awdordie

iTrader: (1)

ok, so first off im not a complete moron but im kinda stumped with my situation. now i know some possible causes of white smoke are mainly coolant related and causes could be a blown turbo thats leaking coolant, blown head gasket, and a cracked block/cracked sleeve.

my situation that is leaving me stumped is as follows; the other day i went about 3/4 throttle for a liitle fun since i havent really gotten on my car in a while. i was at about 3k rpm and ran it up to about 5500 in third gear and looked behind me and seen a cloud of smoke. i only hit about 17 psi.

on the way home i thought maybe i was seeing things and rolled my window down and decided to try again to confirm what i seen. i went wot this time in second at about 2500 rpm and ran it through second, third, and to around 4k rpm in 4th. what i noticed was a puff of white smoke as soon as i went wot, and then it stopped. it didnt smoke much if any that i seen through 3rd or 4th.

i checked my coolant and resovoir and the coolant has no traces of oil and i just changed the oil and it had no traces of water. the overflow tank was definately low, and i know this because last week i installed a new koyo radiator and filled it past the full line. i thought i bled the system pretty good but i do not know. i started the car with the heat on full and let it idle for a good 15 minutes and topped it off each time the thermo opened until the level stopped dropping.

my question is what else could cause this? it just started after replacing my radiator and it has never done it before. im planning on doing a compression test saturday and im hoping its not a head gasket failure, but i dont think it is since its only a cloud of smoke when i initially go wot and not much after.

im on the last straw with mitsubishis, it seems both that i have owned, once i have a small problem after i fix it they seem to go down hill and develop more and more problems. im hoping its nothing major, and the overflow being low was just from me replacing the radiator, but the compression test will tell me i hope. any other things i should check? is a leakdown test necessary at this point since all it really does is check for bent valves and bad rings?

sorry for such a long post im just trying to give as much info as possible so you guys can help.

awdordie

iTrader: (1)

also forgot to add that when i change my oil, i always check the level before draining it and i noticed that the oil level was a little high. its hard to tell from looking in the side mirror from a thousand feet away exactly what color smoke it is so it could have possibly been blue tinted which is usually oil. could a higher oil level cause this? im kind of thinking maybe the oil return maybe was backing up with the higher oil level and it was just burning off unitl the torque of the car pushed the oil back away from the return line?

just throwing out ideas here that have came to mind before i do a compression test. and also will a compression test definately confirm/deny a head gasket failure? what i mean by that is if my compression is good, does that mean that my head gasket is still ok or could it still possibly be leaking coolant? i doubt that im experiencing head lift since i have arp head studs, and im also going to take the rad cap off and watch for bubbles before doing the compression test.

thanks again in advance for any replies

The-Evo

iTrader: (20)

How many miles do you have on the car? What boost levels are you running? Stock turbo? Do a compression test and go from there. It could be head gasket or blown turbo. But from what i've seen, blown turbos usually throw a black smoke. Having said that, I could only suspect a bad head gasket. If it is, then stop driving the car and change it immediately.

evoredy

iTrader: (7)

I feel your pain dude.

The "what does my smoke color mean" threads are useless beyond belief when it comes to turbo mitus also.

People have different perceptions of smoke color as there are grayish to black tint (mostly misunderstood as "black smoke"), white smoke, straight black sooty smoke, blue smoke (unmistakably blue), blueish tintend grayish white smoke (mistaken for white smoke), and smoke from the aftermath of say like a fireball (the sooty black smoke). We haven't even gotten to the smells either which is just as important.

Before we go crazy in to troubleshooting,

Have you checked ALL of your coolant hoses (water pipe, TB, turbo, radiator, etc) to make sure there isn't a pinhole opening up at high water pressure (it DOES happen) and maybe spraying on hot engine parts like the exhaust. Have a friend follow you. You just amped up your cooling system and if there were any issues, they would surface now from the shock of fluid and parts replacement.

Also, if your turbo was leaking coolant into the exhaust stream, the turbine housing would have catastrophic failure (major cracks) and you would have greater problems. A turbo will fail on the oil side 999/1000 times. The coolant just goes through water jackets in the casting. Check for cracks and physical leaks at the turbine and thats it.

Depending on where oil burns, it can give off a whitish smoke with a barely if not even noticable bluish tint. That's why I hate those "what does my smoke mean" threads. Or, it will be black (very dark gray).

Check your external coolant system or just replace all the hoses first before diving in. Keep us posted.

EDIT: A compression test may not let you know about a bad head gasket unless there is major damage. It may help diagnose other things like valve seating, ring seating, etc. Keep in mind though, I had melted JE pistons once and my 2.3 4g63 showed 180 across the board lol on a non-wet warmed up motor (I could see the top part of the rings!).

