I recently got my fc running. On startup, it spits out a small puff of white smoke, and at idle it makes a popping sound(which I'm assuming is a miss). It still makes good power, and doesn't die or anything. The car has 130,000 miles on it with the original engine. So, is it getting close to rebuild time, or is it something not as serious? I'm 18 and new to cars in general, so what should I check before jumping to conclusions?

 

just a guess.
the white smoke is probably same fuel somewhere burning off. Happen when I flooded my engine once.. but it wasn't as small as yours.

As for for the sounds... not sure.

Good luck.

 

Sounds like pretty standard behavior for an FC.

A little bit of white smoke on startup is pretty normal. It's due to the rich starting mixture and cold catalytic converters. If it lasts more than about 15 seconds, I'd look into it more. If the smoke is blue, it indicates some oil is leaking. Sweet smelling white smoke indicates coolant. Those usually take a bit longer to clear up, maybe a minute or so. Neither would be too surprising with a 130k engine.

The 'miss' during idle is very common and not a problem.