New owner of a 93 with 112k miles, 25k on motor, 27k on turbos with mods. Is this ok?

 

This time of year? It's probably steam. You might actually see water droplets spitting out the tailpipe. Normal.

If the smoke is burning coolant, you'll probably see some if you take the car for a long enough drive to warm it up, then let it sit for 20min and start it again. If it's steam, you won't see anything on the restart. Bad coolant or oil seals will smoke on the restart.

 

you can also start it with the coolant fill cap off. if it bubbles out of control, bad coolant seal.

 

I really need to post a video of my car for you guys to help diagnose "Smoke on startup".
As soon as I get ahold of one I'll record it and post it for you. My car smokes "white" on startup for about five minutes and it's not because of condensation or moisture. I have a bad coolant seal. A very common problem with the FD. Once it's warm it stops smoking. Probably due to the seal expanding from the heat, causing it to seal a little better. It will also puff some smoke when the car see's full vaccum (Sucking in the coolant past the seal??) mostly when I let off the gas (while in gear) after a good pull. It consumes very little coolant after a couple of days or so but not as much as some would think.


Oh yeah...When it smokes, it's not just a little bit. It's enough to stop cars driving by my house to make sure everythings alright. lol. This smoke does not disapate and will continue to linger in the air and around my house.

 

Here is a video of my car steaming pretty good. You can see how the steam does dissipate even though it's a noticeably large cloud.

http://www.davidgeesaman.com/rx7/steam.AVI

Dave

 

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I can already tell what a great group we have on this forum! I own a Viper and thought no owners could be as passionate as them. I was wrong!

 

Thanks for the Video. (This should go in the stickies) I never thought it would steam that much from condensation. Mine is still thicker but does'nt go away.

dgeesman, Approximately how long will it do that for?

 

If all I do is let it idle, 5min+. If I start it, and start driving in 30sec, I'll bet it's a lot less.

The bottom line is the rotary exhaust runs very hot, and so when you park it the condensation that develops in the pipes is probably more than the average car. And when you restart it, it will steam until it's all gone. I don't get the steam when the car is sorta warm from the last drive - usually I only get it in the morning.

TDazmans - it would be great if you did get some video of your coolant smoke.

Dave

 

Here is the video of coolant smoke from TDazmans' car. This is the coolant burning smoke - notice how thick and billowy it gets.

http://www.davidgeesaman.com/rx7/coolant.AVI

Dave

 

Did you take the coolant avi back down? Can't seem to get the link to work. The steam one still worked though.

<-- Curious to see what coolant smoke looks like for future reference

Edit: Never mind, just made the "C" in coolant lower case. Then the link worked.

 

Hey Dave the links not working. Thanks for hosting for me though! Hope this helps people with diagnosing the "White smoke".

 

i just bought my FC, dont know much about them. When i bought the car it was @ 1pm so it started fine, but the very next day. when i started it up, it was a nightmare. Smoke was coming out more than any vid. i've seen. and it idle funny, about when the idling funny stop, less smoke starts to come out. but that only happens in the morning, right now im trying to not start the car until noon. is it 'cause of the bad coolant seal? 'cause it only does it in the morning so far.

 

where is the coolant seal located

 

Between the engine segments (there are more than 1). They require an engine rebuild to replace.

 

oh man this is gonna cost =[

 

Not sure why but I can't view the http://www.davidgeesaman.com/rx7/coolant.AVI file... i can listen to the engine but no video wtf?

 

oh it's not bad since it only happen in the morning. i guess it's because the seal shrink when it's cold so coolant gets in, and when the motor heats up it stops. today i tried using the leak stopper thing for the radiator which suppose to seal gasket and stuff iono if it would work for rotory motor, would just have to wait until tomorrow morning to start my car to find out. it only happens when i first start the car in the morning anyways, i tried waiting to noon to start it and it was fine.

 

Mine dont' smoke nothing. Knock on woods. But I push the car hard everyday and boost at 14lbs daily for two years now. No smoke at all. Even during cold start up it doesn't even puff out white smoke untill after a couple sec. Than later it'll just steam because of the cold wheather. Running on FULL exhaust; midpipe, downpipe and exhaust.

 

It's a Divx encoded video. www.divx.com Download and install the codec.

Dave

 

Got it.. thanks dgeesaman - hey great write up on vac. hose replacement. Used your guide and ideas including replacing the FC thermoswitch while upgrading to viton hoses. Now wondering best intake system for my stock seq. twins.

 

About the coolant seal "shrinking" when cold and "expanding" when hot, this is ONLY an educated guess on my part. Please understand that I'm no expert when it comes to the Rotary Engine, so please don't take my advise too literally.

 

I can't imagine another car smoking more than mine. If it does, there's definatley something wrong with it. when you first watch the Vid of my car starting, you can see that it takes a few seconds until the smoke really starts to pour out. I taped an entire minute of my car ideling. What you did'nt see was the last :30 seconds of that video. It will smoke like that for about 5-minutes or so until it suddenly stops. Weird!
And it does'nt matter what time of the day or night it is when I start it! It smokes no matter what. But, I'd rather start it at night since less people driving by will notice it hahaha.

 

You probably notice that in this forum that mentioning that you own a Viper doesn't get any reactions. Believe it or not, SOME of us would rather have the FD (although unreliable at times) than the Viper. Or maybe I'm speaking for myself...

 

lol vipers are cool but so are FCs, yeah you can say you own a "viper" but then again, id rather have both. one to have fun and show off and the other to pimp in lol. but back to the smoke, nothing works, so i tried flushing out coolant and just fill it up with water, same smell,color, and amouth of thickness of smoke came out. couple days later i notice im driving on no oil. hmmm... i though white smoke = burn coolant.

 

I have a similar problem but its only if I idle for long periods of time, say 5-10min. It only happens once in a while, I think it might be stock muffler related, I haven't seen this happen since I got my power pulse's.