I smoke bad!!!

[Mike1992]

Long story short car sat for 2 years, with a fried engine wiring harness. Its been resurrected and its driving again. I have about 300 miles on it since. I performed a tune-up and shes running pretty good. BUT,,,, I am smoking really bad. Smoke looks mostly whiteish grey. I pulled the plugs they all look pretty black with white tips. Not wet or anything dont smell funny. So I check the oil, (changed about 300 miles ago), looks nice and tan/brown. So whats the deal here? Blown head gasket or bad valve stem seals? I put my hand over the exhaust pipe and my hand dont smell weird at all. I'm kinda lost. Pics up next

 

[Mike1992]

The plugs 2 plugs looks darker on the tips than the other 2 sorry poor picture quality

 

[Mike1992]

oil on a clean rag

 

[Clipse]

Sounds like a blown HG

 

[Mike1992]

Here we are at idle, doesnt show the smoke in the pic to much, but its really there, and when I hit the gas WHOAAAAA!!! Huge cloud of white/grey smoke bellows out

 

[Mike1992]

The car has 141k on it, i wonder if when I pulled the motor from the other car and dropped it in here it somehow seperated the head/block a very tiny amount to cause this. anyways heres more smoke

 

[Mike1992]

And I have to clean black suity crap off my rear bumper every once in a while, it this because I have a test pipe? or burning oil or something, also want to note the exhaust from the tail pipe feels moist. 68 degree's out with about 15 mins of driving. The smoke happens when I let it idle mostly.

 

[Mike1992]

Originally posted by Clipse
Sounds like a blown HG

How does this happen?

Also wanted to note compression is 165 accross the board give or take 2 or 3. 192 is best and 145 is rebuild time for the 2.0 NT.

 

[GSXanimal]

Sounds like a headgasket, as for the black soot, my car did the same thing when I used a test pipe without a safc because the catalytic converter is like a second burn for unburnt fuel(hydrocarbons)and that soot is the result of running rich.

 

[Mike1992]

If in deed you guys are right, still looking for more opinions. I guess while I replace the head gasket I might as well, get new valve stem seals. So heres what i'm looking at Head Gasket $24 Timing Belt and Balance Shaft Belt $44 Valve Stem Seals $30 So I'm looking at about $100 there. How much would it cost to have the valve stem seals I buy installed into the head if i pull the head and bring it to a machine shop with the new seals?

 

[jott5555]

if your plannin on pulling the head u ough to do a couple things
balance shaft removal
redo your timeing belt water pump and belt tensioners while your in there

at least then porting and polishing..


i bet you have shitty valve seals tho.. u can replace those without pulling the head..

 

[Mike1992]

Why the tensioners and water pump? They seem to be doing a good job. My friend says the smoke smells like burning oil. I'm starting to wonder if all this smoke is because I have about 300 miles on it since like september of last year, I rarely drive it around the neiborhood, (maybe once a week if that) because i dont have money for plates and stuff to make it legal. That and my transmission utterly sucks :thumbdown What to do...........

 

[mykfwdtalon]

44 bucks for a timing belt? where did you get that, mines ganna cost me close to 60, but if you take the head in it might take a good 2-3 hours(mechanics time) so whatever your mechanics charge for labor per hour then that times 3 at least good louck!
-myk_

 

[BitAddict]

Added Thought: Ive had some smoke problems as well, also car running kind of sluggish- all that junk. I have another forum going on about it. Done compression check and everything was good so as suggested im in the middle of a leak test trying to find all the possible leaks. ive narrowed it down to the oil return line's flex area. It looks like its spitting oil on the downpipe so that might be causing my smoke. Have you checked yours??? Probably wont help but just a thought. Good Luck!

 

[mykfwdtalon]

yeah my friends gsx has had had the same problem with the flex area on the oil return line, he replaced the whole unit but cross threaded one end when doing so and couldnt stop the leaks after that. so when you replace it be VERY VERY easy on it.
-myk_

 

[Mike1992]

I have a 2.0 Non-Turbo, and the smoke is comign from the the tail pipe

 

[Morphius]

Given you have decent compression accross the board, it's not likely the head gasket. Although, not always the case. Can you smell antifreeze in the exhaust? It's VERY distinctive. If you can, and you have a noticable loss of fluid from the radiator, then I'd say you have a leaky head gasket.

Valve seals are typical to go bad around 120K.

Old gas? IF a car sits for a significant amount of time, the gas breaks down and portions of it will evaporate. I've purchased a number of cars that have had bad gas. I picked up a 90 TSI once for $50 that had a bad turbo. Swapped turbos and started it. It blew white smoke for a while, like you showed in your pic. More significant when you get on the gas. Anyhow, I put a fresh tank of gas in it and drive it hard one night. I clicked off around 300+ miles. By the end of the night , I had gone through the tank of gas and the exhaust had cleaned up significantly. Another 200 or so miles and there was no smoke at all.

Run it through another tank of gas. If it doesn't clean up by then, I'd speculate valve seals.

 

[Mike1992]

Thanks Morphius I beleive your dead on. I've been sitting on the same tank of gas for 6 months, when I first got the car it had been siting for 2 years plus, I tried starting it and it clogged the fuel filter. I replaced the filter and drained the tank and refilled all the way up. So in the past 6 months I've used about half a tank. I went to the muffler shop in it today to replace the test pipe with a high flow cat and have a new muffler put on. Car doesn't seem to smoke unless I let it idle for about 5 mins, I dont see any smoke at a stop light. I gues Ill get my plates and tags and drive this thing and evaluate in about 500 miles. Oh and pics of the new fart cannon See no smoke at idle from just coming home.

 

[2GeNTSi]

Yeah I've been noticing some smoke coming from my exhaust as well lately. Only started occuring after my downpipe install, might have been there prior the downpipe but I don't think so. Anyways it doesn't emit more when I get on it, I do remember though one time me and my friend ran our cars a couple of times back to back and I saw smoke coming from in front of me when I stopped at the light. I thought it was clutch smoke, but we parked in the Safeway lot and it didn't smell like clutch, no smoke coming from between tranny and block. However I did notice when I took out my spark plugs to do a compression test, there was a bit of oil on them, just a tiny bit on the washer. The tips were also white (from running lean?). But my compression was fine, 165 across, without running the car prior the test. All I did was warm up the car and moved it to the driveway.

 

[Morphius]

Originally posted by Mike1992
I gues Ill get my plates and tags and drive this thing and evaluate in about 500 miles.

So, did it improve?

 

[Mike1992]

As of right now, I still have no plates so the car is being the garage Natzi until next week. I got a big check coming to make it totally road legal. I have been driving the car just about every day up till last week around the neiborhood, but now the gas tanks on E and i tried installing an alarm system myself and ya i need to take the car to a pro and have that fixed now uggg. Seems better, but time will tell

 

[Mike1992]

I do however notice alot of black crap in my new muffler

 

[Mike1992]

OK I'm legal and so far I got about 200 miles on it and used about half a tank of gas. I think I'm burning oil, I lost a half quart in 200 miles and I'm not leaking at all. My freinds all say my car smokes like a biatch. I doubt this is going to improve, but I'll just keep adding oil when it needs it.

 

[Mike1992]

350 miles since being legal, my car is burning oil like no other. This saddens me, ever 200 miles i add a half quart

 

[Mike1992]

Started adding the Mobile 1 Semi Synthetic 5w-30 I just put another 300 miles on and the oil consumption seems to have quit, the I'm barely off the full line.