I normally get very min. white smoke from my exhaust, but on my way to smog my car today, I seems to notice a lot of white smoke suddenly. Driving and idling seems fine, and oil pressure is okay as well. I looked at the engine compartment, and can see nothing wrong. So I checked in the archive, and most ppl suggest that it is either a blown head gasket or that the seal on the turbine is bad. Now, I just had my engine rebuilt, and the turbo rebuilt too; How can I determine which is the one? I know I can check my sparks plugs and do a compression test at the same time, but will a wet spark plug be concrete proof enough that it is the head gasket that blew?

Assuming that it is the head gasket that blew, how much work am I looking at? is it as simple as replacing the gasket when I take off the head, or would more work be needed?

thanx guys....

p.s. I just can't believe my luck; Just fixed the exhaust leak, and a few days later, I get this....

 

How continuous is white smoke? My 3000 GT VR4 used to puff white smoke the first time the turbo spooled, which I attributed to condensation. Have you smelled the exhaust for coolant? If you can smell coolant, then it's not condensation.

 

Actually, the coolant smell is pretty strong if you stand behind the exhaust, and the soot on the exhaust was actually wet, so yeah, I think I am burning coolant.

 

just want to update you guys. I finally found the problem to it. I have been leaking oil big time, and the dp/exhaust are all coated with oil. When the car heats up, it kinds of heats the oil enough to emit white smoke, but not enough to burn it to emit blue smoke. thats why my car is smoking white.

thanx to everyone for their advice.

 

You just had the turbo rebuilt? So where is the oil coming from?

 

The turbo was rebuilted recently, but the reason for the oil leak was that, the oil return line from the turbo was not lined up with the oil return line to the oil pan. thus, the rubber hose was unable to feed the oil back to the oil pan. this was what caused the leak. I cut off more of the oil return line from the oil pan, and used a longer hose to make sure that they flow back properly. sigh.... big oversight on my part due to clocking error on the housing.