On the built motor, when I let her warm up, it will send some smoke out the tail pipe, not thick white, but still looks like steam. It will go away once the engine gets to normal temp. Is this typical on a boosted/low compression engine and large exhaust?

 

no smoke is normal unless WOT and its rich..

 

During warm-up only. After normal water temp is reached, the smoke slowly dissipates.

I know that it is not normal, I want to know if this is something that I should be worried about, or leaking valve seals is something that I should fix immediately.

 

Could be condensation... moisture build up in the exhaust. I see this alot.

 

Condensation in the middle of the day? This even happens at 5 in the afternoon. There is definately water in the tailpipe, I can see it begin to pool at the exhaust. I just don't know where it is coming from... It only happens when the motor starts from a cold state. Is there any other way for water to get in the exhaust besides the head gasket?

 

i got a similar problem. when im idling or sitting at a redlight my exhaust throws white smoke. my friend thinks its my rings going out or the turbo, which i doubt. is this the same problem as listed?? or do you know what it could be??? thanks

 

i had similar problem in car ..i was running rich.. i got it tuned and went away

 

this car has been tuned. It is a greyish white smoke, not black. I believe that I know the culprit. I am still running on 5w30 oil. I am going to put in a thicker oil and I'll update you.

 

Could it really be because of the oil?

 

I bet its coolant...do a compression test and see how the headgasket is looking....

 

I agree, get a compression and leakdown test done and see if everything is in spec.

How many miles on the motor. i have this problem on newly build motors until 500 or so miles are put on them.

-platinum.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Scheizty &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">On the built motor, when I let her warm up, it will send some smoke out the tail pipe, not thick white, but still looks like steam. It will go away once the engine gets to normal temp. Is this typical on a boosted/low compression engine and large exhaust?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sounds like condensation to me. *shrug*

Headgaskets don't just "seal" themselves when the car warms up, sorry.

 

i get this on the first startup after raining and sometimes due to humidity levels...it's condensation for me. prob the same for you.

 

im gonna try unbolting the turbo for my problem and plugging the lines and checking if it really is the turbo.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SovXietday &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Sounds like condensation to me. *shrug*

Headgaskets don't just "seal" themselves when the car warms up, sorry.</TD></TR></TABLE>

True, however some headgaskets tend to seal boost but not coolant....Or in another word, when the motor is hot and running you will not see the coolant leaking into the cylinders and running. However, if you park the car for a bit, the pressure in the coolant system from either air getting in there from the cylinders (due to HG failure) or just the temperature of the coolant having so much pressure, coolant will leak into the cylinders slowly. Then when you start it back up, there is an initial puff of white smoke from the coolant burning off for a few seconds.

Again my bet is that you need to swap the headgasket. I reccommend you spray it with some copper gasket spray as well. And torque the head down...let it sit for like 30 mins, and then loosen the bolts (nuts if you have head studs) and re-torque back down. You loosen and re-torque because new headgaskets will depress and cause the torque setting to change.

 

One word condensation. Its normal and all cars do it.

If it was rich it would be more black and all the time depending on the tune. If it was oil it would be a blue smoke. If it was coolant or fuel you would have some sort of smell as well.

 

However many times the "blue" smoke from oil people don't have a good eye for it and just think its white....

 

update: droped in some 10w-30 synthetic. Problem solved. Out.

 

I had the same problem, my rings were bad, I was hard headed put thicker oil, smoke went away temporaly, then melted piston 3 cracked all ringland in others.

 

my car has always done that...just condensation for me. If it just looks like very thin white smoke "steam" looking i would consider that condensation. I've been boosted for about 6k miles since April and it's always done this and been consistent. Yours is prolly just water as well. If all your fluid levels don't change and your never pushing smoke while driving/boosting i would not worry about it.