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.

 

[1_2befast]

MLS head gaskets can have a hard time sealing if the block and head are not machined really smoothly. There is a chance that it is leaking but not blown out. You could try retorqueing the head and see if it helps. Also make sure your drain line on your turbo is in good shape as that could be your only problem if it is blocked.

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Ok ill keep that one in mind. Ill make a list of things to check during the week. I have the car buttoned up for the weekend, kind of got a little fustrated looking for things

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Ok back for more results but nothing to big to report. I took 1 2befast`s advice and retorqued my head to 80lbs. and the head looked good in that department and changed my spark plugs and checked my PCV valve and that was all good. Still smoking of course. Now should i move to the idea of maybe a cracked head (car didnt over heat so i dont know about that one) or just get the turbo rebuilt and see what happens? or.....should i try that copper head gasket fix stuff in the bottle and try that? ( i know its a bandaid on the problem but just gotta try ANYTHING at this point) Any other ideas any one can think of? Im officially stumped.

 

[JusMX141]

I'm not convinced it's the turbo just yet as a leaking turbine seal wouldn't cause random spark plugs to be fouled. Oil from a leaking turbine seal never sees the engine.

Does the car run fine....no excessive fuel consumption? I'm almost leaning toward an injector that's not sealing properly, loading one cylinder with fuel.

 

[frankenstein406]

can you un hook the wastegate arm or run the boost super low so you could rule the turbo out? just a thought

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

I actually havent driven the car very much when the problem arised. Matter of fact im almost scared to drive it out on the street in case i mess something up further. I have my moms old tahoe ive been driving lately so i wouldnt know about the fuel consumption of the car but what i can tell you that under normal driving conditions it will drive pretty well. As long as i dont do any hard pulls or go into boost thats all just feathering the throttle just in case. I did drive the car around the neighborhood and thats how i found that out but other then that the number 4 cylinder spark plug was pitch black. Still not sure why but should i just go and drive it for a couple of days to see what happens? Or should i just get this fixed now? I honestly dont think its the turbo seals at all when i bought it from the guy he said everything was good on the turbo lines and everything and it barely had 10,000 miles on it. Now the injectors are the original injectors but when i rebuilt the motor i put new o-rings on the injectors and also the seals on the head itself. Any more thoughts?

 

[UGOT8UP]

Leaking fuel injector go to a shop to have a leak down test performed before you rebuild that turbo

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

I already did the leak down test it tested out to be 90% leakage on the number 4 cylinder. But if there was too much fuel going into the cylinder, then the smoke would be black.......right?

 

[UGOT8UP]

bluish but I cant tell the color's apart I smell the difference, coolant is a sweet smell, fuel will burn your eye's

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Yea im with you i cant tell half the time myself. Alright ill put that one on the list of things to check out and ill post back with my results.

 

[JusMX141]

There's a chance something's stuck in the injector causing it to leak / drip. I've had old fuel gum up the pintle in injectors before, but they are quite simple to clean if you have carb cleaner and access to compressed air.

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Well i havent have a good tank of fuel in my car for quite some time due to having a lot of problems. Ill search on how to clean them and see if i can do it during this week or not. I have carb cleaner and an air compressor so thats not a problem. Im still thinking it might be something with the head though, thats my gut feeling.

 

[19BLACKGST98]

A cracked piston will cause lots of white smoke (your video didnt work for me so im not sure how much you are seeing....I would consider this worst case). I would deffinetly be praying that its the fuel injector. Good luck

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Yea my too. Im tired of tearing this car apart and driving it 10 feet and tearing it back apart again. Now here is an interesting question - can i do a leak down without the valve cover on? Maybe the oil around the valves or something could make little bubbles by where whatever is leaking so much in the number 4 cylinder.

I was also thinking, whats the chances that the head gasket just went bad? I mean can the MLS head gaskets go bad? And should i try some of that head gasket fix stuff in a bottle to see if the symptoms change for the better?

 

[UGOT8UP]

Well i havent have a good tank of fuel in my car for quite some time due to having a lot of problems. Ill search on how to clean them and see if i can do it during this week or not. I have carb cleaner and an air compressor so thats not a problem. Im still thinking it might be something with the head though, thats my gut feeling.

