White Smoke... Why?
 

Well after changing the heads gaskets on both sides and changing the oil three times to remove all the residual coolant from the cylinders. I now see white smoke(not alittle puff, I mean a big cloud of smoke) under acceleration and sometimes when I start it up. Does not smoke when idleing.

There is no coolant in the oil or vice versa. The car is not overheating or anything of that nature. (The temp has only went pass 200* once since I changed the gaskets, fixed the intake leak, and install a new freeze plug.)

Could I have bad rings, valve seals or even a cracked or warped head?

Last time I did a compression test the cylinders were with 15% of each other.
Averaged out to be around 192psi.

Could somebody please help me out?

Thanks in Advance,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

what kind of head gaskets you using?? aluminum heads or iron? are you using head studs or bolts??

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Felpro composition gaskets. Iron heads and head bolts.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Run your car like this a few times, and shoot some pix of your plugs on both sides (spark plugs). Could you describe things a bit more. Like what temperature is it outside? Your driving habits when u notice the smoke. Any odd smells, etc.... What type of motor, and fuel delivery? What type of gas? Have u changed your fuel filter? Stuff like that. Also if u can get a picture of the white cloud it would be helpful. Are you driving the regularly? or is this just observations on a short drive.

Basically, if your sure u replaced the head gaskets, and your compression and fluids seem ok, then all should be well. If your running the car after a long winter, or just short start ups, it may just be burning off some excess h20 in the mufflers. Or maybe u coincidentially just drove through a puddle, where ur cats came in contact with some water. But if none of this is the case, i gotta say im stumped. If its fuel injected maybe we can get some more ideas.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

I will do the best I can to described what you asked.

Outside Temp- 49*
Driving habits when I notice smoke- Today I when I first started the car it smoked. When I drove it up the street doing 40mph it smoked like crazy. At the stop light it smoked a whole lot. Basically normal driving habits stop and go. Nothing spirited.

Type of motor- 350 LT1 iron heads
Fuel Delivery- EFI
Type of gas- 93 Octane
Fuel Filter- Yes, I changed it about three weeks ago.
Odd Smells- Sweet smell from the exhaust.
My white cloud looks like picture in 5678TA's sig.

I haven't checked the plugs yet.

The car runs good its not missing or anything like that. I didn't go thru any puddles and I don't have cats. However, the engine has not even been driven 30 miles since being installed in November. My check engine light came on a few times last nite although since then it has not came on again. I just had the exhaust put up a couple of months ago so I dont think there should be too much water in the muffler.

I did add some bar leaks to my radiator coolant a few days prior to this.

Anyway, I will be pulling the heads tomorrows and taking them to the machine shop to check for cracks and straigthness.

Thanks,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

i was gonna say, its still very cold outside, so its probably just condensation, but not if the cloud looks like that. You probably have a sealing issue, head straightness is a good place to start, just thoroughly check your gaskets to make sure they are for your application, and that they seal properly. Im sorry if it sounds stupid and general but thats all i can think of.

Sweet smell ==> burning coolant, but if its constant smoke, its getting constant coolant, and if its running nice, its just enough to smoke that bad. Its gonna be tough to find.

Only thing i suggest is, read the block very carefully when u pull the heads, it'll tell the story.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

You are def burning coolant.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Today I removed the plugs and took the heads off.

All of the plugs had oil on them some more then others. The second exhaust port on the pass. side head looked wet seemed to me like coolant. Also the third exhaust port on the driver side looked the same way, which I think was also coolant. The piston cylinders on the pass. side where each filled with coolant and the #8 had a coolant and oil mix. I will try to post pics of what I am seeing but I only have a camera phone since I ran over my digital one. So far I just have the pass. side head off but I will inform you guys of what see on the driver side also.


Online170,

That by no means sounds stupid. Sometimes people can make mistake and give you the wrong parts. I will check and make sure everything is in order.

Anymore advice would be great.

Thanks,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Pics of pass. side.
2,4,6

Will post drivers side and plugs later...

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Pic of pass. side

#8

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

OHhh wow LOL....shyt sorry man.

That's really bad......

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Yeah I know.

Here are some pics of the driver side.

#1,#3,#5

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Spark plugs pass. side

Spark plugs driver side

Driver side pic
#7

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Do you think this could be a problem? Take a look at the pic of my intake gaskets all of them look like the pictures shown. Not fully surrounding the port.

After seeing the pics what do you guys think?

Thanks,
jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Seems to me like you got bad/wrong gaskets.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Jay, dont worry about the gasket not sealing the port completely, it happens. Some ppl port their heads to increase performance, which is called gasket matching or port matching, which is enlarging the port to match the gasket.

