I think I have a major problem. About a mile from home I was under full acceleration, not near redline and looked behind me to see a nice white cloud of smoke. I immediately backed off and basically idled it back home. It stopped smoking unless I accelerated. There is a new metallic smell I am noticing.

No fluids on ground under car or loss of oil. Don't want to start in case it makes it worse.

Anything to check, or should I just get it towed to the shop. #FML, just got it back the other day.

 

A little more back story. The shop disassembled the left bank (1-3) to diagnose a misfire issue last week. Could this be a problem with the work they did? I worry that even if they diagnose the problem and they caused it that they will make something up to cover their ***'s. Yeah, I'm paranoid, but been screwed before.... Any words of advice here is appreciated.

 

Flatbed your car to a DIFFERENT SHOP. Best of luck.
P.S. Hope it's just a bad AOS

 

+1 I lost faith in that shop over 10 years ago. Have you tried these guys? Outside of Chris Schuh, O'reilly has a good rep too.

http://www.oreillymotors.com/porsche/

 

Oreilly is on the short list, but in Madison and I am near Milwaukee.

As for the problem, since the smoking stopped I am leading towards a clutch disc disintegrating. I've blown engines before and this smell more reminded me of clutch material. Maybe the front differential exploded?

Cars at the shop... Prob be a few days before I hear from them.

 

Can you tell which exhaust pipe(s) the smoke came out of? Could be just a blown AOS.

 

Could just be overfilled oil, too. Check the oil level.

 

To start with if the smoking is from something the shop did or didn't do you won't help your position by taking it another shop. The 1st shop will argue you should have brought the car back to give it the opportunity to address something it might have done.

'course, if you don't trust the 1st shop possibly having to pay for its mistake out of your pocket at another shop could be the lesser of two evils.

Depends upon how bad the situation is.

I don't think the smoking is from the clutch or a blown front diff.

One possible explanation is the AOS failed.

Another possible explanation is -- since the head was off -- this opens up the possibility the camshaft cover on that head having sprung a leak. I am ignoring a possible head gasket leak as there is no CEL.

The camshaft cover leaks -- if it leaks at all -- under hard acceleration as the crankcase pressure builds and thus forces the oil out between the cover and the head or out around a bolt. There are a number of spark plug tubes that could leak too.

Even though the engine is not manifesting any abnormal behavior, other than the smoking, my advice is to err on the side of caution and have the car flat bedded to your shop of choice to have the source of this smoking ID'd and addressed.

 

Car was flat bedded to Mraz yesterday afternoon. Hoping to hear something today. Fingers crossed!

 

So, why was 1-3 disassembled? What was the issue?

 

It was random misfires only on bank 1, diagnosed as bad cam solenoid seal (didn't say whether it's the timing one or the variocam one). Bank 1 cam cover was removed and resealed, valve train checked.

https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...p302-p303.html

 

Ok, bare with me.

Engine still runs. Shop bore scoped all cylinders looking for scoring or d-chunk. No physical signs of either. However, there was a small amount of oil and liquid in cylinders 2, 5 and 6. They pressurized the system overnight and found some liquid on the outside of block. Not really sure if it's a head gasket or possibly the crankcase pcv system. I know its called something else, but can't remember. Also, didn't see any cracks on the block/cylinder or anything.


If you have something constructive to share with the shop please share.

Should here more tomorrow.

 

The external leakage does sound like a head gasket to me. I have seen only two head gaskets fail and both had external leakage.

Approach with great care.

 

While I might be willing to blame a head gasket if the fluids were all limited to one bank and to the bank recently opened up, unless both gaskets have failed and in several places my opinion is the AOS is the culprit. Its failure can have not only oil but coolant in the engine, and in more than just one or two cylinders.

Regardless, avoid running the engine any and get the car flat bedded to a shop that can ID the true source of the symptoms.

 

Its not adding up, the more I think about it... I smell an underlying condition.