White Smoke / Car Is Smoking White [Merged 7-9]

[Apeximprt2nr]

Alright guys, well I just finished my 14B install in my 95 GSX. All is well besides some minor oil leaks on the return line and the SS feed line at the filter housing. There was also a VERY minor coolant leak from the front banjo bolt on the turbo. I tightened it a tad and I think i went away. Now the turbo is spooling really late because I think there may be a leak before the turbo.
Now on to the problems.

1. The turbo does not smoke at all besides at WOT sometimes it blows out whiteish grey smoke. I'm trying to think of where it could be burning coolant. It never did this before the turbo install.

2. There was some white smoke the past 2 days at the manifold. I'm thinking its the shitload of PB Blaster that I sprayed all over the car but I'm not sure.

3. There's a smell coming from my engine that I can smell if I pop my hood and it becomes more noticeable when I'm driving and really get on it. It smells like burning plastic sort of, with a mix of burning rubber. The lower heat shield is not on the car because it's a pain to get on and I haven't put it back on because I haven't had time. Nothing is touching anything hot so I 'm confused...The only possible thing is maybe I pout on a new 4 ply exhaust mani. gasket as well as antiseize on most of the bolts and the turbo-mani. bolts.

Any help? Thanks.

 

[autocrossn]

Alright thank you.
Did the leak down test and there wasn't any bubbles coming from coolant...
The only place that air was coming out of is the stem off of the valve cover the one on the left side...
What would be the next step?
And its the pipe coming off the turbo where the turbine is

 

[Xit40]

What were the results? How much air were you losing and on what cylinders?

 

[1Gina2G]

does this oil return look good? this is how it looked while bolted on both sides. there's a bend but It didn't / still doesn't have a kink to me.

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I proceeded to take the turbo off, after first checking the oil fitting I had attached to the head to make the line attach, was only a normal fitting not a restrictor. So I'm pretty sure the turbo has max oil pressure at the feed.. to me I think it's an obvious mistake since the intercooler has some small amount of oil plus some oil in the inlet, could be caused from the line crankcase oil but there was no oil in the can.

I do have a regular catch can that has the top line to intake pipe, and the side VC port to 1 part of the can and for the last line of the can, goes to the PCV valve after going through an additional check valve.

haven't been able to any compression / leak down tests since ive only had the compression tester and it broke a while ago, but I've just been assuming it's probably really good being a new engine just reaching 400 miles or so..so I guess I'm going to buy atleast a comp. tester tomorrow just to be sure, should see atleast 160? I need to relook the numbers.

last question. would it be bad in anyway, to take off the valve cover, just to retorque the head to the block just like the very last sequence of putting the head on? like in sequence at 90lbs I belive? just cause? thanks

 

[NHerron]

This is how I have done compression tests

Pull all plugs (watch out for dirt/debris during testing though!)
Make sure battery is charged
Crank while holding throttle all the way down (remove 'motor fuse' for a few reasons, you don't want cylinder wash from injectors firing)
Record number
Put charger on battery, 10 amps
Record the other 3 cylinders.

Just so you know, the hose size might be 'x' size but the fittings can be a problem. Look at the id of your fittings. And that kink can't be good either. You didn't overuse the RTV right? I'm assuming that's an adapter flange on the pan with stock gasket.

Are you running the 14b with that drain setup?

 

[1Gina2G]

This is how I have done compression tests

Pull all plugs (watch out for dirt/debris during testing though!)
Make sure battery is charged
Crank while holding throttle all the way down (remove 'motor fuse' for a few reasons, you don't want cylinder wash from injectors firing)
Record number
Put charger on battery, 10 amps
Record the other 3 cylinders.

Just so you know, the hose size might be 'x' size but the fittings can be a problem. Look at the id of your fittings. And that kink can't be good either. You didn't overuse the RTV right? I'm assuming that's an adapter flange on the pan with stock gasket.

Are you running the 14b with that drain setup?

not sure what you mean by id of the fittings, theres no writing / markings just simply some aluminum -10an fittings with the same flat matting surface.

I only use rtv on the threads of the bolts now, I actually like using jb weld instead. I've learned how to use a shy amount, to where it doesn't squish inside the hole at all. but close & everywhere else. I know it doesn't because I've had to take of / put on the orginal hardline like 15 times trying with gasket only, gasket + rtv, rtv by itself etc with constant oil drips. why I finally switched over to making a hose, not sure why I couldn't get the hardline to work since it was brand new..

this is a small 16g turbo

 

[spyderdrifter]

Here's an update to this issue:

Just put on my new Apexi exhaust on Saturday. Full exhaust, no cat-converter. The down-stream o2 sensor if I remember right, was speckled white, and the upstream on the o2 housing was black like it always has been. I want to replace both though. Got the fuel filter replaced aa well. Since putting in the new exhaust, I get more smoke, likely from the cat delete, but still no burning coolant smell.

 

[keston95GS-T]

This problem could be your valve seals. I had a similar problem with my 95 GS-T and it turned out to be the valve seals.

 

[spyderdrifter]

It turned out to be my piston rings, my new set arrives tomorrow.

 

[lee98talon]

This is kinda of old post, but how did you mange to find out the problem was your piston rings ?

 

[spyderdrifter]

This is kinda of old post, but how did you mange to find out the problem was your piston rings ?

I found out by doing a wet and dry compression tests.




