was driving this morning and the engine wouldn't let me past approx 3500 RPM(i don't know cause i don't have a tach) in every gear, it felt like it was hitting the rev limiter. at idle it would idle extremely low and turned offf once or twice. I thought it could've been cause I was really really low on gas... i filled up and no difference.
after about 10 minutes of driving the engine started to rumble and shake really bad. I parked and restarted then thick white smoke started coming out the exhaust. I shut it down, got out the car and smelled gas.

do you guys have any idea what the problem could be?

btw. I have a B20

 

time to check compression. do you have water and oil in the right places?

 

the car's been running perfect. last time i got something done, was change the thermostat last week.

 

anyone else have an idea of what it could be?

 

ur burning water/coolant, thermostat install wrong?

 

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

i agree... white smoke means your burning coolant... Could be a couple things, first thing that comes to mind would be a blown head gasket... not the end of the world. do it yourself and it will cost 20 bucks plus about 4 hours. Other things could be a warped head (Usually about 35 dollars to mill it, then the cost of new gaskets). or the thermostat.... Am I neglecting any other options?

 

you just made me feel a lot better.

would you still say it's coolant even with the smell of fuel? cause when the smoke appeared that's all I could smell.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lowRIDAH &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you just made me feel a lot better.

would you still say it's coolant even with the smell of fuel? cause when the smoke appeared that's all I could smell. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Coolant for sure. Most likely a blown head gasket. Its gonna be alot of work to replace especially if you dont know what your doing. Oh and btw please check to make sure you installed your thermostat right before you go and run it again with a new headgasket.

 

if the thermostat wasn't installed correctly, wouldn't of this happened sooner? I've been driving the car pretty hard ever since i got the thermostat done.

 

oh btw, how much is it usually to replace a head gasket at a shop? and is it an easy enough job for any shop to do it?

thanks again guys

 

Since you said you don't have a tach, At what point does your rev limiter kick in?

If you been driving hard with no tach might have blown the head gasket.

Most Logical assumption for white smoke.

 

i dunno about shop work. like i said, I JUST warped my head, never before pulled a head and it took 2 hours using the Hanes Manual to pull my head out. new gaskets were like 20 bucks and 2 hours i had the head back on. But shops that charge by the hour you could EASILY look at 500 dollars for a headgasket.

 

well my rev limiter should kick in at 7200, but ever since this morning it's coming in at around 3000-3500 i'd say.

I just spoke to the guy at the shop and he said he doesn't see any trace of coolant in the oil???

 

no dont sniff ur exhaust, but lightly waft it, should smell/taste sweet, ahh good times first day i bought my car, haha burnin coolant, oil, replaced all gaskets, and bought a thermostat then to top it off found out i had a jdm zc head no thermostat lol

 

ur probably running in limp mode

thats the reason ur not goin past 3 grand

 

i just got a call from the shop and they said it's not the coolant and the smoke was from me hitting the rev limiter too much. and that it's running fine now.

My ECU is out of it's place and i noticed some water on it from the rain last night cause my window was open a bit. could that be why it might be running in limp mode?

 

^^^

 

maybe, like was it soaked in a puddle? coulda fried it, but notplausible, probably something u did to the motor made it go into limp mode, u thrown any cels? or codes?

 

I got the car back from he shop...it was running with no smoke but still hitting the rev limiter. he said it wasn't a coolant issue.
a couple of hours later when i got home i reset the ecu and it was working perfect again...WEIRD!

 

but the ECU shouldnt be causing smoke...

 

he said it was because I kept hitting the rev limiter...i hit maybe 20 times withing 10 min