I have a problem with my 92 Camaro RS, it's a stock 305 tpi and it's been smoking for a while now. I recently did a tune up with it the basic oil change, new spark plug wires etc. My car has 72,000 miles on it and I checked the oil and it's normal. I took my car to a mechanic to have all this done. Now I hardly use my car but only for car shows and I do run it very once in a while. I'll be honest I stored my car for a while and I didn't change the oil for a year or 2. Only because I bought a 5th gen Camaro and I hardly used my 3rd gen and the oil with still new. During this time I would take it around my subdivision and let it run for 10 mins. Never did i leave the car off all this long nor did i leave it over for 2 months. I did check the oil and it was clean since I didn't put to much miles on it. The smoking of the car started when I changed the valve cover gaskets. I will upload a video on the car once it downloads into photobucket. Wife is in panic mode because we had a mustang and it started to give us a lot of problems so we sold it. Now today she just told me if it keep up giving me problems for me to sell my car.

 

Here is one video

20130825_160618.mp4


I'll upload my recent one that I took today.

 

61 views and no advise

I hope the pictures will help



Here is the oil

 

When ?
On a cold start , backing off the throttle when driving , hot idle ,
all the time ................... ?

 

Sounds like a bunch of nonsensical knee jerk reactions to me. Maybe you shoudl just sell the car if the two of you cant handle maintenance and repairs on a 20 year old car. That's part of the gig and letting cars sit will preserve the hard parts but soft parts can and will disintegrate when not being used.

Worst case scenario is blown head gasket. Pull each plug and look at them. You'll know if any of them look different than the rest. Oil has nothing to do with it.

answer vetteoz's questions first, though.

 

It starts when I turn it on cold start. And it continues when it's warming up on idle. I press the gas pedal and a cloud of smoke comes out. As you can see in the picture, my video never downloaded with photo bucket so I can't upload my recent video. I got the tune up last week and it didn't do it for 2 days 3rd day it started. And then my service engine light came on after a 10 mins drive.

 

1st of all I never said I can't handle the maintenance I was asking for help. If it was up to me I will be happy to remove the stock 305 and put and Ls1 in it. Mechanic told me it ain't buring oil and the oil pressure was fine. He changed the spark plugs and they were fine. Wouldn't a blown head gasket cause the car to over heat?

 

Im referring specifically to the whining about the mustang and the wife and so on. But that's your business. You have to understand these cars are 20+ years old. If you need to sell a car whenever you need to get your hands dirty that's fine, the vast majority of the population is like that, but if that's the case you may want to reconsider a 20 year old car...

You need to determine whether the smoke is oil, coolant, or condensation.

1. Oil smoke will indicate damaged piston rings or valve seals or valve guides.

Valve seals are best case scenario here but are generally only an issue after a car sits overnight and it's just one quick puff of smoke when the car starts and it's done. It smells like oil. It lingers but it only comes out in one big puff.

Rings or valve guides will be slightly more steady, but smaller amounts until you have a catastrophic issue. Usually the oil smoke is thin and lingers and smells strongly of oil. Bad rings generally will puff oil smoke much more severely under load and very little at idle. This doesnt sound like your problem to me.

2. Condensation. Completely normal. Goes away when the engine warms up.

3. Head gasket. Will show up on the spark plugs, so now that you've been running it a little, I'd suggest you check them. If it's a head gasket 1 or 2 of them will appear super clean while the rest are accumulating normal wear and soot. Sometimes if it's bad enough you will get coolant in the oil. Your oil looks fine. If you see coolant in the oil dont run it any more and get it checked out.

Im sure there are other causes too. Could have an injector that's stuck open and dumping gas into it, but it doesnt look like rich burning gas smoke to me.

Check engine light just means a sensor or emissions equipment is giving the ECM a reading that doesn't fit. It's not going to tell you if your engine is going to blow up. It just means the computer is getting bad information somewhere. Search for the paperclip trick. A list of codes is available via google.

