OUNATE

Car started to smoke last time I had it out. I noticed it mainly at stops and it seemed worse if it was on an incline, car still runs great at speed but idles like hell. Any ideas? The car is running a LR MAF and Super 75 turbo running 15psi. Only trouble shooting I've had time for is pulling the dip stick to check for water/oil mixing. I'm hoping it's not a head gasket or turbo that crapped the bed, only other ideas I had were possibly a bad O2 sensor. I plan to pull the intercooler pipes once I get the garage setup. Thanks for any suggestions

Nate

Black51

It would be the HG if when under throttle, white smoke bellows out the hood and back of the car, and smells like a caramel.

What color is the smoke?

carlege

guessing you dont have a wideband?

jmj951

You need to know if it's fuel, coolant or oil (or if a HG failure, combination of coolant and oil). Lots of different ways to approach this, depending on what you think the prime suspect is. If you ran it really hard and it began smoking immediately after that, then you probably want to suspect the HG. First, pull out the spark plugs, take pics if you can, and post them.

OUNATE

I've got a wideband on the car and it never changed, I've always ran it slightly on the rich side. Smoke has a slight blue tint to it, my first thought was a seal in the turbo. I'm going to pull the plugs this weekend, ill take pics and post up the verdict ASAP


Thanks for the feedback

Black51

So it's not the HG if it's blue. Plus you'd smell the coolant in the exhaust.

When/what mileage was the last time the head was refreshed?

OUNATE

car has 57k on it, to my knowledge and the history that I have on the car, the head has never been off. Just got back from a trip so I might work on it tomorrow.

Black51

Ya, in any case, I'd look into refreshing the head then. Might just find your problem there too, what with all those old, old and tired valve guides and seals. It won't cost too much if you're able to get the head off yourself and put it all back together after having the head refreshed.

Personally, I would start from there if the head had never been off since before I was born.

OUNATE

After several pop up trips for work I finally got around to just pulling the plugs the pictures are below. They are lines up left to right as you would look at them from the passenger side of the car. The car hasn't had plugs and wires in about 6 years but they only have about 4-5k miles on them. Any opinions?

OUNATE

Looks like oil to me I doubt it's just spark plugs that would be nice though, I would hope that with only 6-7k on the turbo the seals wouldn't be shot, granted it does sit quite a bit so that might have something to do with it. I'd rather have turbo seals than shot rings though.

jmj951

Platinums are made for really long service, not best performance., but as mentioned, the plugs are not showing any particular problems. I was hoping to see something obvious from the plugs, but I don't. Definitely don't see coolant as a potential problem.

Next, pull the IC pipe between the turbo and the intercooler and see if there's oil in it.

OUNATE

Just pulled the intercooler pipes and there clean as a whistle. I'm going to put a set of NGKS in with new wires cap and rotor and hope for the best. I had the car running for about 30 min last night granted it wasn't under boost but it wasn't smoking. I run vr20-50 so it may have not have gotten warm enough to get past the seals and not running the car under boost probably has something to do with it.

jmj951

Great, clean IC pipes should rule out oil or coolant coming from the turbo. If the new ignition parts don't make a difference, then bad gas or bad valve seals would be next on my list.

Black51

+1 on valve seals.