only993

I just recently had the oil changed and added a cat bypass. Now this is probably unrelated but just in case I though I should mention it. I have developed blue smoke at idle, now it is very inconsistent, some times it smokes and others it does not, and it only come from the passenger side exhaust pipe. Only on an idle, I had a coworker follow me and said that there no smoke under hard acceleration, between shifts or on throttle lift. just wondering if it could something other then valve guides or rings? weird that it does not do it all the time

rconnon

does it happen withing the first few minutes of startup / idle? this is normal if so.. (as long as it stops shortly after).. OR it's possible the car was over filled?

only993

I am starting to think that it is rings, it seems to smoke only once it starts to get hot! damn...

rconnon

hmm... i *think* that is also a sign of an overfill.. When the car is good and hot what is the oil level on the dipstick? you mentioned this JUST started happening post oil change?

JasonAndreas

At idle speed most of the oil returns to the oil tank and if there is too much it will get sucked out of the tank and dumped into the intake manifold (red arrows in the 1st image from a 964 which will look pretty much the same if you have MY95). This will cause smoking but not on just one side.



When your oil temperature is at ~194F/90C and with the engine speed at idle for at least 60 seconds and running on level ground how high is your oil level?




Normally (unless they are completely shot) whatever makes its way past the piston rings or the valve guides usually ends up burned/converted by the catalytic converters but now that you have removed those, the smoke is just dumped out the tail pipes.

coltj

Jason,

Why is your oil pressure so low, even at normal idle?

Land Jet

Jason, would you please explain the temperature gauge, line system that Porsche uses. The top red area is obviously overheating, but what does each line mean in fahrenheit degrees? Thanks.
BTW, I decided to bite the bullet and go with the auxiliary oil cooler because of the SC. Thanks for your input.

993inNC

Its pretty normal with a by-pass pipe. You are seeing all the crap that the cats filter out. Most likely coming from valve guide "blow by". Unless you oil consumption is excessive, I wouldn't worry about it, especially if it only happens either randomly or just at idle when cold.

Crimson Nape Racing

+1, but watch the oil consumption, it could get suddenly worse. Mine did.

Imracerx

I had some smoke when I added the cat bypass. You can ask Chris. So I change my oil and I called a tech. He mentioned to me that is the most over looked item on these cars with oil level. He told me to run the oil level no more than half way on the twisty on the oil stick (do not go over). I have not had a problem since and I have great oil pressure that right at the 2 mark. My 2 cents.

JasonAndreas

I had originally shot the photos of my gauges to demonstrate the delamination and gauge face peeling problem. A few months later someone had questions about oil temperature and level so I just took those images and photoshopped in the temperature and level. One of these days I will update the images with fixed gauge faces and genuine non-photoshopped levels.



The slow speed oil cooler fan does not even turn on until 230F which is a temperature that a regular non-supercharged engine can see on a hot day. So when you mentioned seeing it on a track day when the car wasn't really moving around I didn't think it was an issue to be even remotely concerned about. Too many times people have come on here and asked questions about the oil temperature in their daily driver (usually they're sitting in traffic and the temp creeps up) only to have vendors swoop in and try to scare the crap out of them when the real problem is lack of airflow and not surface area. If cleaning 10 years worth of built up crap on your existing oil cooler and the free fix (fan overide) doesn't work then maybe spend $2k on an additional oil cooler but not before.

Leander

Has anyone experienced problems with the fan override? Two mechanics that I trust (one in SoCal, the other in NorCal) both advise against it - in their opinions the risks (damage to fan, damage to electrical system, etc.) associated with constantly running the high speed fan outweighs the potential benefits.

JasonAndreas

If you install the switch the fan will only operate at high speed when you want it to.

Mike J

Keeping the engine cool is the best thing you can do for it (other than clean oil) so the fan switch is a great addition. It just a way of getting ahead of any heat spikes ; if you know its going to be hot you can switch on the fan and let it stop the upward creep of the temperature. We would not have to do this if Porsche did not put in a thermostat switch that opened at too high a temperature.

Cheers,

Mike

coltj

Ah, that makes sense. Now that you mention it, I can see the delamination problem. Did Porsche replace the gages?