Do you have anti-freeze in it? Is it possible that it has frozen over the winter? I find this unlikely as your oil is clean, but it's possible.

 

could be as simple as a intake gasket leak...thats alot of smoke. in the pic.

 

I have no intention on selling my car never said that let's please drop that thanks. It's just that my wife just likes to take the easy way out. I've had my car since 99 never have I thought about selling my car. I wouldn't be asking for help if it was up for sale. And ur right I'm not familiar with fixing cars. My mechanic did a radiator flush when I took it to him last week.

 

Thanks I'll double check that since they were replaced last month.

And yea it is a lot of smoke.

 

Why were they replaced? If it started around the same time I'd say that's your culprit, although I dont normally feel like intake gasket leaks get water into the intake ports and not into the oil. I cant really picture how that would reasonably happen but it's not impossible.

I still say if it smokes when it's up to temperature, you need to look at all the plugs. If water is getting into combustion chambers the plugs will show it. When looking at your engine from the front of the car, the driver's side is 1 3 5 7, the passenger side is 2 4 6 8. With 7 and 8 at the firewall and 1 and 2 up front. You need to keep the plugs in order to look at them and be able to say cylinders x and y or whatever are getting coolant into them. The plugs getting water will look steam cleaned. Shiny porcelain whites, while the rest shoudl look slightly discolored.

OR... alternatively, you can take it to a radiator place and hve them pressure test your coolant system. That should be pretty definitive also.

 

Thanks ill have this check on the weekend also..

 

Finally my video downloaded to photobucket this was takin on Sunday. I just saw water dripping every 5 seconds from one side of the exhaust tip.

 

Water dripping from the exhaust

 

might be a cracked head.. i had a similar problem

 

That doesnt tell you anything unless its up to operating temperature and still does it. Water drips out of a lot of mufflers when theres a lot condensation happening. You need to get it up to temperature or go get it pressure tested. Ideally you do both at the same time.

 

I'm gonna have this checked out this weekend. Thanks

Did your smoke this bad?

 

Got it I'll let it run for a while in my drive way and see it the water stops. I just thought it was weird since I hadn't seen that much before.

Thanks for ur help...

 

When the weather is cold enough you'll get this kind of smoke after a cold night.
Is your coolant recovery reservoir ok and your radiator? Loss of water in there?
As someone else stated, do the paper clip trick to get the codes from the ECM and let us know their numbers. Could be anything.

 

Not as bad but close , I was losing coolant slowly , and had a slight misfire, but car ran fine
, after pulling the plugs out I noticed one was wet , so I got a
Gasket set , then the machine shop shows me a very tiny crack next to the intake valve
New head problem solved

 

I've been losing coolant for a couple of years now that I think of it. I just thought it was normal for the weather we have here in Texas. I guess it just all gave in and fell apart now, I'm gonna have a friend of mine. Come look at it this weekend he is a member here and he worked at our local Chevy's dealer. I trust him with my car.

 

I haven't checked the radiator since I had it flushed 2 week's ago but I'll check on it.

 

i took my car to mexico and the pulled the heads replaced the cracked one had them both resurfaced and put back together and running smooth for 3000 pesos , around 240 dollars!!

 

that's not bad..

I'm scared to take my self or my car over there. Lol

 

I did check the radiator and it's full to the top.

 

To watch fluid levels you need to watch the overflow tank. For the coolant in the rad to be low you would need to have lost everything in the overflow tank first.

That said, is there any oil/gasoline in the coolant? You know what gasoline mixed with water looks like, yes?

 

now its getting a new paint job over there , and that will only set me back 400 bucks

 

Here is a picture of my radiator I just had it flushed with new fluid about a week ago. I'm not really sure what gasoline mixed with water looks like. Never mixed them before.

 

That's not bad keep me posted.

 

Usually, when your head gasket is dead, you'll be able to see bubbles coming up the radiator when the engine runs.
That's your exhaust fumes being picked up, but I've never seen it myself, so let the other guys update you here.