

If the O2 sensor is sending a lean or no signal to the ECU for a longer period, the ECU will throw in extra fuel(safe mode) during closed loop. If you are running larger injectors, this could be a lot of fuel.

Welps, turns out the LAST thing I checked is the culprit.

Took off the greddy u-tube and the inside is SOAKED with oil, with two nice puddles where the couplers meet up. Turbo rebuild it is. Judging from Brain's DIY, it doesn't seem THAT bad of a project. Better then replacing the engine.

Thanks everyone for your ideas, at least I know my compression, head gasket, and PCV is ok. Since I had the spark plugs out, I also checked the gap on the plugs, they were at 45!!! Gapped them down to 35.

Now, what turbo fits on the greddy mani.......

I sometimes wonder who came up with some of the sayings that are prevalent in the english language. Maybe I should spend more time researching them on the interweb.

Isn't ALWAYS the last place you look? How many people lose their keys, look in various places for them, find them, and then look in more places?

This is not a swipe at exhondaman. It's just that sometimes silly things crack me up.:gay: I need more hobbies:gtfo:

the intake pipe or charge pipe?

if the intake pipe, does the oil start at the breather port and is pooled up around the compressor inlet?


If you really want to replace the turbo, the GT2554R or 2560 will fit, but you need a DP to match....TurboTim has one prebuilt that he's been trying to unload forever.

hahahhaha, great title.

BOTH of the Greddy pipes have oil in them, it's collected where the couplers meet the pipes. Also in front of the compressor inlet there is oil. I'd say about a 1/4 cups worth total.

GT2554R is waaay out of my price range, thanks though.

...digging up an older post here, but having a similar problem -- I would say "billowing" white (possibly bluish—definitely not black) smoke at idle. Off idle is no problem ?!? I've just done a rebuild -- new pistons, rings, valves, valve guides. All new gaskets, and timing belts. Also did a coolant re-route. This is happening within the first 200km (120 miles) of starting the engine and having done one longer run (about 90 km/50 miles). I did not run into boost, and kept the rpms below 4000.

The other thing I noticed was some whitish smoke coming out of from under hood. I popped the hood, and it was coming out from the turbo -- it was missing a bolt on the housing! Anyone know what size bolt is needed here? I’m wondering if a housing bolt came loose whether the coolant can leak into the oil? (I’m not sure how the oil/coolant jackets are physically situated)

I will check the oil and coolant for any contamination. Should I drain some oil out the oil pan to do this or is checking just the dipstick OK? Same with coolant – can I just take the rad cap off and look into the rad or drain out from the bottom of the rad? Last time I had the rad cap off and ran the car, after warm up when the t-stat opens, the coolant level rises (of course) and will over flow all over.

Will also check the PCV valve, since I've got some oil residues in the pipe between the turbo and the air filter (where the hose from the crankcase goes into the intake tube). I was wondering where that was from!

Side note/question: How does the PCV valve and this crankcase vent hose work? I’m trying to think of vaccum/boost pressures situations in the ITM and which way the PCV one-way check valve is actually working.

Why is it necessary for the hose on the driver’s side of the valve cover to route back to the intake pipe rather than venting to atmosphere? Because it is already metered air? I'm using a TEC3 and no AFM -- does it make any difference if the air is metered or not? Why doesn't it go to the pipe between the turbo and the intercooler?

One other strange thing...before this all started to happen, when idling, I could hear a "chop, chop, chop" sound (kind of the sound the blades of a helicopter make) coming from the turbo, which I didn't notice last year. It has a Monsterflow air filter on it (had an HKS SuperMegaflow last year). Is this normal?

Will also check oil drain line to make sure it is not kinked and that everything runs downhill.

what turbo/engine/setup do you run? more details

1.6L rebuilt bottom end with +1 Wiseco/Carillo/ARP and the top end is ported/polished and has +1 Supertech (FM) valves/springs. Turbo is by AVO (Garrett T28 - I think they were ball bearing design back then) w/ FMIC setup originally . I've since replaced the TurboLink FMU with a TEC3 and RC 550's. FM dual turbo exhaust.

I think the main problem is the screw loose (no pun intended)...there was also a nut at the 12 0'clock position that was loose. Will have to take the whole turbo out to see what else was loose. The passenger's side tail pipe was also wet with oil and oil pressure was dropping as I was driving it there. thank the big guy doesn't seem like a cracked head, head gasket, coolant leaking into the combustion chamber or otherwise. I'll still check the coolant, oil, and PCV valve though.