ohh the horror...

I was driving back home on I35(SA,TX) and noticed some smoke coming through the vents... seen it before but everytime I pulled over I couldnt find the cause.... well today it went smokey times like 15.. The cabin filled with smoke pretty quickly. Thought the car was on fire. My girlfriend kept cool through the whole thing though.. I think her words were: wow thats alot a smoke (lol) So I pulled over a gas station. Poped the hood and pulled out the fire extinguisher. Turned out it wasnt on fire... Looks like I have a huge oil leak... it was dripping heavly on the oil pan and I guess the crossover pipe (where all the smoke was coming from)

I just switched to 10w30 Royal Purple from 20w50 Mobil One Syn... Would this cause the massive amounts of oil to come out???? I have a new rear seal so I was wondering is the oil to thin or something??

And my g/f said she saw reddish smoke?? What would cause that... My Xover pipe is titanium coated so I dont think it could be from that?

Im glad I got free towing... Its sitting in my garage as we speak but I wont get a chance to look at it for about 2 weeks

 

I'm sorry but switching oil would not do that. Grab a flashlight and search for the leak, check all gaskets and oil lines.

 

I would check the lower balance shaft rear cover. That seems to be a common spot to leak.

 

I second the motion that its the lower balance shaft... maybe rear cover, most likely rear cover. Mine leaks... every now and then puff!!! smoke!!! *COUGH COUGH* yeah... thats why my engine is apart, took the head off to get to the lower balance shaft... jk!!!! its off... nuff bout me

its a little bit of work to fix that seal but you can get it done in a day if you dont break stuff

 

It could cause it to do that if you switch from dino oil to synthetic... the synthetic oil would clean up the old dino oil along with the old dino oil that gets stuck in gaskets/seals and well... just sticks there.

going from synthetic to dino... shouldnt cause that problem. not sure what royal purple is :-/ never used the stuff

 

Changing oil would not cause this red smoke. BUT changing to 10W30 might. Why in god's green earth did you switch to a lower-viscosity oil just in time for summer?!

Now, I know that Drifto says 10W30 is juuuust fine, but for the rest of us not living in Alaska, stick w/ the 15W- or 20W-50.

Lower viscosity oil is more prone to leakage when not suited for the car.

 

He actually switched to a higher viscosity synthetic oil. You misread, me thinks.
I agree, that is too much oil loss to be associted with an oil change.
Anecdotally, I and a number of others have seen "some" leaking or weepage issues with M1, but nothing of this magnitutude.
Btw, how far had you driven when this smoke happened? Was the engine/exhaust already up to temp? If so, did this sort of happpen all at once?
Lastly, did you check your oil level after the fact?
If this let go at once, you REALLY need to find this leak before doing too much driving...if any.

 

??? No misreading... went from 20-w50 to 10-w30, from a higher viscosity to a lower viscosity...

the higher the number, the higher the viscosity. The lower, the more water-like it becomes.

Red smoke, i wont even try to guess at that one.

 

oops. no glasses on tonight. my bad. I totally misread it. I thought he went the other way. LOOOONNNGGGG WEEK!

 

ya switched to 10w-30 because they didnt have the mobil 20w-50.. Bad idea I guess. I had been driving the car all the day. I did some 5th gear wide open throttle runs on the highway but didnt hit past like 100. Where exactly is the lower balance shaft rear cover at? Anyone have a pic??

I did check the oil afterwards and it was just a bit above the bottom line.. Seems like I lost alot of expensive oil ....... I wont even be able to check it out for about a week. I just put my car in a new house that I havnt closed on yet. Thats a whole other story but it closes at the end of the week so no worries.

 

I used 10w40 in my 951 for quite awhile. I'm not consistent though and would occasionally use 15w50. 10w40 works just fine at least. I put 65k miles on my car within a 1.5yr period and I used 10w40 about half the time so it's an acceptable viscosity if you can't find any 15 or 20w50 and assuming you aren't running the 24 hours of Lemans or anything! I never really use 10w30 so I couldn't comment on that.

Damn Robert, I'm really sorry to hear this man. I know you've been putting a lot of effort and work into this car without hardly being able to enjoy it. I hope whatever is wrong is a simple solution.

 

BlacknRed I thought about this since you posted it. And I thought "What would make red smoke"? Then it occured to me that it might have been PS fluid that produced that smoke, since its ATF afterall. Just a thought, check for a PS leak.

 

hmm didnt think about that nighthawk.... I will check on that when I get the car up on stands.. Hopefully its not the rear main seal, I think I can handle anything else. I personally didnt see any red smoke... but a drip or two of PS fluid might produce what my g/f saw