Weird start up, need help.

[whip383]

Drove it pretty fast on sat. night. parked it in the garage. then on sunday when i started it up, it sounded pretty weird. all kinds of smoke coming out fo the passenger side pipe and tons of white smoke. after a few minutes, everything was fine. what do u think?

thanks,
chan

 

[SNKEBIT]

sounds like a head gasket took a crap, small leak into the cylinder overnight and when you started it in the morning
it burned off the anti-freeze producing white smoke. Bummer!!
Time for some mods!!!!!!

 

[whip383]

so is it a slow leaking problem? drove it yesterday, no problems. ill drive it again today to see what happens.

chan

 

[ViperJoe]

What year???? Mileage???

 

[Steve-Indy]

As noted, could be head gasket. An easy thing to check that can cause a small amount of transient white smoke (if using Mobil 1) is to open your air boxes and see (HOPE to see) oil that was "puked" into airbox that then entered throttle bodies...not uncommon after "spirited" driving, especially with hard braking...probably wishful thinking of my part to consider this, but, what the heck, it's Thanksgiving !!!

 

[joe117]

Some shops use an emissions probe to check for exhaust gasses in the coolant.

 

[J DAWG]

Some shops use an emissions probe to check for exhaust gasses in the coolant.

so you are saying someone can stick a probe in a liquid and check for gas??? We don't have emissions testing so I am not familiar with it.

 

[Wild Bill]

Standard mechanic tool to test for blown head gaskets, not a emission test. One of several ways to check for a blown headgasket,if you have every seen bubbling from a coolant resevoir they are exhaust gasses being blown back through the system. The sniffer detects these gasses

Bill

 

[joe117]

What they do is, open the coolant pressure cap and hold the probe over the opening while the engine is running.
Any exhaust gasses detected must have come from a failure in the gaskets or a cracked head/block.

 

[racetech]

As noted, could be head gasket. An easy thing to check that can cause a small amount of transient white smoke (if using Mobil 1) is to open your air boxes and see (HOPE to see) oil that was "puked" into airbox that then entered throttle bodies...not uncommon after "spirited" driving, especially with hard braking...probably wishful thinking of my part to consider this, but, what the heck, it's Thanksgiving !!!

I have exactly the same symptoms after um...er..."spirited" driving (not on the roads). I just checked and the air box is perfectly dry. Actually, I figure this on balance a good thing--means the ring seal is great. If it were huffing death smoke and pushing blowby into the box, the repair would be a lot higher. I'm doing a few more tests myself (like looking for a spark plug that's "too" clean), but mine is looking more & more like a head gasket or leaking head problem. This isn't something to let go for too long, or you could steam clean the cylinder walls and wind up scuffing them. I'll keep you posted.

Bob

 

[whip383]

it's on '01 gts with about 17k miles. Never done it since. Maybe ill try a good spirited run tomm. I called the service tech, but still no reply. ill keep u all posted.

thanks,
chan

 

[Jim Wilson]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. The same thing happened to me. I came home and stopped abruptly at my house, then shut it off. The next day when I started it, huge amounts of smoke came out of the passenger side exhaust and some condensation as well. I thought for sure it was the head gasket, but after monitoring the coolant level and checking the dipstick for signs of water over the next few days, I realized that everything was OK. Just sucked oil into the intake, no big deal. It happens whenever you brake really hard.

 

[whip383]

I did brake pretty hard. all fluids appear to be fine. ill keep an eye on things. but that's what i was looking for, hoping that someone else had this happen to them and it was ok.

thanks,
chan

 

[Steve-Indy]

I'm hoping all is well...but for a little extra peace of mind, you might send an oil sample to Blackstone Labs in Fort Wayne, Ind...ask to run usual analysis, and look closely for evidence of coolant in sample. They do the oil analysis for several of us in central Indiana (Vipers, 996TT).

 

[whip383]

Steve, i will look into that.

thanks,
chan