habib_88

I noticed you said it happend when you went down into 3rd real hard. For me in my car a shift like that allows me to do the famous puff the magic dragoon out the tail pipe trick. Also when I watched video of me drag racing, as my car progressed though the RPM's you could see the smoke out the back gradually build a little more and more till i shifted, then it would stop till it neared the redline in the next gear. Everyone told me it was just the engine goin rich, if fact if the sunroof was open you'd get a slight smell of the gas sometimes.

But again just in case, go over your cooling system, compresion check the motor, etc. Whatever it takes, its all easy enough to do and at least you'll KNOW for sure. I did mine to check it just for saftey (it has 166k or so) but it did pretty good.

Infinity_Racer

oh ok thanks...i'll go look for one tomorrow...what is an ideal compression? and how do you know if it IS, in fact, the head gasket that is causing the problem? a blown head gasket would cause smoke ALL the time even when accelerating, correct? Because mine only sometimes smokes when at idle and when my idle drops below 500 when i turn the car off, and come turn it on again...it has like a lumpy idle and sounds like its spitting back...any ideas? TIA

p.s. sorry to the original poster of the thread for all my questions

virginia_dude

Well a leaking head gasket MAY not leak except under high stress conditions, IE high rpm running, it will fail sooner or later. A leaking or blown head gasket will show with low compression reading on that cylinder. A blown gasket will without a doubt register low compresssion. and be comsuming quite a bit of coolant.

crazed_crx

If its white smoke its most likely blown head gasket. Heres a easy way to check if your head gasket is blown.. Fill up your radiator with fluid all the way to the top. After that, theres a purge toggle near the head coming from the radiator. Purge it to get rid of the air pockets inside. Then fill up the fluid to the top again. After that just give it some gas. If you see water bubbling in the radiator or it foams u got a blown head gasket.
Also do a compression test since it never hurts to know what kinda condition your motor is.

Jason

Infinity_Racer

where exactly is the 'purge toggle'? in front of/behing/beside the head? also, what are considered good compression readings ?

crazed_crx

**** I wish I had a digital cam just about now Anyways.. Follow the big fat plastic heater hose (biggest hose) from your radiator to your head. If i remember correct there should be only 2 hose. One goes from your radiator to your water pump. And the other is from your head to your radiator. The one from your head to your radiator has the purge toggle on it. You shouldn't miss it... The toggle is right by the head near the headers.

As for your compression test, 180 psi is within factory specs. You actually just want all cylinder registering #'s close to each other. Doesn't have to be 180. If your results from all 4 cylinders are not within 10-15% of each other means something is fucked and u well need to do a leakdown test to find out the problem.