Ran the car a bit hard and afterwards I noticed some sweet smelling smoke coming out of the hood. I pulled it over and it seemed to be coming from the area under the alternator. Limped it home and as I was doing so, turned off the heater, which seemed to make the smoke stop, but when I got home it let out some smoke as I popped the hood. Backed the car up a bit and noticed that I had a little drop of coolant and a little drop of oil. Great.

My mechanic said he replaced my rear main seal when I got my clutch changed out (about 2mo ago), and the leaks seem to be from under the rear of the block. Any ideas, besides "you're fawked?"

 

57.5k on original engine and turbos, by the way. Stock except for clutch and turbo timer.

 

Sounds like it could be the coolant hose on the solenoid rack, behind the alternator. Pull off the pressure chamber, take the hose off, and inspect it.

 

It was that general area, but I'm drunk and tired, so I'll look at it tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.

 

what about the water seals? I spoke about this with my rotor mechanic just last week..

There is some seal somewhere...hehe sorry forgot most of it!

least i tried

 

Was your mechanic telling you about the coolant O-rings? If so, when they go bad, the exhaust smokes white, sweet smelling smoke, and (depending on how bad the o-rings are)the engine will not last for long.

 

Going to start a mantra here...

Replace all your hoses. It's not that expensive, and WAAYYY cheaper than a new engine. 60,000 miles and they are toast. Guarentee it...

 

have the system pressure checked your mechanic should be able to do it and track the coolant in minutes

 

Started driving to my mechanic's (J&H Racing in Bloomington, IN) with a few bottles of distilled water. Keeping the revs under 3k I noticed no overheating, leaking or steaming at all. What did this tell me? Secondary turbo coolant hose. So, my mechanic is gonna be fixing that, and while he's at it, putting on a stainless downpipe! Woohoo, first 'real' mod!

 

Just because you weren't revving the engine up doesn't mean there is no coolant going thru the secondary turbo coolant hose!!

 

How does smoke coming from under your alternator become a secondary turbo coolant hose problem??

 

If it's not from the secondary turbo, then it's a weird coincidence, because as soon as I held the revs above 4500 it started to steam again. I don't know very much about the stock turbo system but it's possible for steam to go from the hoses which are in that general area to the space around the alternator, from which the steam was coming. Either way, it's going to get fixed, and if it isn't the secondary turbo, I'll let you guys know.

 

If you have a small leak anywhere, it will have a tendency to leak more as you increase revs. Higher revs increase the speed the water pump is spinning at thus increase the pressure in the system.

Also, if the leak is after the thermostat, it might only leak once it's open and it only opens once the engine is hot. Holding the revs over 4500 tends to heat up your engine pretty quick lol.

 

Warm up your car, look under your the hood and rev the engine. It should increase the water pump speed and it's most likely dripping from your water pump which is under your alternator. The gasket may be too old and it's dripping at the seal.

 

Would that make the exhaust smell like coolant as well?

At my mileage and without a new water pump, it might be time to change it out. Maybe I should change my timing belt too

 

OH NO!!! search for seal failure...

or am I being dense?

 

My mechanic thinks it's a problem with the turbos. The car is at his garage right now and he'll probably be getting around to working on it on Monday. I'll let you guys know... he says it's not my coolant seals though.

 

If the exhaust smells like coolant, then your coolant o-rings are shot. Which equals a rebuild. Turbos don't often leak coolant.

 

Turns out there are three coolant leaks: plenum coolant hose for accelerated warmup system (being replaced); air seperator tank (being bypassed); radiator hose (John, my mechanic, describes it as having a large tumor... replaced). He says the plenum hose was damaged because it was being pinched by engine movement, so I'm going to put an engine torque brace on as well.

 

I don't see how the engine moving would cause a problem with the throttle body coolant hoses. They are completely attached to the engine and don't come in contact with anything stationary. If you are putting a torque brace on for this reason alone, I think you are wasting your money.

 

With all the coolant out, why not replace ALL the hoses? If the rad hose has a tumor, think what the turbo coolant lines really DO look like inside. Mine looked fine from the outside, was starting to split on the inside. Next stop, engine fire!!!

 

If your motor is moving that much then you may have a bad motor mount. Adding an engine torque brace will really tell if you have a bad mount or not because it's going to cause a lot of vibrations.

 

The torque brace is going to cost next to nothing, and I want it for the benefit in shifter feel and slight increase of power. The motor mounts are fine, when the clutch was replaced about 2 months ago, they were inspected. Also, of course all hoses are gonna be changed out, I was just mentioning the ones that are already problems