DO NOT USE CARB CLEANER ON THOSE INJECTORS, You must use injector cleaner or electrical parts clealer, brake cleaner and carb cleaner most brand's will melt the plastic a lil bit

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Ok, ill pick some electrical parts cleaner up tomorrow. Ill get back to the car actually tomorrow. I have a gut feeling that my head gasket is bad for some reason. Although ive had a lot of gut feelings that were wrong about this.

 

[UGOT8UP]

Even if you do have a blown HG it's no biggie, It could have been if bad though. Atleast your not driving it tearing it up even more

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Exactly!! See i have another truck, i have a `97 chevy tahoe with the 5.7L and its been nice driving that for a change, but i really want to get my car going back to 100% again and i was totally scared to drive it even down the street. Ive been researching the forums here and came across some good info about blown headgaskets and the symptoms and im leaning towards a bad headgasket. I did in fact ahave the head rebuilt but i didnt have it resurfaced or anything along with the block (but i did in fact check everything out and they were flat), and further reading all the info and i found out that MLS gaskets are not a good choice for engines under 30psi and that were not milled at a machine shop. So should i just take my chances and just pull the head and replace it with a Composite Mitsu stock head gasket? I read those seal much better when the surfaces were not machined.

 

[UGOT8UP]

I would go MLS, just make sure the mating surface's are CLEAN. and when you got that head off I would check the timing belt, replace as needed. If you don't have stud's now would be the time.

I'm not boosting to 30psi yet (E316G) but I run a MLS and love the extra insurance + it's there for future upgrades. I just got this today

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[lowandsleekDSM]

Oh yeah i got the timing belt done, the water pump replaced and i have ARP studs already and the MLS headgasket. Ill check everything again tomorrow.

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Ok back with some results. I did the leakdown test on the number 4 cylinder again and it tests out ok, it was leaking at only 10% leakage. No bubbling in the overflow tank at all. Something is still being burned on the spark plug and its really hard to smell whats on the spark plug. Maybe im leaning towards a dirty/bad injector perhaps? Should i go fill up the tank and put some injector cleaner through it to see what happens? Or should i pull the 4th injector and just clean it up with some sort of cleaner?

 

[Demon33]

Ok back with some results. I did the leakdown test on the number 4 cylinder again and it tests out ok, it was leaking at only 10% leakage. No bubbling in the overflow tank at all. Something is still being burned on the spark plug and its really hard to smell whats on the spark plug. Maybe im leaning towards a dirty/bad injector perhaps? Should i go fill up the tank and put some injector cleaner through it to see what happens? Or should i pull the 4th injector and just clean it up with some sort of cleaner?

A good cleaning couldn't hurt. To test your theory on the bad/dirty injector, you could also try moving the suspect injector (#4) to another cylinder and see of that cylinder's spark plug gets fouled and #4 cylinder's spark plug runs normal.

 

[lowandsleekDSM]

Hmm, not a bad idea. Damn why didnt i think of that? Ok ill try that next. Should i just run some injector cleaner through it now just for curiousity sake? Or really sit down and clean them and then maybe switch them after i clean them?

 

[Demon33]

Hmm, not a bad idea. Damn why didnt i think of that? Ok ill try that next. Should i just run some injector cleaner through it now just for curiousity sake? Or really sit down and clean them and then maybe switch them after i clean them?

You could do that first, as it's really easy to do. But don't do both (cleaner and moving #4) at the same time, as this will make determining the root cause more difficult. For instance, if the symptoms were to get better or completely disappear after doing both, how can you say with certainty that it was one or the other that fixed the problem?

If you really want to test whether or not the #4 injector is acting like you suggested, you should try one fix at a time. Note the results and if they're not what you expected or wanted, try the other fix. If that still doesn't work, at least you've narrowed the cause down by eliminating the two 'fixes' you just tried (process of elimination). It could be in your wiring or some other thing.

 

[JusMX141]

You should be able to identify a leaking injector just by pulling the fuel rail with the injectors still attached out of the head slightly and turning the ignition on. With no duty signal from the ECU, the injectors shouldn't spray. If you see one dripping, you have your diagnosis.

The last time I worked on a car with a leaky injector, it was simple to identify- once the fuel rail was pulled, the tip of the bad injector was wet and appeared ready to drip in comparison to the other three.