JONSKI

My '93 RX-7 needs to kick a smoking habit. I had seen a small bit of light-grey smoke 2 days earlier when I lifted the hood and a week earlier my sister said that my exhaust was a dense light-grey while following me, but last night it was pouring out from under the hood and out the exhaust. I had been driving the car pretty hard that night, and went to Taco Bell. While waiting in line, I joined in on some of the engine revving that was going on. I only revved twice: once to 5K rpm, and then once to 6K. Then while idling (my car idles at about 400/500) I could smell plastic/rubber burning. Before I knew it, the light-grey smoke was coming out from under the hood and from behind the car. I shut the engine off. Whenever the conga line of cars moved, I simply started my RX-7, moved it, and shut it down again. When I got my eats I parked the sweet *** ride and let it cool down with the hood up for about 20 mins. I drove back to base without seeing anymore smoke. This morning I drove it 20 continuous miles without any problems or smoke. Does anybody know what was burning? I know the '93 has notoriously high exhaust and under hood temperatures, but I
still don't know what was smoking. What should I do to get the problem fixed? Is there anything I should have checked before racing against some no-skill clown ? What kind of maintenence would have prevented this?

P.S. The car has 100K on it.

NathanRX7

I can't tell you what was burning, but if there's dense smoke coming out of your exhaust, it's generally not a good thing. It could be coolant or oil burning. I'm thinking it is oil, and that it's coming from one or both of your turbos, but that is a complete guess. You will probably get better answers to this over in the 3rd Generation section, but I can give you a tip:

Don't shut your car off immediately after driving it, especially after driving it hard. The turbos are cooled with oil, and it is important to let the engine idle for at least a few minutes before shutting it off. The harder you were driving it, the longer you should let it idle before shutting down. This is to let the oil running through the turbos cool them off as well as get cooler itself. Shutting it off right away while the turbos are hot cokes the oil, and it's bad news.