Ive read this:

If the engine is hard to start, stumbles and then billows out huge clouds of white smoke, there is a serious problem. Most likely this condition will also be accompanied by mysterious coolant loss and possible overheating. The reason is that the O rings around the housings have failed, thus allowing coolant to enter the combustion chamber. This is very bad, and I would avoid the car unless you want to rebuild the engine.
here: http://www.aaroncake.net/RX-7/buy1.htm

does it mean previouse overheating??
and also.. how huge and how white are the white clouds??
the rx7 that Im thinking to buy, sends out kinda bright smoke, out... but Im not sure if it is "white".. it seems like bright grey or sumthing.

(btw I used search)

 

bump

 

If she's smoking at all after a couple of minutes after startup, I would stay away from it, unless you plan on rebuilding her in the near future...

 

Here's an easy way to tell if it's oil or water. Water tends to break apart and dissipate rather quickly, it doesn't really hang in the air. Oil will kind of hang around and float around a bit, and stay in the air longer before finally dissipating. You can also rent a coolant pressure testing kit and see if it holds pressure.

 

it's just a little, smoke right after startup and then nothing at all can be seen... I seen it revving quite hard, and the only thing I could see were the bits of rusted exhaust jumping out.

is it bad in what case ? water right?

 

oil bad, water (condensation) not so bad, coolant BAD......

 

oh right.. coolant really bad, right? how to see if the smoke is coolant ?

 

Smell, mostly

 

for the conclusion..
I don't know the smell of coolant. it should be as easy as to open the rad cap and smell right?

btw.. anyone has a pic of wich one is the coolant cap?
today I was looking under the car's hood and I tought that the rad fluid cap was that metal one..... damn Im a noob when ir comes to this car!!

 

It is a metal one. On a s4 it's on the neck near the engine just after the hose. On a s5 (89-91) it's on the right side of the radiator (when looking into the engine bay)

 

what's the bottle ? right on the front of the car??
the metal cap says check level on the bottle, that was the only bottle I saw, so I tought it was rad liquid in there (not much... a bit bellow minimum. :| wich can mean overheating!! if I recall right... )

 

Open the radiator cap and start the car. If you see coolant pushing out, it has an O-ring crack and will get worse. It depends how bad the break is on the O-ring.
A bad crack will shoot out the coolant like a geiser when you crank the engine.

 

the metal cap right next to the rad leads to a pipe, I could see no liquid there :P