Well I flooded my motor by accident so I took the plugs out and unflooded it.

The car starts up right away now but the idle is not steady (sounds like it is pulsating from about 800 to 300rpm up and down).

Not only this, there is a little white smoke coming from the passenger side of the motor (somewhere around the Y-pipe coupler). The smoke smells like gas. I then looked under the car and saw what I thought was a small amount of oil but when I went back 20 minutes later the liquid had evaporated so obviously it was not oil. I would have even thought if it was coolant it would not have evaporated that quickly so I don’t know what it was. This is very odd because the car was running perfectly last week when I had to move it. The car is being stored for winter. Any ideas as to what happened? I found a thread that looks like the same problem as I have but there is no post about what was the cause...


https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ide+engine+gas

Thanks, Jason

 

UPDATE: I went out and took off a few of the hoses to give me a better view but I could not see anything. I put it all back together and started it up again and the idle seemed pretty much perfect (was not surging like it was before. But there was still a good amount of smoke coming from the passenger side of the engine. It is white smoke and smells almost like burning plastic but has a slight exhaust/gas smell to it.

I looked under the car and it was not leaking anything.

I'm stumped.

 

After searching it seems that white smoke is common in this area after unflooding a motor but I can't seem to find anyone who has figured out what it is. It seems almost like an exhaust leak.

Examples:

(Last post) https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/new-problems-unflooding-574772/

(Related to above thread) https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...passenger+side

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...smoke+%2Aflood

 

It could be oil and carbon that the excess fuel washed off the rotor housing and rotor. I know when my car has flooded bad, I actually see gas/oil leaking out of my turbo->downpipe gasket.

 

Just let it run for awhile....or take a quick drive around the block. It should clear up.

 

Yes


and yes.

 

But why would it be coming out from the engine bay on the passenger side? Speaking of Carbon... The floor behind my car is coverd in black spots and so was my Cadillac (which was parked behind the RX-7). I guess this is carbon that is shooting out of the exhaust because of all the raw fuel.

 

Is it common for an exhaust leak to appear after deflooding a mtor? I wonder it it could be a forced leak caused by the pre-cat getting clogged because of all the fuel that went through it as a result from the motor flooding???

I will listen for an exhaust leak tonight. I have a DP and MP to be installed and hope if I do have a leak it will be fixed when installing those (rather than the leak being right at the Manifold to turbo).

 

You just don't really ever notice these small leaks as you don't always have a ton of fuel being shoved out of the exhaust ports.

 

That makes perfect sense. I'll take a closer look within a few days and report back. It would be nice to have a thread that people can search with an ending since all the thread I found about this do not.

I'll start the car up and then plug the tail pipes and the smoke coming from the right side of the engine bay should get a lot worse.

 

I have the same issue.
When the car is cold a white smoke is coming out from passenger side but when the car is running hot the smoke stop.
I dont know what is it but the problem stop when I replace my turbos and some gaskets.Maybe downpipe gasket or turbo manifold gasket.
I agree with Mahjik that you have not notice it before.

 

It makes sense that it was a leak for you too since these cars run very rich on start-up and produce smoke for a bit until warmer so you would only see smoke when cold.

I hope it is the downpipe gasket and not the Turbo Manifold gasket in my case since I have a new DP to be installed so it would solve the problem. I can't seem to see the source of the smoke looking down from the top so I will jack the car up and see if I can see it from under the car.

 

 

Typical condensation coming out with the carbon from the exhaust, your car seems to be running on the rich side (as the exhaust is typically more black than tan) un flooding the car puts even more fluid in the exhaust and of course comes out the tail pipe. If you park something behind the 7 it will splatter it with these black spots. If you are starting the car up for short periods of time without warming it up you will make the rough idling and flooding more common and more often.