White Smoke Diagnosis

[jnewt]

I am about to begin diagnosis of what appears to me to be white smoke (I have read about blue / gray), but looks white to me (I don't think I've ever seen blue smoke). Not like cartoon train smoking, but enough that somethings wrong. Smells like hot oil.

The engine is a recently built 6 bolt with a 2g head, done by the previous owner (and I have most of the receipts). I can mostly read the block VIN and it appears to be from a 1990 Mitsubishi according to DMV.org. I have just changed the oil, previous owner provided receipts for belts (they're new, and they look new), injectors good 2.3-2.5 ohms. Car runs good, sometimes squeals if given any gas without some warm up time (sounds like accessory belt). Starts good, idles between 1000 & 1500 (slow fluctuation at startup then seems to even out just about 1100.
Previous owner rebuilt the turbo. The head was rebuilt by machine shop, and assembled onto the block by the previous owner.

Compression Tests (numbers are averages, but I never had any way out of whack readings, all within a psi or two or best I could tell on my gauge).

Dry (cold): 130, 125, 132, 135
Wet (cold): 140, 135, 139, 142
Warm, operating temp: 140, 132, 141, 138

Cold tests were not the plan, had some issues with the loander compression tester. I had less smoking when I pulled in hot, but still there. There was a little oil (very black) on cylinder 1 spark plug on the second pull, all plugs clean when I pulled them the 1st time (maybe from my wet test when cold). So, i'm above the service limit but still smoking. I'll do a leak down test when I can get the kit, haven't found one local yet, could take a while. Anything else I can check in the meantime that won't cost me any special tools? Anything I've written tell anyone enough to suggest a fix? Is it worth pulling the turbo intake and checking shaft play (according to the seller it's just been rebuilt, so that seems highly unlikely)?

 

[mitsubishikid]

I was in your shoes a while back, my talon had a smoking problem, after the first few 1000 miles, after an engine and turbo rebuild, it went away eventually it was a white sometimes bluish smoke, I just kept changing oil and driving the car eventually it all went away, but heres some stuff I did, I cleaned the intercooler out with fresh gasoline, I just capped both ends of the intercooler and shaked some fuel in there and poured it out into a container, I'd repeat until it came out clean, check your, inter-cooler, charge pipes, and throttlebody and hoses for signs of any oil, boost leak test, check the pcv valve.

 

[Ben-Stian]

I believe if your sparkplugs are clean, there is no/very little oil burnt from combustion and it can be you turbocharger leaking oil into exhaust. You could remove exhaust and see if there is oil in the exhaust housing.

 

[93AWDDSM]

Any semi sweet smell and/or low coolant/oil?

Any knowledge of how long ago the HG was replaced?

Any mixture of oil/coolant?

 

[Dsm panda]

Oil is blue smoke, black is unburnt fuel, and white is coolant or water (white smoke is not oil). Just my 2 cents.

 

[jnewt]

Headgasket was installed with the rebuild about 500 miles (felpro composite). It smells like oil to me, but my sense of smell is garbage. Wife says it just smells like a car exhaust (not sweet). Got a leakdown test set yesterday, so that's moving. I've gotten the car jacked up and the bumper off now. I'll see if i can remove the downpipe from the turbo today and check in there for oil. Oil and coolant are not low, but it's not my dd and I've been on vacation, so maybe it's a matter of time.

Pictures of smoke: https://imgur.com/a/16zSF

 

[red_devil]

When a turbo is blowing oil they can give off white smoke since it's not burning from ignition and just heat.

 

[motomattx]

Are you sure its not just steam from the cold weather?

 

[jnewt]

100% sure it's not just the cold weather. I thought that at first until it was warm one day. It's smoke.

 

[chrysler kid]

For the best color results you need to drive around for 10-15 minutes and then idle. Best to do this at night, and shine a flash light into the tail pipe to determine color

Your compression results are a bit low for a 2g, 1g I think for a 6bolt your numbers are acceptable.

Next up is a compression test. Test every cylinder and if results are good Leak down test.

Mine did the same thing after a head gasket. The valve seals got dried out from the brake cleaner I used to clean the valves. After driving around my gray smoke would turn blue. Also pull the exhaust manifold to confirm if its valve seals. My intake valves were shot so you can see my exhaust chamber is soaked but the exhaust valves are dry

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[Kryndon]

Mine's also making white smoke and it barely smells like anything. I think it's a combination of a few things, so maybe you can take those into consideration: Cold weather (more instant condensation), deleted catalytic converter and a lean idle are the things that come to my mind at least in my case.

 

[motomattx]

Do the chemical test on the coolant to see if it has combustion by products in it.

 

[jnewt]

Ok, just ran leakdown on cylinder 1. It has been a while since I've done one of these, so I want to verify a few things before I move forward. To set the regulator to "set" (on the right gauge) prior to connecting to the cylinder, it only took about 10psi (on the pressure guage) which seems too low.

