HELP! click click noise and white smoke around y pipe/ twins /turbo area
 

when staring the car/ cold engine , There are Click click noises around the turbos and I have white smoke coming out of the twins /turbos area/ downpipe area.

No leak at the downpipe, I have just replaced the downpipe gasket with a new oem one...

Video here attached, you can clearly see the white smoke and hear the click click noise .For some reason the click click noise stop after 2/3 min ...?

Where could that white smoke and noise come from ?

Thanks for the help

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pqw7oyv9u3...noise.mov?dl=0

Noise kind of sounds like a belt or a bearing on something the belts are on.

Smoke needs a smell test to see if it's burning oil or coolant.

Dale

Sounds pretty much like a typical exhaust leak to me. Only reason I can think it goes away, is somehow it heats up - and closes some gap, I'd probably plug it's bum and smoke test to see what's happening around the manifold.

Start with the coolant hoses for the turbo, these are common to leak. With the air pump out of the way they aren't bad to get to.

Turbos themselves can't internally leak coolant. The coolant hardline for the turbos could in theory leak but it's extremely uncommon, I've only seen it once on some lines that were badly corroded.

Dale

I am gonna check it out, thanks

Any clues about the 'tick tick' sound?

That puddle in the picture is way back where your downpipe meets your midpipe?

Are you 100% sure that is coolant and not water with gas/exhaust mixed in?

From that picture it looks like there could be a leak between your downpipe and your midpipe and when warming up water from condensation leaks out of that lowest spot (fairly common).

You nailed! it is leaking water when I start the engine/cold start, between the midpipe and downpipe .

Why so much water out of the pipes??! Blown water seals??

The combustion process results in the creation of water vapor. This condenses in cold pipes and either results in steam out the back of the exhaust system, or leakage/steam out of any earlier leak in the system.

There are a couple types of coolant seal loss I have seen.

1) crack in side housing near o-ring or really old hard o-rings not sealing. Engine bubbles combustion gas into coolant reservoir when running pushing coolant out of reservoir and when shut down coolant squirts into engine and evaporates taking our all the sealing carbon and oil and engine becomes very hard to start.

2) piece cracks off of side housing near o-ring or other big catastrophic coolant seal failure. Engine billows white smoke when running and consumes massive amounts of coolant. If the failure happens when the engine is working hard it can fracture huge pieces of chrome off the rotor housings and totally take out the apex seals/motor as well.

So, what you are suspecting is situation 1) but in my experience the hot engine, hot turbos and hot exhaust are enough to evaporate the coolant as it relieves coolant system pressure pushing coolant into the engine.

If you are losing coolant, then you could have the above. If you are not losing coolant, then it's likely just combustion water condensation as I stated previously.

You could pressure test the engine if concerned, probably it's as DaveW describes though....still sounds like an exhaust leak!

gas, yikes.

I had a similar issue where i had white smoke coming from around the turbos, but mine was after the engine heated up. It turned out to be coolant leaking from a hose in the turbo area. I put a new clamp on it and everything was fine after that.

Yes, only the primary injectors are firing at idle/low load. But, if the bottom O-rings are damaged or torn on any of the injectors the fuel in the fuel rail can bypass the injectors and dribble down around the injector into the engine.

If that's the case you can jumper the F/P and GND connectors in the diagnostic box to pressurize the fuel system (key on) to verify that is the case. You can unbolt the rails from the intake manifold and pull them up to see which one is leaking.

It could be the fuel line externally or the injector o-ring internally.

Dale

Hey friends - I have similar symptoms. After a 10 week saga replacing my downpipe, I started it up for the first time and after 30 seconds or so I start to see and smell whisps of white thin smoke. At first, I though it might be the super glue I used on the gasket burning off, or perhaps some PB blaster (been a long time since I was on the PB), or maybe anti-seize? I let the car run for a few minutes today and I can hear audible engine clicking (like a muted brap brap on the street port videos). The smoke kind of smells like bad emissions, it doesn't immediately make me think coolant or oil.

Do you think my gasket is compromised? I did noticed the holes in the gasket were somewhat warped by me threading bolts in and out while I tried to align the downpipe. However, I felt that if i torqued it down it would flatten out and all would be right with the world. I wanted to ask if anyone here recalls what length bolts you used to install your downpipe? I used 20mm bolts without washers. I have some lock washers I can and want to put on, but afraid to back out the bolts for fear of misalignment (yes its that tricky for me).

I am parked on the lowest floor of my parking garage, so I could quickly get it outside if its just a "let it smoke out for a while" issue. I just want to make sure Im not going to start a fire. I did have the building fire extinguisher with me last time I let it idle.

Update: it is not water, it is not gas (I have replaced the fpr with a new one ) but it is OIL...
I guess the turbos/twins are shot. Oil is dripping out of the turbos on the ground as well....
I suspect the "click click" noise coming from the turbos...