EDIT2: On the same note, I had a bad FP T28 on my DSM a WHILE back and it would BILLOW whitish gray smoke at idle and boost. I was in a similar boat as you as I had just dropped in a JDM 4g63 and was worried the motor was bad off the bat. Couldn't even see any bluish tint. It was definatley oil though and an FP rebuild fixed it right away (before that $450 ordeal, I torubleshot it with a t25 I had laying around and it didn't smoke at all).

awdordie

iTrader: (1)

Im not seeing it as being a line or hose leaking at more pressure since its only smoking when I first go wot. But I will double check everything. The car also still drives normal and has never attempted to overheat but I know the gasket can still be bad. I did catch a whiff of it from my vta dump, but it only smells like exhaust no sweet coolant smell or oil smell. Im doing a comp test this afternoon and I will post the results for what its worth

awdordie

iTrader: (1)

The car has just passed the 100k mile mark and it is still the factory 8 turbo with a 10.5 hotside.

So I got home today and got around to the compression check. Followed the how to on here, and I started at cylinder 4 I think? Not sure on which way the numbers go but I started on the cylinder closest to the battery and worked my way toward the timing belt. I checked all the plugs after pulling them and they look extremely good. Here were the numbers the first time I checked cylinder 4(battery side) 180. 3)185. 2)180. 1) 140.

Now I thought well there's the problem and my heart dropped. So I released the pressure and tried it again and got 179 the second test on cylinder 1 closest to the belts. I think the first time I may have not held the throttle open. I don't know but I couldn't repeat the 140psi I got the first time?

Another thing that happened before removving the spark plugs to do the test, on cylinder 3, the one that gets the short spark plug wire, the metal piece that goes down around the spark plug electrode pulled out of the boot and completely broke. I noticed the rubber and fiberglass were in very bad shape, and thought maybe this could be causing the problem if it were not firing as hot as the others or not at all sometimes? Needless to say the cars not running now due to the spark plug wire and I had to take it in the *** from the dealer. $96 for the two wires since they come as a set. Thank god it was not the coil.

PatricksEvilEvo

iTrader: (12)

White smoke out of any exhaust is normally bad rings. Burning oil

n2oiroc

iTrader: (33)

whats the weather like? below 50*? does the smoke linger in the air or disappear after a couple seconds?

awdordie

iTrader: (1)

considering my compression test i did today with results higher than the service manual states as "standard" i highly doubt its rings, and or burnig oil. if it were rings burning oil it would more than likely be smoking at idle and light throttle as well and i would be able to smell if at idle which i dont. no smoke at idle just puff when going WOT

n20iroc, the weather here has been around 50 or below a few times, and i thought maybe thats what it was and it might have been condensation, but i figured since the exhaust doesnt give off the "condensation smoke" with the weather cold and the car warmed up that that couldnt be the reason, but maybe? the smoke didnt linger for more than maybe a second or two if that.

i also forgot to mention that when doing the compression test i checked the overflow tank to see if it had dropped any since the last time i filled it and drove the car and the level actually increased so im assuming the drop in the level before may have just been a few air pockets trapped?

xRoguex

iTrader: (15)

white smoke - antifreeze - HG
Blue smoke - idle - valve stem seals
- driving - turbo
- decel - rings
black smoke - rich tune - boost leak - etc

PatricksEvilEvo

iTrader: (12)

Again, white smoke is burning oil. You will smell coolant. When rings go bad, at first it will only be at WOT, after a while you'll notice it at idle etc. And with the miles on the car, I'm willing to bet. Just have someone drive behind you. If they smell burning oil, there ya go. Since the first engines were made, white smoke is normally oil going past the rings and burning in combustion.

n2oiroc

iTrader: (33)

any burning fluid lingers for a few seconds, to me it sounds like condensation.

evoredy

iTrader: (7)

ugh. You're just trying to help and I understand. I own a DSM and an EVO (original owner) and that is totally far from the truth.

If your rings and/or pistons are bad, but say your compression checks out good (like what happens sometimes with exposed ring-lands/minorly melted/minorly cracked pistons), you will get excessive oil splatter at idle out of the tailpipe. Put a white piece of paper back there and it will be splattered on instantaneously with black wet soot (10 seconds or so/warm engine). Also, you'll have the famous black mark on the pavement where you park only it will be a LOT darker and sootier. You may not and probably won't see ANY smoke at idle or free rev. No splatter, no smoke=better sign/problem is up top or turbo.

Drifting Away

iTrader: (6)

Be for certain , take it to a shop have them diagnose the problem. The forums can only get you so far, and "everyone" is an expert at something, but it has been my experience to just take it in to be for certain and save your self the headache later. Cheers.

awdordie

iTrader: (1)

i know what your talking about the splatter. my old eclipse had that problem before i got rid of it. No need for the paper test since i literally stuck my face down at the exhaust and my hand to smell to see if it smelt like coolant or oil and got nothing.