what the hell just happen?puutt..putt.putt..lots of black smoke

[91 ls-vtec]

My buddy decides he wants to buy my car. I figure its time to start on a new project. He picks up my car and drives it around for a day.He comes by my work,driving my car, to talk prices. After he leaves I can here him going threw the gears. About 20min later he comes back and says its starting to "bogg down on him". We check the little things and he drives off.He calls and says its doing it again. By this time its 4:30 and i'm about to get off work. He talks to a freind and we are told we should start on the plugs and wires frist.Also might concider a new TPS. We decide to go to the dealer to buy a TPS and the the car dies. It starts up again and just starts to putter untill it shuts off. We pop the hood and check all the wires and everything is good. He starts it and it idels fine. I start home and he leaves the other way. Then I get a call that the car dies again about 2blocks down the road. We go to NAPA and buy some plugs/wires. Car starts up and he said its running fine.(The old plugs are BLACK and look nasty.)The next day he drivers over to a freinds where we decide to replace the fuelfilter.The we take it for another test drive. Down the first block we slowly go threw 1-4th gear. Everything is fine. 2nd block he gets on it and all off a sudden the car starts bogging down hard. We sit at idel as the car just keeps puttering untill it finally dies. We start it up and watch as it putters and splits out black smoke. We drive it to a freinds house again and shut it off. I check the new plugs and they look like the old ones ,after 2-3miles. What is going on here. This car ran like a champ for the last 5months? HELP ME PLEASE.Sorry for the book, i just wanted everyone to know what /how everything happen.

 

[91 ls-vtec]

Here's some info on the car:
new motor (cyclone) swaped in about 8months ago
B&M FPR,and guage set at 48
walbro 255 fuelpump
Big16g turbo
DeJon Tool FMIC
Car is running rich, nver ran hard was mainly used for snowboarding trips.
Boost is set at 10lbs
TIA.

 

[GeneralChaos]

I wish I could help on this more, the only thing I can even think is get different plugs, or try to tune it, running rich could foul them. or maybe oils getting in there somehow.

someone on here shold be able to help you, im surprised theres no answers yet.

let us know what happens.

 

[linksys42]

check the codes, then do a boost leak test. do you have a data logger?

 

[lowavenger96]

I would say boost leak or your maf is unpluged .

 

[91 ls-vtec]

I'm going to check the MAF, and do a boost check this weekend if I get a cjance. I have to go out of town on short notice. I'll let yall know what happens.

 

[mitch83]

your running to rich and fouling your plugs. From what you gave on info you dont have anything thats controlling your fuel. Check your MAF to see if it's unplugged if it's not turn your boost up a notch or 2 and then see what it does. Black plugs with out oil residue means your running rich and so does black smoke. White is oil,blue is coolant, and black is fuel.
mitch

 

[91 ls-vtec]

Thanx for your reply Mitch, I'm going to try this out ASAP!

 

[IHeartTurbo]

Did you look at your intercooler pipes? It sounds like you blew and intercooler pipe off.

 

[91 ls-vtec]

Did you look at your intercooler pipes? It sounds like you blew and intercooler pipe off.

I did not check the pipes. I will do that today,after work. Thats for bring'n that to my attention.

 

[Merciless]

My car just did the same thing. This was right after I bought it, about 200 miles from home.
I towed the car to a DSM shop, and they checked all the basic stuff, but didn't have time to really go over the car. It shold be in there today.
We didn't get a look at the I/C piping.

The plugs are all getting spark, but not enough spark I guess. The guy said the wires weren't shocking him enough when he pulled them out.
The car has a VPC and an S-AFC.

Is it possible that the ignition is toast? Or would there be no spark at all? All the cylinders are misfiring and soaking plugs instantly.
Hopefully the Intercooler piping came loose somewhere.

 

[bobcatnn]

Just wanted to post a correction on Mitch's statement that white smoke is oil and blue is coolant. I believe you have them switched. Blue smoke is burning oil--bad rings, valve seals, pcv.....etc and white smoke is burning coolant--blown head gasket, bad intake seals--on cars where intake is wet....etc. Anyways, sounds like you have a boost leak somewhere. A buddies car did the same thing, fouled plugs after a short run. He's running a FMIC on his 2g and one of the rubber mounts slipped off.

