Help with smoke at start up
 

Newbie here attempting to work on his car because I want to learn. I have spent a few hours researching here and messing with the car so far. Here is where I'm at. On cold start up car smokes heavily for 4-5 minutes then goes away. Does not smoke much after that or on warm start up. Smoke does not smell sweet. Looks pretty white to me but may have a hint of blue. I did not see any oil in the intake as I read to check that. From what I have read it seems like it may be the oil control rings. Should I check anything else before I attempt to pull the motor?
Back ground. I just bought the car from a guy that was a complete liar. I knew that going into it. He said the motor has 800 miles on a rebuild but I don't buy it as its smoking, leaking, and he had 0 paperwork to back that up. Car has 105K on it. So my big question what is the list of items I should check? I'm hoping to not have to pull the motor as that's a bit above my capabilities at this time. Thanks for the hand holding.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...89e3577db0.jpg

I hate to say it, but that much smoke of that color is a coolant seal failure, gonna guess your losing antifreeze?

Ugh that sucks. Its odd that the car did not smoke like that when I bought it. It seemed to have started overnight after I got it home. I will look into what it takes to get the cooling system pressured checked. Thanks for the help guys!

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...608cbc0bed.jpg
I did notice a bit of rust in the coolant.

Hard to tell for sure, but that's probably discoloration from that stop-leak stuff.

Don't condemn the moter so fast my rx7 did the same thing yrs ago seams the tpi was too rich. If I took it for a good highway run it would stop for a while. Your coolant looks fine, keep an eye on it, If you have a leak you will notice that it will have a loss of coolant. The rotary is a tough mother mine runs like new with over one hundred thousand miles on it. Take it on a good high speed run if it doesn't overheat its probably not a coolant seal. Too rich of a mixture can make a rotary smoke at cold start up

*I'm not sure what a "tpi" is, but that looks like steam (white smoke) in the picture, not black smoke...which is what you get from running rich.
*The coolant looks contaminated to me. Either old and a little rusty, or from something else. But clean ethylene glycol coolant is a bright almost florescent green, not swamp water.
Post #3 here---> https://www.rx7club.com/new-member-r...r-seal-941463/

+1 what Sgt Blue said. When I bought my FD, it had the same issues you describe, white smoke on start up. Then, after it warmed up, all clear until it cooled off and the coolant pooled inside the engine and would smoke upon start up again. When we opened up the engine, my coolant seals were damaged along with the rear iron. I'll post up a pic of how my car "smoked" on start up...prepare for a possible rebuild.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...002be44f6d.jpg

Before the build
Here is a pic of what mine looked like upon start up (before my rebuild)...all white smoke.

Sorry I ment tps not tpi also, as an after thought I would ck to see if the omp is not stuck in wide open position,always ck for simple fix first, before major rebuild.

Looks like you need a rebuild. It is a little strange that we aren't seeing any milkshake crap in the radiator neck though.

A stuck OMP while probably possible, is very unlikely. And on the stock ECU, there are not one but THREE possible codes that are generated if anything is wrong. And each will cause a Check Engine Light. And again, that "smoke" appears to be white (steam), not blue, which is what burning oil smoke is.

Off-hand I can't think of any code that would explain the exhaust. But you can pull your own codes. There can be more than one.
---> Check Engine Light Codes

The asswipe you bought it from probably warmed up the car before you came to look at it.

You should drain the coolant completely, run it for a minute or so, squirt some oil into the park plug holes, and turn the engine over by hand a few times. This will prevent rust and save what may be a rebuild-able core, until youre ready for a rebuild. Sorry man.

Coolant pressure test failed. All signs point to coolant seal failure. Face the facts my man.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...7729d8744d.png

The tester should be put on the AST (lower silver cap), not the filler neck (yellow) cap. The AST cap will/should have a spring which opens at about 12 or 13 psi. You want that out of the equation when pressurizing the system. I'd take it up to about 20 psi and see if it holds.

A couple of additional tests you can perform.....
Rotary Resurrection home of the budget rebuild.

Do this.