My new (okay, new to me) FD has 60K original miles on it. It's in good shape and pretty much all stock.

The car runs good, but if I start it up after sitting for a week, I get some light colored smoke and smelly exhaust. I don't really get much of anything if I drive it the next day though. I only notice it if the car has been sitting for several days.

How worried should I be? I assume that the coolant seals are leaking past just a little bit, but it can't be too bad or I would have bigger problems.

How much of this is normal for a car in my condition? Is there anything that I can do to prolong the inevitable?

 

Sounds fine to me really. Most FD's smoke a bit upon start up. Unless the exhaust smells like coolant I would not be worried at all. If your coolant seals turn loose you will know, it will be thick, sweet smelling exhaust. It is really anyone's guess how long they will last. If you take care of it and it does not overheat they could last a long time. OR even if it does not overheat they could just turn lose one day. It is a weak leak in the engine construction unfortunately. Mine let go just after 30K for no reason (the car has NEVER been close to overheating) and others last for over 100K...

I would not worry about it and just enjoy the car. Make sure you change coolant regularly, keep coolant hoses in good shape and watch coolant temps. Make sure you get a good AST (aluminum not the stock plastic one).

 

To me, the exhaust smells kind of a little like antifreeze, but it's definitely not thick clouds of smoke.


Only 30K on an original engine? Wow. That doesn't sound good. I'll take the 100K please.


I think that the cooling system is working fine. I don't have a problem with it getting hot. I haven't even had a chance to drive it in much warm weather here in Idaho anyways. The only time I had a problem was several months ago when the plastic AST started leaking. It got a little hot just that once. I had ordered my aluminum AST as soon as I got the car and the plastic one didn't even last long enough for it to get to me.

 

most likely it is just a little engine oil seeping past the rotors and collecting in the housings and burning off when you start up the car after a few days. this is really not that abnormal, i wouldn't worry about it.

 

Keep an eye on your coolant level. If it never drops, you're seals are good.

 

yeah a little smoke on startup is normal

 

does your car have the original precat?

also, look into the FC thermoswitch mod

 

No for long.

 

i bought my FD in 1999 with 74K on it. my friend had just bought one with 80k on it, and it basically blew a coolant seal the week after i bought mine.

i decided that if mine made it to 80K, i'd be ok with that.

its 2009 now, and car has 118k on it. i did a radiator and downpipe, and the scheduled maintenance, but it hasn't needed anything else under the hood.

may your FD experience be as dull as mine!

 

If the smoke is light/white, isn't too thick, stops within a minute or so of starting up, and doesn't smell sweet, it's likely your just burning off some condensation in your exhaust.

If your smoke is dark/blue and smells acrid, it's unburnt gas because the FD runs really rich at startup.

If the smoke is white, thick, continues for a while (keep in mind that even cars with blown seals will stop smoking after a while unless the leak is really bad), and smells sweet, start saving your pennies.

That being said smoke analysis is a really poor method of diagnosing the health of your car. Best bet is to get a compression test done.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks guys.

The smoke seems to be getting a little worse; especially during cold weather and when it sits for two or three weeks.

I've still got that pre-cat on the car. I haven't had much of chance to work on her lately, but I try to get her out at least every two weeks.

Lately, when it sits for a while, it get a fair amount of white smoke until I've driven it for a mile. Then it goes away.

I think it's more than just condensation, because it's thick enough that you can still see it when diving at 40.

Would pre-mixing have any effect on this?

 

it can if you're premixing too much. remember the stock oil metering changes the amount of oil based on demand and pre mix does not, so with pre mix you're probably over oiling a lot of the time, which is fine, it'll just smoke/leak goop from the exhaust joints/fill the mufflers with crap.

my track car is premixed, and off track it sees a lot of idle/low speed running, so after half a lap the muffler gets hot enough to burn all the crap off = smokescreen