 

[SpydermonGST]

the same thing happened to my car and it turned out to be that the ECU went bad.....i picked up another one and my car has been running perfect ever since

 

[1stGENracer]

your running to rich and fouling your plugs. From what you gave on info you dont have anything thats controlling your fuel. Check your MAF to see if it's unplugged if it's not turn your boost up a notch or 2 and then see what it does. Black plugs with out oil residue means your running rich and so does black smoke. White is oil,blue is coolant, and black is fuel.
mitch

Umm your a little mixed up, white smoke is coolant(steam out the exhaust), Blue smoke is oil, Black is running rich.

White residue on plugs is a lean mixture, black is rich.


After your buddy went through the gears he probably created a boost leak. Check all connections. You can also build a boost leak tool. I'll see if I can find the VFAQ for it.

 

[Merciless]

the same thing happened to my car and it turned out to be that the ECU went bad.....i picked up another one and my car has been running perfect ever since

I think this may be what's causing my problems.
I have a TMO stage-3 chip. Can I use the chip in a new ECU if I switch them?


And how much does a new ECU cost? Used?

 

[SpydermonGST]

im pretty sure you can switch the chip......i dont know how much a new one cost but the place i brought my car to was able to fix the actual ECU in my car.....ur CEL is probably on too and it will read many different codes like your MAF is faulty but its sounds like ur car is having the same problem as mine

 

[Merciless]

I have a VPC.
I didn't see a CEL, but the car might not have one anymore (may have been removed for some reason, car is heavily modded).

Will a leaking capacitor damage something that controls the firing sequence?

 

[philipkrotch]

do u smell tons of fuel when ur trying to start it up? if so, its your ECU..not the caps tho. another 1g ECU issue is the fuel injector firing solenoids on the ecu. if thats the case u need a new ECU. if u wanna find out, pull the ECu and look on the motherboard. in the top corner, u will see 4 green boxes. a set of 2 separated by a gap, then another set of 2. in between those 2 sets u will see 4 blue solenoids, if the insulator part of them is a brownish color insetead of blu, then bingo, problem solved. if they dont look strange, look on the underside of the motherboard and see if the "green" is "brown" directly underneath those solenoids. i have had this happen twice. common 1g problem. CATION: while this happend it dumps tons of fuel into your crankcase. if it gets too full u can bend a rod, there have been ppl who have had this happen. keep checking your dipstick for this.

 

[Merciless]

Thanks a lot.
I've worked on cars with bad D.I. before, and had to drain the oil twice to clear the gas out of the crankcase. But I never asked why.

The car is at a good DSM shop right now. Hopefully they'll have an ECU lying around somewhere.

 

[ImportModder]

That sounds exactly like what happened with my car. I had a boost leak when a connection at my intercooler wasn't tightened down. I would run fine until I got on it. The pressure blew the pipe off and I couldn't idle very well at all. It fouled my plugs. I stopped and replaced the plugs. It ran good until I got on it again and I had fouled, black plugs again. You, my friend, have a boost leak somewhere. I would doubt it is your ECU considering it ran okay for a while with new plugs. If it doesn't run well at all now, I would assume an IC pipe is completely separated. Let us know what the DSM shop finds out.

 

[Merciless]

It didn't run any better with brand new plugs.
It misfired all the cylinders again and fouled the new plugs instantly.

 

[ImportModder]

Sorry, I mixed the original poster and you together. The boost leak diagnosis was for the original poster. I mixed up that HE took his car to a DSM shop. It sounds like you have either bad plug wires or a bad coil. You aren't getting enough spark to burn your fuel.

 

[xxrealmsxx]

I would say boost leak or your maf is unpluged .

The later happened to me, a buddy actually blew the maf up by wiring something wrong .

 

[Merciless]

My problem turned out to be fuctup wiring going into the CAS plug on the wiring harness.
I had the CAS replaced just in case. I drove the car 150 miles home, and the car started misfiring about ten feet from my driveway
I popped the hood and jiggled the wiring like the mechanic told me to, and it started running properly again.

The wires themselves are split open like they were going to be spliced, but are not spliced to anything. I think maybe the rubber around the wires gets hot and flimsy after a while, and the wiring bends around and the connection weakens. Any thoughts on this?

 

[mitch83]

thanks for all the corrections on what white and blue smoke mean. It was a type-O and I havnt been on here in weeks to check it thanks though.
mitch