On another note, my car has been smoking for a while now and at first I thought it was white smoke. This is after replacing my piston rings, honing the cylinders, and replacing all the appropriate seals, gaskets, and bolts. I can smell oil and fuel in the smoke and my oil level has dropped little by little and the smoke has a very slight blueish tint to it so it's not white. I did a leak down test tonight which showed good results. Each cylinder held 95 psi and didn't leak any where. Compression test is 125 psi across all 4 cylinders which is near service limit when it should be in the 178 psi range. Didn't have my boost leak tester with me so that didn't happen, although I'm sure there's no leaks there either. What else could possibly be wrong? I haven't unhooked the wastegate yet to see if that changes anything while not building boost. Anyone have other thoughts?

 

[NHerron]

I may not understand 100%, but how did you perform the leak down test? Even a new engine will "leak" pressure past the rings due to the required ring end gaps. You should be posting a percentage of air lost rather than "no leaks".

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/articles-engine-fuel/338152-compression-leak-down-testing.html

 

[spyderdrifter]

Since I had never done a leak down test myself before, I had my instructor at school walk me through it. I rotated the engine to TDC for each cylinder's compression stroke, then I installed the line into the spark plug hole, and filled each cylinder with 95 psi. No leaks.

 

[NHerron]

A brand new engine will leak. Read the link.

If you have no air loss, blue tinted smoke, low compression- that's possibly a combination of worn valve guides/seals, incorrect mechanical timing (or different cams) and no ring end gap.

I'd do the leak down test again and post an actual result, it will tell you alot about your engine.

 

[spyderdrifter]

Well I redid the leak down test last night and I have 5% leakage on all cylinders. I took pics, but will post them later when I get home. I did a boost leak test also which popped my FPR hose off @ 15psi. I put a new line on it. Also found out my BOV flange gasket was hemorrhaging air ever after 5psi. I fixed that with rtv on both sides of the gasket. Will test again tonight.

 

[NHerron]

Have you verified mechanical running is spot on? I don't know the 1g vs 2g cams difference but cams effect the compression ratio FYI. Your profile up to date? 1g bottom end 2g top?

 

[spyderdrifter]

Yep, profile is up to date. I have all OEM 2G valvetrain components. All mechanical is set right. I ran my boost leak test again tonight and my BOV gasket/flange is all sealed up now. I ran through each cylinder this time and set each to TDC on compression stroke (like a leak down test) and found that while cyl 4 (and only cyl 4) reached 15psi, the cyl 1 fuel injector spewed air out of the plastic grommet that seats it into it's manifold port. Didn't happen on any other cylinder. I'm guessing it may be something with the EGR recirculating to the manifold through cyl 4's section of the head. Will be ordering new grommets to seal it up. That explains some higher fuel consumption. But not sure about all the smoke. I asked about it and basically it was explained that the extra fuel, brought on by extra air being sucked in, could wash the oil off the cylinder walls and end up being burned during the combustion stroke and therefore smoke out the exhaust. Seems like a decent possibility, but need more research before I end all this with just a simple grommet.

 

[Jaydsm-]

Im about to buy a 1993 Talon TSi(fwd) it had a stock turbo on it but the previous owner blew the turbo and took it out looks like he put a 1g n/a manifold and downpipe but anyway i have no prob with that. I have a 2g turbo mani and a 20g mhi waiting Well the PROBLEM is that the car is smoking a bit at idle and when on WOT it smokes quite a lot more(its WHITE smoke btw)..they keep telling me its because it had a turbo kinda makes sense because it might be running rich? well I need some help figuring out this problem & to buy or not to buy, anyone? I'll buy it for ~1000$ and it will be my DD since my Spyder is out of duty :/

 

[Insane20]

Black smoke should be rich. White is coolant. Blue is oil. If its white smoke and the turbo isnt on it im gona say its a head gasket

 

[Marchev]

^^ White means its burning coolant. Sounds a bit fishy to me...So this guy put an NA intake on it as well?

 

[Insane20]

^^ what I meant. But if the op can get the price down a little lower it still may not be a bad buy.

 

[Jaydsm-]

a blown hg wont be a big prob unless it broke something on the inside .. & I really didnt see any difference in the tb..anything I should look for/check before i buy it? I could still shave off around 200 bucks im sure

 

[LovinBoost]

Head gasket.

 

[GofaST4life]

Post up some pictures. This "could" be a real basket case of a car.

 

[Jaydsm-]

The engine bay is pretty decent,no leaks,oil etc but they kinda removed the valve cover and looks like they didnt have the bolts, so they bolt it with whatever they coul find but i can replace them, apart from that the CAS plug is taped idk if they rewired it or what. Today im going to test drive it and i'll take some pics too Ps: DSM's are extremely rare here especially a gst/tsi

 

[eDeclpse92]

Sounds like it might turn into a project just to get it running correctly. Do a compression test on it to see what numbers the cylinders are spitting out. Like stated earlier, the engine is burning coolant due to the white smoke. I would look in the oil to see if it is milky colored at all (coolant mixing with oil). Just taking the turbo off wont make a car burn coolant. It honestly doesn't sound like this guy knows what he is talking about which would make at least me very cautious on buying it. Just my .02 cents though. Good luck! To give you an idea, I sold my car that had just blown it's head gasket for $540. I couldn't get rid of it so I kept dropping the price. From what you described, I wouldn't pay more than $600 for it.