JHew84

iTrader: (9)

I searched and I have a good idea what it might be (which saddens me) but thought i'd get some more opinions before I go any further.

A few of the guru's might remember the problems I was having last year, flooded, slow coolant drip until warm, then trying to overheat. If I burped the cooling system and refilled it the car would drive fine until I shut it off, then upon restarting it would do the whole thing over again (progressivly worse if the car had time to cool down completely).

Well I dug in over the winter, replaced the rubber feed and return lines to the turbos, and finally got around to getting it unflooded. I filled and burped the system (as it was low already from doing the hoses) and it went up to normal operating temp (85-89 C). Drove it around and everything was fine (after the hellacious amounts of smoke cleared, obviously ). I figured the true test would come when I went to drive it again, so later that night I started it back up, slowly came up to temp, hovered ~85C, took my roomate for some fun runs, ran up and filled the tank. The low coolant buzzer came on so I watched the temp very closely and as soon as it got warm the buzzer went away. Upon restarting the car at the gas station it was kind of hard to start, stumbled and I had to feather the gas until the rpm's came up, then it ran fine, came up to normal operating temp, and drove fine. Now both times as the car was warming up I could hear a boiling/sloshing (something like that) water noise (which worried me) so I kept looking at the PFC, looking under the car, checking the engine bay, no drips, no leaks everything was fine, once I drove the car around the noises went away and only really seemed to show in the first place when I started moving. I topped off the coolant when I got home from that drive. Also when the car hits ~80C the idle drops down to 1000K rpms (what it's set at, so that is normal) but surges between 1000-1100 until the temp comes up a few more degrees, then it evens out.

Now the current problems, the car is still a little hard to start, but only stumbles for ~1 second then evens out, the rpms go up to 2K (cold start i'm assuming) and it still smokes, not like a civ after de-flooding but it is still more than what I consider condensation. The smoke is white-ish but it doesn't appear white like any car i've ever seen burning coolant, and it does NOT smell sweet in the least, smells like exhaust. The smoke goes away as soon as the car is warmed up.

I drove the car today and it did the same thing, started fine with a slight stumble, high idle for warmup, smoke, but no low coolant buzzer (It was just below the sensor in the filler neck, filling it took care of that), burbling/sloshing water, etc. Only today when I got home and parked it dumped a frisbee sized puddle of coolant in the driveway, and had drips following it into the garage. It hadn't lost any coolant at any of the other places I stopped, only when I got home. I checked underneath the car and it's puddling right under the overflow tank (so i'm praying it is just a cracked overflow bottle, PLEASE!!!!).


Now my question is the smoke doesn't appear to be from coolant, doesn't smell like it or look like, my roomate agrees (very mechanically inclined, works on many cars) that it isn't coolant but doesn't know what it is either, what could it be? coolant that just isn't acting the same as coolant normally does while buring? to much fuel? I'm hoping the leak is just a busted overflow and not one more sympton of coolant seals going bad . I've searched for white smoke that does not smell sweet but I can't find anything, just keep coming up with coolant seal posts but the descriptions are very specific to having a sweet smell to the white smoke and if it doesn't smell sweet it's not burning coolant. Also one thread I found mentioned this time of year (30-60 degree weather) these cars just do this? smoke for 5-10 minutes? here is the link to that thread. If that is the case why did it dump coolant today? hopefully just a busted overflow bottle but somehow I have a feeling that isn't it ...

Thanks for reading my book, and any help is apprecaited...

- James

PS, full exhaust, DP-MP-greddy cat-back, PFC, XSpower IC, intake kit, non-sequential, thsoe are the only mods.

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

nobody? damn...

I'd be ready to chalk it up as a seal if it even remotely had a sweet smell to it. I'd take some video but you all know what it looks like, if you think it would help I can do that though.

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Well, when you have a compromised coolant o-ring it'll push coolant into the overflow bottle, and eventually the overflow bottle will, well, overflow, and you'll get coolant puddles under the front pass side of the car. next time you fire the car up cold, have the filler neck cap off and look for tiny champagne bubbles (exhaust gases in your coolant).

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

Will do, would the step after that be taking it into a shop for a more definitive measurement? I kept meaning to ask if a joe-blow shop would be able to test for something like that or if it's something I'll probably end up at the dealer for.

Thanks Rich

- James

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

If the car is pushing coolant, smoking out the exhaust, and has bubbles in the filler neck, you really don't need a more definitive measurement----the motor needs to come out and be rebuilt. Do *not* take the car to a dealership......I know NJ isn't around the corner from you, but you are welcome to send Ihor and I your car, and I can guarantee you it'll be rebuilt properly . Has the car ever been overheated? Was the coolant changed regularly? How many miles on the motor?

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

Honestly this is around the tenth time I've ever driven the car since I got it. I had the problems with it last summer and over the winter had been collecting stuff for it, and now i'm back to trouble shooting. So I don't know if it had been overheated beforehand or not but while i've owned it it *tried* overheating a few times (sucking air into the system) but I never let it get above 92C before shutting it down and letting it cool off. The coolant is newer since I drained most all of it when I did the turbo hoses. ~60K miles on the car, i'm assuming the motor is original.

little history, the guy I bought it from daily drove it down in TN, and drove it from TN all the way to MI. When it got here we flooded it, when I got it unflooded a few days later it was dripping coolant, sucking air into the system, and trying to overheat (turbo hose went bad from the long trip i'm assuming). Now i'm here .

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

I would have a combustion gas test done on the coolant. Usually there is exhaust gas in the coolant when the seals go bad.

Dave

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

^^^ that's what I was asking about, is this something most shops can do? or something I need to call around for before I head anywhere? I was busy all day today and tonite, i'll try to make time tomorow to go check on the 'champagne' bubbles, if I see some i'll probably take it to get the test done on the coolant just so i'm 100% certain...

I certaily would never take my car to the dealership to be serviced, but I have no problems taking advantage of the expensive tools they have that I don't .

Also what do you guys make of the smoke? non-related? maybe the car is running really rich so it masks the smell of coolant? I probably would have already chalked it up to bad o-rings if it wasn't for this...

thanks,

- James

finnicky7

Where in MI are you?

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

In the lansing area, local opinions/help would be great .

finnicky7

Pm with your #

I live like 30 mins away. I'd say you still have air in the system.

JHew84

iTrader: (9)

Well the good news is I get a new motor, the bad news is I definitly have a blown coolant seal. I guess I waited to long to sniff the exhaust because once it starts warming up it really masks the sweet smell. The moral of the story? sniff your exhaust on a cold start!!! when I did that it was quite obviously very sweet.

Well Thanks everyone for your input, just thought i'd toss this up in case anyone finds it in a search... Thanks especially to tim (finnicky7) for coming out and lending a hand, much appreciated!

- James