I was at NJMP Thunderbolt this past Friday, in my 2004 C2. Great track day. Motor is completely stock (except for LN IMS bearing). After one session, I left the car running for a few minutes, and walked around to the back of the car. I noticed that the left pipe was smoking slightly. Not heavy smoke, looked more like steam actually, but it didn't stop until I turned off the car. No smell, although I had a cold so maybe I just couldn't smell anything.

For the next session, the car started up fine, no smoke. Motor ran strong the rest of the day, no hesitation, no CEsL, felt very fast actually.

Well, anyway, I'm still worried. The two things that come to my mind are 1) AOS is shot, or 2) some sort of oil surge. Regarding the AOS, if there's oil in the intake (from what I hear, a small amount is almost unavoidable), then I would expect smoke from both pipes. Re an oil surge/starvation, Thunderbolt has a pretty long, decreasing radius right-hander, and I wonder if it's time for an X51 oil pan. Odd thing is that the smoke indicated the right cylinder bank was producing the smoke. In a right hander I would expect the left bank to get the oil surge. But all I know how to do is loosen and tighten bolts, all of the real mechanical/engine stuff is out of my league.

I would love to hear if any of the experts on RennList have seen anything like this before. These are durable little cars, and that's part of what I love. But, sometimes, when there's smoke, there's...something.

Thanks to all

 

color of smoke ?

 

Smoke was white, not blue/black.

 

so that eliminates any oil or fuel issues and leave you with water beit condensation or a little bubble from somewhere...

check coolant level and monitor.... watch for any further indication of water - keep in mind oil traps water and will "burn it off" so depending on how much was there to burn off and how much ended up remaining in the system when you came to a stop could be just normal... but for sure watch the coolant level close.

 

are you running coolant or straight water?

 

I'm running coolant, not water. Didn't think of anything like that, because my temps didn't really go up. I mean, the gauge goes up a little bit on track, but never that much. I will check the level. Thought cooling issues were over when I sold the Land Rover...

 

thers is a tsb out that these cars should be running with .5 quart less and have an updated dipstick.... very common to have smoke on the track with full oil on the stick.

 

+1 @ Ferd, I never run "FULL" oil, always leave a little room for expansion, that's a LOT of oil and expands a significant amount - believe it of not you check the oil on the aircooled cars WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING @ full warm up - its the strangest thing, takes a little getting used to

 

new a new motor

 

Normal with the M96 after Track use... Don't overfill the oil...

 

did you look at the blowoff on the coolant expansion tank? you might have had too much coolant/water in there, blown a little off, gotten a little on the left pipe