Constant White Smoke from Exhaust

[sherwinz28]

Well guys I need a little help. I put my car back together after fixing a slew of problems from broken timing belt, missing balance shaft belt to busted valves. I put a fully built cylinder head from BJ with new gaskets. I am constantly getting white smoke from the exhaust especially if I rev. I did a compression check...pretty easy to do on these cars. The car was cold when I did it as in I didn't warm it up. Here are the results:
~150 ~140 ~140 ~150
170 170 170 170 with cap full of oil.

I'm trying to figure out why it's smoking so much. The smoke is definately white. I've done a lot of searching and reading and it seems it may be the turbo since the compression numbers look ok. Could the low numbers for the middle 2 cause the smoking? Can I unhook the turbo from the manifold and run it like that to see if it still smokes? Will the car even run if I do that? I really want to get this fixed so I can finally smog it and drive it on the road. I also noticed the radiator fan is hard to turn...doesn't spin as freely as the AC fan. I already bought a fan motor from kragen to see if this fixes the problem. The radiator fan fuse is busted as well so got to get that from the dealer. The car did overheat and coolant spilled out from the overflow when I took it for a quick spin around my court but I'm sure no damage was done as I did the compression check a few days after the joy ride. The boost gauge shows some boost if I rev in neutral and I can here the BOV when I rev it from under the hood. Please oh please help me get this thing on the road. I also opened the oil cap and it smells a little like fuel but that might just be the left over brake cleaner when I was cleaning up the head for the valve cover gasket install. I checked the dipstick and the oil from there has no smell and looks good...like fresh oil. Should I do another oil change so quickly after putting the head on?

Thanks Sherwin

 

[liquordrunk]

Could be that ur turbo seals are gone.. or a hgasket.. is going bad.. check ur PVC valve and maybe look at ur valve seals

 

[luv2rallye]

White smoke is always coolant burning. Either blown HG or turbo coolant seals.

 

[boostedgst2984]

yea also check your oil for coolent in it and check ur coolent for oil in it. If you have coolent in the oil stop driving the car idmediatly. And change that headgasket. And do a flush on the motor.

 

[Spoolin4Ever]

Cracked or warped head or block?

 

[boostedgst2984]

no i wouldnt think a crack or warped block or head. One of my friends ran threw that problem. And the car ran like complete poop. As for the compression numbers Thier not bad at all. And yes u can n hook the turbo from the manifold. The car will run like crap, but if thiers smoke comming from the engine u'll see it. Also check the shaft play on ur turbo. Just make sure when and if you do this leave the turbo hooked up to the coolent and oil lines or block them off. So you don't get a mess or any problems. If you have alot of shaft play i would then say its ur turbo. What turbo are u running??

 

[sherwinz28]

The car is completely stock as far as I know. I've been running the car and now it is not smoking that bad anymore but I did notice that the car is running funky, it still smokes but barely. I drove down the hill and back up and the car would build boost in 1st gear according to the stock boost gauge but when I shift to second gear no power at all...its like driving a geo metro, maybe worse. There also was no boost as far as I could tell in second gear...maybe cause I was going up hill, keep in mind I live on a hill and the car is not insured so I can't drive it around far. This is the first time I've driven this car. It also feels like I can feel one of the belts is slipping as I can feel the engine slipping or something. I also hear some screaching noise from the engine area. I was going to take the timing belt cover off and drive it to see what it could be. When I rev in neutral none of the belts slip. Could the balance shafts be out of phase?

 

[Talesin]

Screeching as in a belt being unhappy, or a more metal-on-metal screeching?

Those compression numbers seem low, but then you're supposed to do a compression check with the engine warmed up. Re-run it... otherwise the only thing those numbers say between dry and wet is that your piston rings aren't sealing right.

White smoke is coolant. Did you double-check your headgasket when you put the new head on? Did you deck the top of the block before putting the new head on? Did you stick with a rubber/cork headgasket, or did you go with metal?

 

[ddavisaf]

Ok lets start over.

170 compression across the board. That's good. Kinda rules out headgasket. White smoke constantly coming out of the exhaust kinda puts the headgasket back in the running.

Lets mess with the turbo first. First and foremost. Get a boost gauge. With that said, Run a boost leak test on the turbo. Check the VFAQ on how to do this if you're not familiar. Yank the Lower Intercooler Piping off and check for fluids. Pull the spark plugs see how they look. With the plugs removed, look into the cylinders and see how the piston heads look. Look for coolant, and look and see if one piston head (or maybe even two) are ALOT shinier than the rest.

Post back your results on EVERYTHING I wrote. It'll save us time in troubleshooting this problem.