check below for info my car......

ok lastweek i changed out the manifold gaskets and the tbi gaskets because of minor leaks.

and now my car blows extreme amounts of white and grey smoke when i push down on the gas but when im sitting at a light or just sitting in park no smoke.


when fixing the problems i noticed that some of the vaccum hoses were disconnected and plugged up and one of those disconnected was the hose to the egr valve and i had to mess with it to get it to work again

any ideas

 

White smoke means burning coolant, which is not a good thing. Very possible since you just changed the intake gaskets. What did you torque it down to? Any sealant arournd the coolant passages?

 

umm...i dont know what my friend did with torque it down ....he rebuilds engines and modifies the engines himself and i just watched...torgued it down by eye i would guess...he used the air wrench and then did it with the ratchet after until it was tight it was really tight.....he said "he knew what he was doing"

but he used gasket sealent in all the right places...even i know where to put the sealent stuff

 

Have you looked at the oil to see if coolant is in there as well?

 

only place you need to put sealant on the manifold gasket is the china wall...nowhere else. sounds like something when wrong and you have coolant making its way into the combution chamber.

 

I like to run a very light coat of sealant around the water passages. It helps keep the gasket seated to the heads when installing intake. I have done several with no leaks.

 

well i know... adding the sealent, we put around the water passages....he said it helps keep the water in the right places...also thinking about it everyone ive known and even when i did my chevelle it around the chambers....


is there way to find out where the leak is so i dont have to tear the engine up looking for the leak???

 

Well you could probaby find out which cylinder(s) its leaking into by pulling all your plugs and looking for any that are a lot cleaner then the others. Coolant will break up carbon extrememly fast. You also don't want to torque the manifold down too much either, they only need about 30-35ft/lbs. So I don't know what "really tight" means to you and your friend. Plus, I don't know if he step torqued them but it is a very good idea.

 

could it be leaking from somewhere else, such as a head gasket or something......

im gonna try and take a look at it this weekend...and find some leaks

 

It very well could be the head gaskets. That's actually the first thing that came to mind when I read the original post. Did this problem start happening right after the intake was done?
I know of a nice 350 for sale....

 

That stinks. At least it wasn't like my car. I thought it was a blown head gasket, but when I opened it up I found a cracked block....

 

today i went to my friends and we took a look at the car...
1. he told me the car was torqued down correctly
2. there is no coolent and not enough vapor to have a coolent leak

2 possible reason why your blowing smoke
1. he said im burning off coolant that got into the engine when manifold was taken...but he said there was very little was spilt and i had my oil changed wednesday.
2. or i could have what he calls "oil blow by" possible valve sticking or im using to then of oil and getting into the firing chambers.

all this started after i had the oil change.


some other things i found...when we removed intake we found about 2 and a 1/2 inches of sluge in that part of the engine and we scouped as much out as posible without hurting the engine.

 

eeewwww. Sludge = BAD.

 

coolant = white smoke... synthetic oil or semi synthetic oil = white smoke.... just to let you know

 

I used synthetic oil when my o-rings were going and it made blue smoke as well just for info... oil is oil, be it synthetic or not, it still is a hydrocarbon, albeit a better refined set of crude oil, but oil nonetheless...

White smoke and lots of it is coolant, black smoke is a rich condition, blue smoke/black is oil usually.

when o-rings go, its smoke on hard acceleration, if its smoke on startup, its valve seals.

 

Ok I agree with all that but he did say whitish gray smoke, coolant would be compleatly white... and the oil comeing from the rings (when he takes off from the light) after the car is running the aperance looks whitish grey, which if he is useing synthetic oil it can have the whitish gray smoke affect as he discribed... either way I would say you need a ring job.

 

With that amount of sludge, the engine must not have received the best of car somewhere in its life. Which could lean the indication to the worn rings. What weight oil did you put in that engine during oil change?

 

ewww if there was a lot of sludge in the intake, odds are it wasn't taken care of and that the o-rings may be on their way out. Using a synthetic/light weight oil usually leads to oil blowby, try running regular oil and see if it still goes, bump it up to 10w30 and check if it goes.

Since changing o-rings, I always put extra care into my engine, I run an engine flush prior to the change and always use synthetic.

To show how much of a difference there is b/w brands:

if I run quaker state/castrol synthetic I don't have oil blow by on start up in the morning.

if I run amsoil synthetic I get oil blowby on morning start up... (stock heads, really old and worn valve seals) amsoil is such a refined oil that it litterally can seep through the smallest cracks on the valve seals.

weird huh?

Makes you wonder just how well refined the other brands are compared to amsoil...

 

theres 10w30 in there now ....i usually use highmileage stuff...due to the mount of mileages. maybe i need a heavier wait oil.

oil changes done every 2500 - 3000 or every 2 1/2 months

(all this was started at 120,000 miles when i got the car)

 

Try an additive for the rings (not the honey stuff)... whatever you do don't put in the thick molasses crap.

See if that helps.

 

Yeah increase the wait of the oil on the next change and monitor your coolant level just to be safe. The RESTORE or whatever may at least help find the problem while you start saving for new 350 or at least a $700-$800 low mileage used Vortec 350. Check and make sure your pcv valve rattles like it should.

 

well i added that engine restore stuff in the sliver can....since ive used that stuff in the past.

it looks as if its getting better....there is very little, if any, smoke now...but ill now when drive out to junkyards tomorrow.