HELP ASAP! White smoke, car dying, electrical.

[kylec4321]

Okay, I did some research on here but it is hard to narrow it down to one thing. I just purchased a 95 gsx for fairly cheap, so I am willing to save up a very good bit of money to dump into it. First things first, I need to get it running good. So here's a rundown of the problem/s.

The Problems:
-Car loses all power after driving when car heats up (to normal temp that is), lights don't dim however.
-Electrical is weird. CD player shut down after volume goes up to 22. However, when i turned off some of the electrical components it shut down at a much higher number, and when I turned on the wipers it shut off at a lower number, telling me there is some type of electrical strain on the car.
-Exhaust leak - pipe from Cat to muffler is gone and small puncture in downpipe? :-\
-White smoke from exhaust
-Bad idle
-A little oil leaking from valve cover and spark plug #1
-DIPSTICK IS WRONG SIZE, doesn't fit on at all - once pressure builds up oil goes over..

Things that have been checked:
-Alternator, starter, and battery all just replaced
-Checked alternator fuse
-Checked oil - MINOR amount of chocolate milky substance in oil, no oil in coolant though.

The Possible Cures?:
-Hoping that it could be this simple. Last owners ended up getting a different dipstick for some reason and this one does not fit over. Could this cause the car to die and do everything it's doing since the dipstick is not on tight?
-Can car bog down and die because of leak in the exhaust? Of course once I get paid tomorrow I will get the exhaust fixed since it will need to be fixed regardless.
-....Blown head gasket. I'm hoping this isn't the case, but symptoms point to it. Would a car bog down and die as a result of this? It will run fine until it warms up, so I figured with a blown head gasket once its blown its undriveable but idk?
-Car shorting out somewhere?

Anyone ask questions and throw me some ideas please. I need this fixed ASAP and this weekend will be a great opportunity for me to get started. I'll add info as I test things out and think of them. I have only done basic stuff on cars, switched alternators, starters, drained transmissions, o2 sensors, ghetto fixes, cold air intakes. I'm hoping no matter what the problem is I will be able to tackle it myself in time.

Thanks in advance for any help given,
And I will be checking back on this thread for possible answers to my problem.


EDIT:
-I completely forgot the people I bought the car off told me that the problem started when they replaced the starter which leads me to believe that it could most definitely be something related to this. They had to reinstall the starter twice because her husband had no idea what he was doing. She said he messed up the electrical when he was putting it back together and he wasn't sure where to ground it. Could it be possible it just needs regrounded and doesn't have a good connection now, hence the car dying? The car starts first time every time, but it takes about 4-6 seconds for it to start, I figured that could be because 15x,xxx miles on the car but she said it use to start on a dime.

MONDAY DEC. 10TH EDIT:
-Finally got the car legal and was going to take it for a quick drive. After about a minute of driving it starts putting out a lot of white smoke. Now remember that a piece of the exhaust is missing but it is literally a thick cloud surrounding my car billowing out of the exhaust. The car has no power during this time, as in not accelerating fast at all. I make the car back to my house and it dies. I try to start it and it clicks like the starter is bad. I am really really hoping this is electrical. I let it set for a minute and when i would even put my foot on the brake it would cut the cd player out. The smoke had a distinct smell as well.

PLEASE help me find out what this could be. I don't think the turbo could be shot because if the turbo was shot wouldn't it not work good ever? When I test drove the car it drove fine, turbo boosted, etc. And THEN reading about crankwalk scares me half to death. Someone help asap, it will be greatly appreciated! ECU? crank angle sensor? (i prob put it wrong i always mix them all up).

what could cause all this?

 

[NN4S]

Sounds like a head gasket as far as the white smoke & running poorly go; milky oil seconds this line of thought. The electrical issue probably comes from the engine not having a good ground connection; the fellow may have disconnected one & left it off when doing his starter work. It seems that most of the electrical issues on DSMs stem from bad grounding or oiled alternators; you say that you've got new parts (I'm guessing they tested good in the store?) for alternator & such, so that points to the grounding system. Good luck with it, doesn't sound like you'll get away without replacing the head gasket at a minimum.

 

[kylec4321]

Gah I hope not but I know I'm just saying that because I would much rather want it to be an inexpensive repair. I will start out with the basic stupid stuff. I'll check grounds this weekend and then update.

 

[kylec4321]

update bump.

 

[MrBoxx]

Please do not bump your threads.

Check the shaft play on your turbo. Wiggle the compressor wheel, up down, left right, in and out. Any in/out play means the turbo is shot. Any noticeable amount of side/side up/down play means it's probably on it's way out. Check for oil in the LICP (watch your shoes when you take it off), or in the intake pipe. A slight film of oil on either is okay, but if you dump out a tablespoon or more of oil from either, you have some turbo failure issues.

Note to everyone: Check your turbo for shaft play often in these colder months. Warm up your car before driving them hard. This is the season for turbo failure to start popping up. If your car starts smoking white/gray clouds of smoke on decel or under boost, checking the turbo should be the first thing you do.

