Well, needless to say, these past couple of days have been pretty rough.

My car was running perfectly normal before all this, everything was smooth etc.

I was installing a powerfc this weekend, and now everytime I start the car it smokes like crazy... my neighborhood was almost shrouded in smoke and it didn't stop either

The idle didn't seem all that lumpy, but the engine was shaking badly and made the entire car shake

Revving the car now feels/sounds completely different and the car backfires a lot more and loudly than before.

When I took the car on a short test drive, there was absolutely no power. I was flooring it and going no where... and all the while there was visible smoke coming out the exhaust

I put the stock ECU back on, and it's the same thing. Car shakes and smoke never stops.

The real BS about all this is my car has 35k original miles, and it looks like I paid full price for a roller. I literally put only 500 trouble-free miles on the car before this sudden turn of events

Are these symptoms of a blown seal? The only thing I touched was putting in the ECU and taking off the Elbow... crazy how the car can go from normal to crap so instantly

 

DUDE NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

you serious... your coolant seal might of gone out if its smoking white..

damn sorry to hear that.

 

I'm assuming your back in SLO now, because if not there are a couple more tests you can run before jumping to the conclusion that your FD is blown.

If it is a coolant seal failure (like you might be leaning towards) the coolant buzzer will go off quickly after it has been topped off or you will be losing A LOT of coolant. Also, if it does have a coolant seal failure, the coolant in the reservoir tank will boil and spill all over the ground. You can also run the champagne test.

any other symptoms we should know about? what color is the smoke? Have you checked all visiible lines to see that nothing came loose?

Best of luck.

 

did u say u had the elbow off? intake elbow? if so maybe u knocked the map sensor hose off on the fire wall, that would make it shake & run like crap. what color is the smoke?

 

have the same issue with a project car i pick up in novmber run perfect from ride from boston then next day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The color of the smoke is both white-ish and black. No signs of any boiling or coolant spilling at all though, just constant smoke. Car has airpump and high-flow cat

I'm really praying it's the map sensor hose because that seems like a possibility, I was shaking the elbow quite a bit taking it off. Could anyone pinpoint exactly where this map sensor hose is? Could that line really make the car run so poorly?

 

It may be the MAP, but the car will usually die without any gas. It will not idle by itself if that vacuum line popped off.

 

The MAP sensor and line is on the firewall on the driver's side, next to the elbow that you removed. it connects from the sensor to the UIM so check both sides.

 

Is it this one, circled in green... and it has 1 line coming off it towards the engine right?



Thanks for all the help

 

my car did the same thing when that hose fell off, hope its not your engine, your car was so clean!!

keep us updated

 

I agree sounds like map sensor line. It will act just like that. And yes it certainly will idle on its own. Mine did anyway.

 

Nice!! I feel a lot more relieved now, I really want to check out the MAP sensor line but I'm out of town

Until then I'm going to have my fingers crossed, does this line usually come off fairly easy? thanks for all the info

 

get in touch if you need a hand.

 

There is a small air filter in the line to the MAP sensor, the vacuum line usually falls off that on the manifold side. If the car is all original, there will be a spring clamp holding the line on to the sensor itself.

 

yeah this hose ( if original) comes off really easy, especially if you were working around the elbow

 

haha, this exact thing happened to me. same issue with smoke and the idle was ****. turned out that when I took off the compression elbow I pulled the vacuum line off the sensor. hope that's all your issue it....

 

One more to say "map sensor"

It has happened to a lot of us.

If you pulled the hose off the manifold, it's possible to put it back on without removing the throttle body, but unless you know exactly where it is, it will be faster to just remove the TB so you can see where the hose goes.

 

^ is there by anychance a picture or something somewhere that shows where it attaches to the UIM?

 

first things first, is the hose connected to the boost sensor? that's usually where it falls off

 

With everything installed there is no way you can get a camera to where the hole would be. It connects on the firewall side right after the throttle body and about an inch and a half or two down. Its tucked under and really hard to get to with fingers, but I managed to get the hose on in about 2 minutes because of hindsight.

If you would like I can meet you up w/ my car in the parking structure on campus and show you.

 

it's actually a nipple that sticks out of the UIM, not a "hole", and it's pretty easy to reach, just hard to show a good picture of it

 

only 35k miles? dude drive the car!!! its mad at you and is trying to tell you something lol

 

woah sorry for my non technical words. lol j/k. you know what I mean. Eric, I really hope you fix your car. I want to see it.

 

It probably is the map sensor..but the same thing happened to me when i put pfc in the car was running like ****.(exact symptoms, a lot of smoke, shaking, and no power even with full throttle just backfire.).wasnt tuned yet..couple days later i left a light on and drained the battery and had to jump..i guess this reset the comp and after i started the car that day it ran like a bat out of hell....might just need to take the negative terminal off for a couple hrs and try it again...might not but just tryin to help..helped me lol

 

Nipple right next to the TPS, however as I said before, it most likely separated at the inline filter