A friend of mine just bought an 87 non turbo as a project car and we're trying to get some issues sorted out. None of us have any experience with roateries. After sitting a while then starting the engine it will automatically rev up to around 4000rpm's and pour out tons of greyish smoke. After driving around a while (not too easy since it tries to launch at 4k from every stop ) the smoke will die down and the idle will go down to 1500-2500 and will constantly jump between the two. Any ideas?

 

Clean the BAC right? Where is it located... any instructions?

 

Update: We found the BAC. It doesn't seem to have a coolant leak (we did the fill up the coolant and take out the EGI fuse and try and start it ... no splatter) but whenever we start it it smokes a whole bunch and dies down after it runs for a bit.

Also, the tach doesn't work, I tried hitting the dash and there is spark to all of the coils, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

Does the smoke smell sweetish, like coolant, or does it smell like burning oil? That's the way to tell what it is. Just smell it.

The high initial idle is stock, although it should be closer to 3000 than 4k. I think you may have your idle set screw set very high (for an NA its on top of the intake manifold under a round black cover). You should also check your TPS according to the FSM. A link to the FSM is in the FAQs I think so read that carefully. The TPS is a major player in a happy idle for these engines. Also check the entire engine carefully for vacuum leaks (will require removal of the intake manifolds to check the hoses underneath for cracks). A modest sized leak such as a small hose missing from a nipple, or a crack in a larger hose, can cause the bad idle, as well as a mis-set TPS. Furthermore, the ECU can do it. I had an ECU which ran my TII engine just fine, and I switched ECUs once to one that instantly gave me this problem (which it gave every '7 I installed the ECU on). But that's a last resort. Check everything else first. The FSM has a good troubleshooting path for this problem as well. Read it (under the F1 section, I think) carefully.

 

The smoke definitely smells like oil, not coolant. Any ideas with the tach? Thanks a lot.

 

The idle problem is the TPS sensor, we took it out and now it doesn't do it. (runs like crap though) It still pours smoke out of it but it stops after a bit. It turns out that just the tach isn't out, it's the whole gauge cluster. Any help? Thanks.

 

The gauges were a fuse .. so we got that figured out. I guess we just have the smoke left and a wierd (misfiring?) sound in the motor.

 

i think teh misfiring sound is you have the wire on the worng plug firing order make sure you dont have the trailing wires on the leading and so forth

 

how many K miles does the car have on it?

 

It has 131k miles.

 

Any ideas about the smoke?

 

Double post.

 

could be the rotor oil seals going bad from all the sitting, as long as the smoke stops you're OK for a little while, could be a stuck Oil Metering Pump (check the linkage at the front of the throttle body for up down motion/ make sure it's not stuck up)