I have 211K miles on my 2001 accord. old motor has bad piston rings and valves so decided to buy an engine from the local junkyard, 129k miles and an '02 with 30 day warranty. Just completed the swap last night.

First start up isn't great so far. Forgot to tighten the fuel line so fuel spewed out and white smoke from the tailpipe, also heard a weird noise. Turned off engine, tightened fuel line and noticed cylinder 1 spark plug wire popped out. Second start up after fixing wire and fuel line, still smokey as hell from the tailpipe. Let it run for about 2-3 mins while examining engine compartment, notice air noise, probably a vacuum line i missed to plug in. Turned off engine and noticed cyl 3's plug wire popped out too, wtf?

Should I be worried about the white smoke? Could it be a bad head gasket? What about the plug wire popping out?

 

I don't know if you've done this yet but I would check the dipstick and coolant first, white smoke in my knowledge is always coolant.

Does it stop after its warmed up?


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i'll be running it longer tonight and see if it does. crossing my fingers it'll be okay. it'll be a female dog to pull the motor out to exchange for another.

 

ok everything is good now. let the car run longer this time, cleared out all of the smoke, guess there was a lot of gunk in the new used engine.

 

what did you install it into?

 

Yeah, I wouldn't be too worried about white smoke from an engine that hasn't run for a while. My CRX smoked white like crazy for a while after I brought it out of storage.

 

same car, old engine was bad.

 

the white smoke is oil
the engine was burning whatever oil got into so its nothing to really worry about

 

White smoke is not oil. Blue/Grey is oil. However I agree with the burning comment. I would say that there was probably coolant spilled into your exhaust or the cylinders of the new/used motor that had to be burnt out.

Check your spark plugs. If they are wet or glazed with burnt coolant it would be in your best interest to replace them.

Was there ever a compression test done on this motor before you installed it? If not I would suggest that you do one... also a pressure test on the coolant system wouldn't hurt. just in case there is a small coolant leak.