Oliv

Hi guys,

I need your help to diagnose my issue(s) since I'm not Dr House in mechanics.

My car does this now alsmost systematically at very cold start:

- car will idle like **** at 1000 rpm like it's running on 1 rotor (may be it is) until I press the gas pedal and maintain it for a little while
- then a ton of smelly thick white smoke will come out of the exhaust + it will backfire like a machine gun when I press the gas pedal,
- at this time the engine will idle right and the white smoke out of the exhaust disappears in like 10 seconds
- Then I notice some little smoke coming from the turbos area that will also disappear quite quickly
- I always have some oil on the ground of my garage just underneath the turbos
- I recently replaced both turbo coolant lines as they were leaking badly, one of them was really blown
- I have to adjust the level of coolant now every time I use the car, I fill it to the top, but after driving it I would still see some in the filler neck but at the bottom.
- I replaced my spark plugs today: dry & grey/white for 3 of them, black and slightly humid for the rear leading one.
- car is not overheating, my after market gauge shows temp. between 80 and 90°C and the stock one is rock solid a little above the middle.
- I've noticed recenlty that the car hold fuel pressure. Normally after a few hours after shutting it down the fuel pressure will go to 0, here after more than 24hrs I can still see pressure (pressure sensor is on a fuel line near to the oil pedestal).
- Couple of days ago the fuel pressure at cold start could not go more than 1kg/cm² until I floored th gas pedal on second gear, then it came back to normal at 2kg/cm² at idle.

Car gets warm rapidly and then has no issue! Good boost, pulls hard, idles solidly at 800rpm, backfires as it always had since the aftermarket exhaust, no smoke at all.
Car starts very well when warm, sometimes with smoke, most of time w/o.

I know that's a lot of symptoms, may be due to not only one root-cause

The engine has 100.000KM, mods are listed in my sig.

I already have couple of ideas of what it could be and even suspect mixed causes, but I'm like a lot of us in the case, in denial mode for a blown coolant seal.

Other possibilities I see:
- turbo oil leak: would cause the smoke in the exhaust, but would it affect the cold start?
- leaky injector: would cause smoke, shitty idle at cold start, backfire. But not the smoke in the turbos area and wouldn't my plugs be all wet?
- turbo coolant leak: would cause the smoke around the turbos, but could it cause the shitty idle and the white smoke from exhaust at cold start?
- coolant seal: ok, will cause many of the symptoms...

Guys, thanks in advance for your inputs!

djseven

iTrader: (56)

With it running on one rotor on cold start, shooting out white smoke it leans towards the coolant seal failure. I would just let it run for a couple hours and see if it continues to eat the coolant.

David

Oliv

Ah, and just after I changed my spark plugs this afternoon it did all the symptoms when I started the car! This is what encouraged me to post this thread by the way...

Speedworks

Olivier, did you also try to use the OEM ECu again?

Oliv

No I didn't. Will try this. You think it could be that my chipped ECU fails?

Oliv

First feedback, last thing I wanted to read
You are probably right David, I just hoped not to be a potential customer so soon

Well, I have your quote for shipping to France, let's confirm this diagnosis and I'll come back to you...

tiger18

iTrader: (1)

Hi i know its a bit of a shame but i think your coolant seals are gone, my car acted exactly like yours. Started up on one rotor running rough as hell but would clear and smooth out after about 30 seconds. Then the car ran great couldnt even tell there was a problem, boosted fine didnt overheat, but the low coolant buzzer kept comming on once a week as the car was eating water on its cold starts every day. Im willing to bet if you dont top up the coolant for a week the low coolant buzzer will come on. Have you thought about trying the champagne test, its an easy indicator.

Oliv

Right, I need to do the champagne test.

So according to you guys there's no chance that's coming from the turbos eating oil & water + leaky injector?

Oliv

Cold start: surprise good start!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8zcTdiwjfg

Cold iddle, thermostat not open yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yc7PtacK9g

At warm iddle, w/o revving one can see tiny bubbles.

Fully warm, revving:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzyK04WHeH0

Oliv

Here's the vid at warm iddle before I play with the throttle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thu7p-UEvVk

You could notice a few tiny bubbles from time to time but nothing big.

Huge quantity of very little to big bubbles explodes when throttle is applied. Sorry but the light just died at this time so the vid is pretty dark.