After connecting to the cylinder and disconnecting, I have to reset it to set it each time. Repeating the test on the cylinder yields results from 20% to 60% (ie they are not consistent, and it is probably because I have to change the regulator after a test to get it back to the "set" position.

Beyond that, I hear air from the oil filler cap and dipstick tube. No bubbles in the coolant, no noise from the disconnected BOV line regardless of throttle position. I want to crank up the pressure and see if i can hear anything from the tailpipe or intake side, but want to follow the directions as well since I haven't done one of these in so long.

 

[chrysler kid]

From my understanding the motor has to be at top dead center on each cylinder to do the test, and the results are highly substantial. Really the test is not effective if you have good compression numbers to begin with. If you had a cylinder down on compression you would use the test to find out if air is escaping from the head or the rings. Even that result is circumstantial, where is the hiss more prevalent, you would have to listen

My advice is pull the exhaust manifold and look at the head for oil in the exhaust passages. Cracked rings typically show up in a compression test

 

[motomattx]

A leak down test done properly is far superior to a compression test as far as the information about the condition of the engine is concerned, most manufacturers now insist on a leak down test rather than a compression test for diagnosis, so I wouldnt discount the accuracy of the leakdown test in itself, it sounds like your not knowlegeable on how to properly perform the test though.

 

[jnewt]

Here's what I think.

1. There's no need to go to higher pressures on a leakdown test in my case because I can hear the leakage.

2. My Intake valves are sealing because I have no noise / air flow out the bov recirculation line. I may have some leakage on exhaust side, but would probably have to take chrysler kids advice and pull the exhaust manifold to hear anything from that side without upping the pressure.

3. The fact that I have noise / air flow from the dipstick & oil fill lines probably means my rings / cylinders are worn, which is why the compression tests were on the low side and the white smoke that smells like oil is probably burnt oil even though it's not blue or maybe it's a separate problem all together (from the turbo).

4. this harbor freight leak down tester is not great. a dual pressure guage would be better, but the effect of the orifice size probably matters.

I'm pulling the exhaust manifold next. If I hear no air conclude the rings / cylinders are worn (but may or may not be related to the smoke). The smoke in this case will become a secondary issue to getting the rings replaced or doing a motor swap.

 

[motomattx]

You need to have both cam lobes completely off of any valves in any cylinder that you are testing, you need to pull the valve cover and use a breaker bar on the crankshaft to make sure that this happens.

 

[chrysler kid]

Yeah there is a certain degree of valve overlap where both the exhaust and intake valve on 2 and 3 are open at top dead center.

Im not saying there isnt value to the leak down test, im just saying there are more efficient ways to do it. Now pull the oil pan and pull the cams to do the test and it's a great test method. But to get to that point..

 

[jnewt]

The overlap is between exhaust and intake strokes. I'm at tdc between compression & power strokes. Valves should be closed even if you're off by a bit. Anyway, here's my exhaust manifold / ports if it tells you anything, it looks like yours: https://imgur.com/a/8SSUs . Guess I'll pull the valve cover next.

 

[chrysler kid]

Those valves are white as hell man.

Did you have the head checked out, being that white really tells me you had a pretty severe overheating condition, or lean condition and burned those valves hard.

 

[jnewt]

I have not, this is the first time I've had the exhaust manifold apart. However, it seems that most other forums (other vehicles) are ok with white valves as long as they are all pretty even and don't have a bunch of pitting. For some reason dsmtuners seems to think it may be an issue worth dealing with. There is one post here that attributes it to modern gas (made to burn clean / fully), and one on another forum that suggests checking / replacing the pcv valve (which I just did yesterday). It seems its just from "clean burning fuels" or combustion in the exhaust ports (which may be a symptom of the more fully burning fuels). I'm not convinced this is an actual issue as they sit based on what I've read. I am however nearly convinced that my rings / cylinders are leaking. The only thing I saw that made me think twice is one place mentioned removing the pcv valve to avoid false positives, but I don't buy it because the pcv valve would have to be bad (mine is new) and thereby leak from intake to valve cover.

References:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/white-build-up-on-valves.272033/
http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34632
https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/white-exhaust-valves-they-ok-2147900/
http://dannysengineportal.com/cylinder-leak-down-test-findings/

 

[chrysler kid]

Yeah, while im not finding pictures of other white valves like that, those valves are dry.

Mine were very much a burnt brown color, from burning oil and gas.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/confirming-bad-valve-seals.471115/

The head being dry though isnt a good sign.

Is the downpipe clean of oil?

Coolant still clean?

What do the plugs look like?




Just to verify, my car when left idling for 30 minutes infront of my house would smoke out the whole neighborhood, make it look like there was a fire somewhere especially at night.

(Btw the dsmtuners image uploader is by far the best image hosting site. At the bottom you can click upload, and select your files. After youre finished you can click the icon above the files that says insert images as: and click full image, and it inserts them into the thread)

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