smoke problem
 

my friend got a 90 miata,the car makes thick white smoke coming out of the exhaust.exhaust has lots of backpressure and also send oil out.motor idiles fine and revs good starts right up,but after about 10 seconds the smoke comes pouring.couldnt get a acurite reading on my compression tester(was saying it made 20-40 dont believe its right)at first thought it was rings but am sceptical after driving it, was thinking maybe valve seals.

if i dont narrow it down i would rather not have him put lots of money into a 200,000 mile motor.will probally get a "jdm" motor then.any help will be usefull
:cool:

White smoke is usually a sign of coolant getting into the combustion chamber due to cracked head or blown head gasket.

There is no "jdm" motor for the miata. If you find that you do need an engine, just be sure to do a leak down test to ensure the engine is in good shape.

who told you that? i agree its not worth it to buy an imported motor as there are plenty cheap in the US but there are Japanese miata motors. I'm using a (and i hat this term now) jdm 94-97 intake manifold on my usdm motor to kill the egr crap.

as for the smoke i have to agree with street mod on this head gasket = toast

Actually, I would suggest, that if you are going to "replace" the motor, you might want to investigate a 1.8 swap... finding a clean 1.6 is getting harder... You should probably just get the swap kit from FM, and investigate a 1.8 manifold for the turbo (assuming you have one)....

I just put another 95 motor in my car to replace the OEM one which was buring 1L / 1000 km.... Used a buddies 97 head... Unbelievable the difference in the motors, even with it running NA while the replacement blower was on order.....

Dave,