Hi H-T'ers, I experience few problems today:

My car feels like it is losing power and after few check ups I have came up with this information,

Oil Condition - Level is good and no milkshake. Pressure is good all the way when the car runs.
Coolant - Clean Green like new, level is good as before.
Turbo - No symptoms and sign of abnormal shaft play
Spark Plug (gaped at 0.025") - Firing end is (the ceramic thing) covered in black dry soot, the shell is covered in black soot but the tip that you press to gap the plug is gray in color.

ECU - I had to disconnect the battery last week for 5 mins (dunno if this affects anything)

When the car runs,

During Idle - Cold start is great but warm/hot starts are boggy, I have to put my foot on the pedal to bring it to idle.

Exhaust - A light white steam coming out during idle that has pungent smell but not sweet. When I revved the engine, it shoots 2 metres of black soot on my driveway. Some colorless liquid is dripping by drops.

Driving - Lack in power, not as how it used to be. Fuel milage can get to 350km/55ltr tank.


Please H-T members help me. a Friend told me that it could be my head gasket but from knowing that coolant and oil conditions are great, i'm no where near convinced that it is the HG or the head itself problem. What could it be? suddenly running too rich?

 

Hook up a wideband sensor and gauge and check the air/fuel ratio. If you don't have one check with your tuner. This will help eliminate some of the guess work.

 

The only time I'll run my car w/o the wideband is when I have to use it for tuning something else. I recently got some techedge units so I could use my innovate wb w/o removing anything.

Sounds like the changing of seasons, or a slight mechanical/electrical issue, has lead to a changing in the AFR's. The best way to check the AFR's w/o a wideband is to put in new plugs, run it to the RPM & load (psi) you want to check, shut if off at that exact point, then pull the plugs. If you allow it to idle down, you're only checking how the plugs look at idle.

Google plug reading, there's plenty of how-to's. Does sound like you're idling rich, but you could even have a bad catalytic converter. Try to find a car w/o cats to see how that smells - raw exhaust has a distintive smell. Coolant in the exhaust actually has an odd sweet smell, now that I reread your post. It burns white, but I've never seen it create soot.

 

Yes you are right. Days are hotter than when I got it tuned 1.5months ago. I do loose power on hot days. My IAT is 112*F. But last night was a weird night, hot day cold night. I stalled once when I tried to start my car in the afternoon without putting my foot on the pedal. i have a feeling that my ignition is pulling too much timing somehow.

The white smoke is steaming out (not puffing) during idle that smell toxic but as soon as I revved it to 4k rpm black smoke comes out and it shoots 2 metres line of 'black crap' on my driveway.

 

check distributor cap and rotor