I think you can rule out a cracked block, and plug readings dont matter at this point. If all the cylinders have that much coolant in them, they would have cleaned the plugs and left them wet. It also indicates, something was not installed correctly. You basically have a steady flow of coolant into the cylinders, you just gotta figure out where. The part i was telling you to focus on when you pull the heads, is the deck of the block,a nd the heads themselves. You might see a little trail of where the coolant seeped through, and surrounding areas where the gasket actually sealed.

That will greatly narrow your results to the culprit. Also, if you mentioned that there was no mixing of coolant and oil (ie no choclate milk) you can also rule out bad rings.

Get some new gaskets (intake head, and exhaust). Clean your plugs, they should still be good, dry off the engine, reinstall carefully, making sure all the water jacket holes are matching up the the intake gasket holes, etc.... And try again. If you have stock heads, id get them milled a couple thousandths of an inch for good measure.

Before you went ahead and removed the heads, i would have also recommended a "leak down test" of your cooling system. If you had a cracked block, you would have slowly lost pressure. But if the car ran fine, i doubt thats the problem, looks like the coolant was just misrouted. Keep us posted.


one more thing, did you buy this car new and it always behaved like this? or did you get some work done and then the problem arose?

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

All the coolant in the cylinders is stuff that spilled in there when you yanked the heads off. It would hydrolock the engine if you truly were leaking that much coolant in the jugs. Soak all that crap out of there and fog the cyl's with wd40 to prevent them from rusting up. Take a straight edge and some feeler gauges and measure deck flatness on the heads AND block. Since you already pulled the heads, you can't do a cylinder leakdown test to isolate which cylinders you are having issues with. Inspect the cylinders for any visible cracks.

Did you spill any coolant down the Y-Pipe when you had it apart? That stuff will sit in the cat and pipes and will take a good while to burn off.

Why were you changing the head gaskets in the first place?

When you installed the new gaskets, you had the heads and the deck on the block perfectly clean? Did you follow proper torque sequence and spec?

Really all you can do now is have the heads checked for cracks, make sure your surfaces are flat, with no scratches or gouges, and reinstall the heads.

If the problem is still there, do a leakdown test and that will at least give you a starting point as to which hole to chase.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Online170,I bought the engine from a friend who wanted to perform an LT1 swap but was scared to tackle the wiring. The only work I had done is to the intake, which was ported but this was way before I installed the engine.

onebinky,[QUOTE][Did you spill any coolant down the Y-Pipe when you had it apart? That stuff will sit in the cat and pipes and will take a good while to burn off.

Why were you changing the head gaskets in the first place?

When you installed the new gaskets, you had the heads and the deck on the block perfectly clean? Did you follow proper torque sequence and spec?
/QUOTE]

Yeah I did spill some coolant down the Y-pipe the first time I changed the gaskets.

The reason I changed them is because of coolant in the oil which usually points to a bad head gasket. When I installed the new gaskets the heads and deck on the block were clean but not perfect. I followed the torque sequence but I didn't have a torque wrench to make sure I had the proper spec.

How does the coolant get misrouted? Is there anything I can clean the block and heads with to make sure they are perfectly clean?

Thanks,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

That is probably what happened, improper torque of the head bolts can cause them to leak like they were. Also did you swap the head bolts out? Some of the LT1's (don't remember what year it started) had torque to yield bolts (stretch head bolts) and when I rebuilt my motor, I spent the money to get the bolts just to make sure. I usually use a good degreaser and scraper on the block and heads to make sure they are clean and smooth. Biggest thing is, make sure they give you the correct head gaskets, standard 350 head gaskets will work, but can cause major problems.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Yeah I did get new head bolts. I will buy a torque wrench this time. Hopefully monday everything checks out with the heads.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

If every checks out find with the heads tomorrow, could you guys give me some suggestions on head and intake gaskets? Part # will help alot.

Thanks,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Jay,
If you still have the heads off, see if your block has 10125327 cast on it. Just behind the passenger cylinder head surface, along the bellhousing mounting flange. There should also be a "327" cast into the front of the block, driver's side of the timing cover, and below water pump. It's also cast into the sides upside down. 10168588 & 4.3 is the 265 block.

Head gasket Fel-pro 9966PT CORTECO 20796

Intake CORTECO 23683

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

Rob,

I'm a 100% certain that my block has 327 on it. Not to sure about the other casting # but I will check tomorrow. Furthermore, I do have those felpro gaskets.

Thanks,
Jay

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

The 327 is good enough, you don't have to bother looking for the other casting number. Sorry to waste your time.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

You can also tell by the big 5.7L stamped on the back of the block where the distributor would normally go.

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

I'm curious what the end results were. Where was the coolant coming from?

Re: White Smoke... Why?
 

To look on the bright side. Blown headgaskets or water in the combustion chamber really cleans the heck out of your engine. Always makes it friggan sparkling.