 

[kylec4321]

Would the turbo being shot cause the car to not want to start up again afterwards?
I'll check it out here in a few days next time im off.

 

[KtownDsm]

You might want to check the exhaust side of your turbo by the pinwheel for cracks. My car pretty much did the same thing because the crack in the turbo was leaking oil right into the exhaust.

 

[kylec4321]

ill check the turbo but i figured if the turbo was shot then it was shot. i.e. how would it have boosted fine when we test drove it?

 

[KtownDsm]

Mine still would hit 17lbs. just fine when it was cracked just poured out smoke.

Also have you checked your compression yet?

 

[kylec4321]

Haven't checked compression. How hard is it to do? Go easy on me. i'll search it up after I'm done working my second job tonight. Today when I opened the hood to look at the damage from all the smoke last night and to try to pinpoint a problem The whole valve cover and most the rest of the engine bay is covered in a watery type substance. I think whatever was cracked or whatever earlier completely broke yesterday night. Any ideas? I'll narrow this down my next day off. Can't WAIT to get this fixed, I'm not giving up on this dsm..

 

[2geclipse565]

On another note, to answer your question about the stereo cutting out at a higher volume. I ran into this same problem when I bought my 95 gst It had an after market stereo in it and the power would surge at high volume. From what I found out it is becasue the cars came with a factory amplifier and mine was taken out and it had something to do with the factory speaker wire still wired the factory amp. So to bypass this I hooked up my sony speaker amp and ran my own wires. Now i can play my music as loud as i want

 

[TermTrky]

Haven't checked compression. How hard is it to do? Go easy on me. i'll search it up after I'm done working my second job tonight. Today when I opened the hood to look at the damage from all the smoke last night and to try to pinpoint a problem The whole valve cover and most the rest of the engine bay is covered in a watery type substance. I think whatever was cracked or whatever earlier completely broke yesterday night. Any ideas? I'll narrow this down my next day off. Can't WAIT to get this fixed, I'm not giving up on this dsm..

Overheating / boiling over can launch water every where. My transmission is white from my car boiling over with the bad head gasket. Compression test is fairly straight-forward. Take out one spark plug, screw in your compression gauge in there.

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Now, unplug the coil pack so no power will get to your spark plugs, and disconnect your fuel injectors so that no fuel is released into the cylinder chambers. Have your buddy crank over the car for 5-10 seconds, or until you get the final reading on the gauge. Do a search for 'compression test' and I'm sure you'll find an article with more in-depth information than I can give you.

This is how you find out if your head gasket is okay. You will notice a couple cylinders with high numbers, and one or two cylinders with substantially lower numbers [15% difference or more is bad]. If all cylinders are within a 15% difference to each other, chances are your head gasket is sealing okay.


Good luck, my friend, I totally understand DSM frustrations. And finding time to work on your car inbetween working for the money to give to your car. Rock on.

 

[kylec4321]

Thanks for the motivation buddy. So I'm assuming its a good thing if it passes the compression test since it might be something smaller then? I will try the test out if I get home early tomorrow. Even if it's head gasket I will attempt to do as much research as possible and give it a go next week. Is there any possibility it could be something stupid like misfire because wrong spark plug order or anything? I mean what are all the causes of lots of smoke and dying.

Edit:
and my temp gauge read around half, not showing overheating although it could be off. is that good?

 

[TermTrky]

Thanks for the motivation buddy. So I'm assuming its a good thing if it passes the compression test since it might be something smaller then? I will try the test out if I get home early tomorrow. Even if it's head gasket I will attempt to do as much research as possible and give it a go next week. Is there any possibility it could be something stupid like misfire because wrong spark plug order or anything? I mean what are all the causes of lots of smoke and dying.

Edit:
and my temp gauge read around half, not showing overheating although it could be off. is that good?

Good compression test = good head, good block literally [aside from rod bearings and oil pressure issues of course]. Could be a blown turbo as well that causes that smoking. I work on Chevys, I replaced my first head on my DSM last week and it was frustrating but very straight forward. Here's a good guide to show you the process: Head Rebuild

That one got me through it.

On my Eclipse, half would mean it's shooting hot water everywhere even if I didn't want it to. On my friend's Eclipse, almost halfway up constitutes it has been warmed up and is doing well. Although gauges are relative to temp sensor health we need to talk temperatures. Heat up your car real nice and then let it idle. Shut off the vehicle, put your ear next to the motor, listen for boiling. If you hear boiling you are over heating. Compression test is best way to find out about the head gasket health, though. Head gaskets can go out & cause very gradual overheating.

Your smoking *is potentially*: Horrid fuel / air mixture, bad piston rings, blown head gasket, bad turbo. It's likely just the turbo or head gasket.

Ha, I don't advocate this but I tried it, when I blew a head gasket I put in the "head gasket fix formula" in the radiator. It didn't work but was worth a shot :].

 

[kylec4321]

alright I'm going to try to jump start tomorrow and check everything out. I'll keep you updated. Thank you so much for the help up to here as well. How long does it take to check a turbo for play?