Hey, as the case usually is when I come to thirdgen I did somthing dumb with my car. Unfortunatly this message has a lot of variables so its a little confusing. This afternoon I changed my new engine(4k miles) from organic to Mobil one 5w30 synthetic, and changed the fuel pressure. When I turned it on it smoked like hell. I realized I forgot to plug the MAP back in so I popped it back in and it still smoked although not as badly. The smoke gets progressively thicker as the engine heats up and the engine is new so I really dont think its valve seals. Here comes another variable: I recently changed fuel injectors to 24# to accomidate the Procharger that just got delivered to my house As a result without the SC installed yet it was running way too rich, hence the FP change. I cranked the screw into the adjustable FP regulator. It seemed to raise the pressure rather than lower it. The smoke is white. Theres lots of it. TA is sad. I love TA. It cant be sad or I am. Any ideas?

 

Almost forgot one of the most important factors. FP guage reads 50. Obviously too high for NA on 24#ers The A/F guage stays in rich too long but still does dive into lean like it should. The engine is an LO5.

 

change back to dino oil and see if it stops, if not try lowering the FP to where it was before the problem started.

 

I thought switching back from synth to dino was bad.. I wont go into that too far in this thread though cause I know its been covered. I'm just concerned that I'm damaging my new engine, and hangups before I even install the supercharger are a bad thing.

 

black smoke is unburnt fuel

white smoke is burnt coolant... I think you have another issue here and I'm sorry to say it's not your fuel pressure.

If it wasn't belching white smoke after the injector swap then that is not the problem.

Oil won't make your car blow white smoke... it would blow blue.

Since you say the car is burning alot of white smoke then I'm guessing you have a head gasket problem.

Check the oil to see if it is contaminated (milky appearance)

Did you have the block and heads checked for cracks when the machine work was done?

 

Ive gotta think its something I did since it worked smoothly before, I worked for around an hour and a half doing some little odds and ends and it smoked afterwards. Speaking of coolant though, I did change my heater core control valve, but how that could get coolant into my engine is beyond my limited capacity.

 

You can't "burn" coolant. The reason it is white is because it is steam

 

The topic you chose could be grounds for libel given what you ended up saying in the text.

Oh, well, I've heard of synthetic oil being blamed for flat tires.

You also make a good case study for only making one change at a time (although few of us follow that in practice).

The only reason changing from synthetic to petroleum is a bad idea is that using petroleum oil is a bad idea.

 

Like five7 said, I've learned on these boards that it won't damage the engine by switching back. But, anyone know how that started?

 

Heh yeah, I really dont think it has anything to do with the oil, I just wrote that topic in a fit of pissedoffidness coming back inside from a smoking new engine. Is it possible that having the heater core hose blocked off for a couple days worth of driving could have built up pressure and blown a TB gasket or something causing coolant to go into the intake? I cant think of a reason pressure would build considering I had the TB coolant hose still hooked up, just not the heater core, but its a theory I suppose.

 

If you want my opinion, the problem is with the injectors and fuel pressure. Sometimes it is hard to tell the color of the smoke. Here's a little story of mine. Ok, I put a different plenum on my car, forgot to tighten the runner bolts on one side, and ended up with a major vacuum leak. The car ran like total a$$ and there was white smoke coming out the tailpipes. At least it looked white to me. But I know full well the smoke was being caused by a poor a/f ratio, caused by the vacuum leak. I fixed the leak, and the smoke went away. So before you jump to conclusions and decide that you are burning coolant, check the obvious things. ie, whatever you changed on your setup that caused it to start smoking. Just my 2¢.

 

it's quite possible that a vacuum line is sucking in moist air and blowing it out. From what you describe though it sounds like ALOT of smoke.

Is it possible that you didn't tighten down the intake bolts properly. This would cause a vacuum leak, cause the car to run like crap, and coolant would be allowed to leak into the combustion chamber.

Thanks Sitting Bull... always a smart @ss wherever I go

 

ran it again this afternoon and lowered the fuel pressure. Still the same white smoke. The exhaust was making wet pools on the concrete so I imagine it couldnt be anything other than steam. The oil is still clean and bubble free. My mind is blown, I just hope a gasket isnt. I'm going to check for leaks and grab an intake set.

 

Pressure test the coolant sytem with the tool that is made for it. Its a hand pump with a fitting on the end like a radiator cap. I think Autozone can rent you one. Pump it up and watch the pressure to see if it drops. If it does, I'd bet on a blown cyl head gasket. Has it recently run hot with a leaking heater valve? It could be very possible that with low coolant level your heads can now be warped. I'm not trying to scare you just trying to cover all the bases. Also, when coolant burns it has almost a sweet sickening smell. How does the smoke smell with it running. Does it smell sweet, or like gas? A compression test wouldn't hurt either.

