My car blows white smoke! Is there a fix?

"caused by water evaporating in the exhaust stream. Occasional puffs [are] usually from condensation in the exhaust pipes (especially in humid areas) or a water balloon up your stove-pipe. Continual white smoke [is usually due to] a warped head/head gasket and coolant entering your combustion chambers. If you're really unlucky, might be from a cracked head."

Some people have reported that high boost levels may promote white smoke, for some reason. Turning the boost down some cures the problem. This might be related to worn out seals on the turbo, which can leak oil into the exhaust. A bad brake booster can potentially let brake fluid into the vacuum line, which also produces white smoke.




My car blows gray/black smoke! Is there a fix?

"This is caused by uncombusted [unburned] fuel. Could be plugs, timing, clogged air filter, air/fuel mixture, wires, coil, etc. Start with the cheapest answer and work your way up."

update
it doesn't smoke at all cold, and only started to smoke a little just on the shifts after a drive around fully warmed up

are you laying into the gas really good when it smokes?

a good rule of thumb is, if its white smoke...your running lean

black smoke is rich

blue smoke is oil

now if your car puffs grey smoke while shifting...well usually if you shift and smoke comes out, usually its because your rings are going.

Since your engine is rebuild, when you put the rings on are you absolutly sure you didnt overlap one of them

I'm having a very similar issue as you except my engine has 151,000 miles on it. My car smokes under boost, never at idle and never cruising. Just under boost. I ran a compression check on my engine due to it's age and it passed with good numbers 155, 155, 150 155. My head is fresh, as in just rebuilt, so I am 99% sure my turbo seals are the culprit. I just haven't had time to tear off the piping to see if I have shaft play and/or oil in my Intercooler pipe. The other thing with my car is I am losing noticable amounts of oil. About 1/2 to 1 qt per tank of fuel. Are you losing any oil and/or coolant at all?

Anyhow, you could possibly have something going on with the rings. Who knows? You shouldn't since it's new, but like someone else said, maybe it wasn't assmbled correctly. Safest thing to do is run a compression check and see. It doesn't take but half an hour or so to do it.

well the machine shop put the short block together. I will run a compression test and see if the # are good. to add the smoke isn't there if I shift low. (where I see no boost at all) Hopefully it's the turbo seals I'll check compression and shaft play.

Exactly like me. If I make a concerted effort to "stay out of the turbo" I can't notice any smoke whatsoever .

drewvr4 said:

are you laying into the gas really good when it smokes?

a good rule of thumb is, if its white smoke...your running lean

black smoke is rich

blue smoke is oil

now if your car puffs grey smoke while shifting...well usually if you shift and smoke comes out, usually its because your rings are going.

Since your engine is rebuild, when you put the rings on are you absolutly sure you didnt overlap one of them

Click to expand...

Please re-evaluate that post. white smoke = coolant burning or oil depending on where it's being burned.

drewvr4 said:

are you laying into the gas really good when it smokes?

a good rule of thumb is, if its white smoke...your running lean

black smoke is rich

blue smoke is oil

now if your car puffs grey smoke while shifting...well usually if you shift and smoke comes out, usually its because your rings are going.

Since your engine is rebuild, when you put the rings on are you absolutly sure you didnt overlap one of them

Click to expand...

as stated white smoke is usually coolant. Running lean will not produce smoke at all.

other than that you are pretty on ti. Except to mention that if you get smoke on shifts it may be a recirc problem. This is turbo/dsm specific info though.

I let the wastegate hang open ( so no boost) and now when I drive it no smoke, looks like I'll be getting my seals fixed

My gues is the valve seals are bad. It got missed on my frends rebuild.

well it didn't smoke all day today with my wastegate just hanging open me running 0 psi so I guess the fully points to the turbo seals?

spoolinawd91 said:

well it didn't smoke all day today with my wastegate just hanging open me running 0 psi so I guess the fully points to the turbo seals?

Click to expand...

Well not for sure, cause when you are not boosting, your engine isn't really working that hard, so if it was some other things, like running rich, it wouldn't do it when not boosting!

How old is the turbo?

Ok so I started up the Eclipse after installing my new clutch and flywheel. Everything is running good I have white smoke coming from the exhaust. I don't know what it could be it idles right just like it use to. Does anyone have any idea what this could mean? I was told that it might mean that a ring is stuck but like I said the car idles fine and there is no oil on the muffler so just throw me a bone someone!