alswizzo

B18C ITR Spec
started blowing white smoke after hard pulls then randomly stop smoking. Would drive fine randomly and then start the white smoke after hard pulls or hard turning.

Over time the white smoke got worst, now i could be cruising and stop at the light= white smoke/sweet coolant smell. I suspect head gasket failure! Check oil cap and oil= no milk! wtf... check coolant but no coolant loss.

after a while i had enough and pulled the head for inspection, head looked good no scoring all valves visually looked good etc. Headgasket had a little milk on cylinder 4.

Installed new headgasket and put my head back on, timing right on, even new intake manifold gasket since i suspected it was leaking through the water port.

a little better but still did white smoke!!

Did a compression test and readings were an average of 150 all across, I'm stumped and need some help, what could it be?? white smoke/ coolant smell? sometimes it smells like oil also. Like it alternates, please help guys!

hybridmiklo

did you resurface the head? did you check the deck ?

alswizzo

I did not resurface the head since it looked so good and I just wanted to see if it was headgasket.

fcm

White smoke/sweet smell is burning coolant, it does not take a lot of coolant to make a lot of "smoke".

As mentioned, you should have at least have a machine shop check the head, the deck, [block] is much less likely then the head to warp. 94

alswizzo

Thanks for the pointers guys. It looks like the next step is to pull the head back off and have a machine shop check it. I dont mind if its the head, im just hoping its not my block. All pistons looked good with no marks and cylinder walls looked good.

alswizzo

Somebody said to me they think my block is cracked somewhere, they don't believe the head will cause it to smoke white. Got me scratching my head now, what do you think?

fcm

It is possible you have a cracked sleeve, coolant has to enter the combustion chamber to burn, [to get white smoke].

You also said your compression was, "an average of 150 all across" that is really low, on a B18C5 the min. is 140psi standard is 270psi, I would recheck the compression and do a leak-down test. 94

alswizzo

Thanks, i inspected the piston cylinders one by one and did not see any cracks, walls were smooth. I don't think this is something you would miss if you carefully look at it. I rotated crank to as much as i can see with the piston all they way down.

Whatever the problem is it's hidden and its become very frustrating as i cannot fix my problem without knowing the source.

I do not have access to a leakdown tester because i have no compressor.

twints4

cracked sleeve is my guess also

alswizzo

I started up the car this morning to keep the battery going since i don't drive it and i noticed alot of oil around the exhaust manifold gasket on all 4 cylinders. Can see little spots like bubbling almost around the top of cylinder 2.

Clean Creations

My gsr was doing the same thing on a fresh build, turns out the guy that built it put the scraper ring upside down on cylinder 4, i had white smoke too but it was oil. is this a fresh built motor?

alswizzo

no this is not a fresh built motor.

BTW i found the problem guys! The problem was my master cylinder was leaking all the fluid into the booster. The liquid from the booster then proceeded to my intake manifold through vacuum line where it was cooking it up which equaled white smoke and it even smelled sweet.

YuckyCorpse

glad you fixed it. i didnt even know that was possible

fcm

Brake fluid and white "smoke", well it is not oil so maybe, not sure if I have ever seen that, now I am going to have to try that, [pour some brake fluid in a vac. line and see what color the smoke is.

Glad you found the problem and that is was minor, comparatively. 94