 

Well a few months ago I had to drive it home with no waterpump. I never let it get over 220 on the temp guage, but water wasnt cycling. Wasnt too much of a problem since it was around 20 degrees at the time. It hasnt expressed problems in the two months since though. Another thing to note perhaps is the pools the exhaust makes on the concrete are black and dont wash off in the rain.

 

If you have alot of WHITE smoke I say it's a headgasket , hopefully it's not something worse like a cracked head or block.

 

Don't mention it :nono:

 

Sometimes it IS hard to tell the color of the smoke. But it's not hard to tell the odor. If you've smelled burning oil once, you'll never mistake it for black smoke from running rich...

 

Well on that note, it looks like steam and it drips like steam but it smells quite a bit more like oil. I kindof want to install the supercharger just to lean it out too see if too much fuel is creating any problems. Heh, actually that makes almost no sense, I'm just going crazy not being able to install the thing.

 

/QUOTE] Another thing to note perhaps is the pools the exhaust makes on the concrete are black and dont wash off in the rain. [/QUOTE]

sounds like the pools ,stains are the result of "steam Cleaning your engine....Carbon ,carbon, Carbon.....water getting in the motor some how

 

Thats what my instinct tells me too, but all my friends who have seen it say there's no way the engine would run as smoothly as it does with that much water in it. Is there any way that running so excessively rich for around 50 miles would kill the cat, causing it to start smoking later?

 

A burned overheated cat will smell a lot like rotten eggs if it gets good and hot. To check on the cat drive it really hard and you should smell something like rotten eggs. Then look underneath the car, the cat should be glowing red. If that is going on then it is time to ditch the cat. Or you could trying disconecting the exhaust system from the cat and seeing if the smoke goes away.

 

First...for every gallon of gas burnt, one gallon of water is created as a by product and passed thru the exhaust.. In the summer, cant see it, winter all the time. Now for your problem...

1) OIL - blue/white smoke, smells of oil.

2) WATER - white smoke, not much smell except fuel.

3) GAS - Black smoke, rich, smells of gas and will bring tears to your eyes.

Since this happened over an oil change, its possible that your oil rings arent containing the synthetic. Rare, but it happens especially if the rings havent seated, and at 4K miles thats possible. Check your radiator for bubbles, pressure check if you can, and for grins, do a compression check, all cylinders should be within 10 pounds. Start with the simple stuff and do one change at a time. good luck, Bob

 

Ive had similar problems in my 76 using 10-30w M1 but only @ 5k+. I beleive its the oil because when I swiched back to Dino juice with the same weight the problem went away.



SSC

 

Well we looked at it in broad daylight and at certain angles it had a bluish tint. So I guess I'll switch back to dino juice just to be sure before I rip my engine apart to fix it.

 

hey
Just my two cents on switching syn. to conv. and back.
Ive done it without any problems, ive also mixed it 1 to 4 and 50/50 and at one point i was stuck so it was 4-5.
And it was not your over the counter synthetic lets just say it was about $30-35 per quart, it was a frequent present from a former employer unfortunatly they switched oils and you cant run the later atleast I dont think you can and im not going to try atleast not on my car
anyways

 

Well after changing back to organic, its obviously blue and definatly oil. It smokes. A lot. very blue very smelly. So my question is this: What other than blown rings would cause oil smoke such as this?

 

need that compression check now.....wet and dry.....could be the heads, or the bottom end no way to tell without the test...

 

Didn't you say this was a new engine?

What about the heads??

-- Joe

 

Yeah compression check is my next step, prolly this weekend. And yes it is a new engine. Got it from Scoggin Dickey in the fall. Its had somewhere between 2 and 4 thousand relatively trouble free miles put on it since then(other than emissions heh).

 

Hrmm.. How long did you run it with 50lbs of pressure for?? Hope you didn't score the cyls..

-- Joe

 

Injectors have been running at ~40-50 ever since I got the car. I ran the old 305s 19#ers until a couple weeks ago when I installed the Accel 24#ers for the supercharger install. It was running way rich smelled like gas and everything, but I expected that, didnt put many miles on it, just wanted to verify that the injectors were working properly and there werent any gremlins. Then blamo! starts burning oil hardcore. How would raised fuel pressure score my cyls??

 

Because it washes the oil off the walls immediately, and the rings scratch the crap outta the cyls.. Then what happens is, you get blowby.

I'm not saying thats what happened however, its hard to troubleshoot this over the Internet..

Running too rich is bad. Running too lean is bad too.

-- Joe