hey, ive had my rx7 for a few months now and all of a sudden ive had this weird issue 30 seconds after startup.

It starts fine cold then apox 30 seconds later large amounts of white smoke comes from the tailpipe. (large amounts means fills the entire driveway up with huge smoke show...) The car tries to struggle through it but eventually chokes out and stalls.

Car revs and does everything normal until the white smoke starts, when the white smoke is going my blow off valve is letting out large amounts of air and if i press the throttle there is no power and i can hear the turbo whisling real loud.

Initally white smoke i thought coolant O rings, but if they were leaking wouldnt large amounts of smoke coming immediately on startup not 30 seconds after?

I still cant determine if it is coolant or oil burning (sweet = coolant) (blue = oil) but i cant tell...

I live in canada and the temps have droped a bit in the last few months but I cant see that affecting the white smoke that much....

I replaced the thermostat on the weekend hoping this would fix my issue but no luck same thing after 30 seconds. Hopefully someone can help me out!

I can take a video of it happening if that will help...

I want my car to work again!?!

 

Video could help sure.

Are you loosing coolant?

 

as far as i can tell i am not loosing coolant. im pretty sure now that it is oil.

i started the car up today and it was giving lots of white smoke from start up (oil) and had a very rough idle struggling to keep going.

again, the weird thing is that i have a steady flow of air coming out of the stock BOV. im not sure what would be causing that...

I have a video i will upload here once i figure it out...

 

When the bearings in the turbo go out, usually you will get the white smoke, like a cloud letting you not see the car behind you.

 

I don't really know where to start. I have the unit to perform a compression test tonight and maybe eliminate some options...

Since it won't run properly how will that effect the compression test if the engine is not warmed up before hand?

 

Whoknows,

I'm thinking it may be a turbo issue... Any other suggestions?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXRl7ce_RFI

this should take you to the video i took the other day. any questions please ask!

 

Whats the milage on the car? what all for mods? ever overheated?

It would really help to know if it was coolant or oil. Sort of hard to tell from the vid but i'm leaning towards coolant. It should be very easy to tell. You're right, coolant does smell sweet but sometimes it's hard to notice that smell. Oil on the other hand has a very distinct smell. You should be able to tell.

Also, how cold is it outside? and have you let the car hit operating temperature yet after its started and blown smoke? Sometimes it could just be condensation (if it's cold enough outside) in your exhaust pipe, but that would go away after a while (roughly the time it takes to reach OT. However, that one doesn't explain why its stalled out.

 

Any idea on how hard and beat on it was before you bought it? Your oil consumption would be alittle more than usual as the oil that lubes the bearings would be the blow by(smoke you would be seeing,) that is if the turbo is supplied by the engine oil itself. Unfortunatly im not familiair enough with the fd or fc turbo for that matter. My turbo experience is limited to the other cars ive had in the past with my turbos. The only way that I would think would be to remove the turbo and take it to a professional specialty shop that works on turbos, rebuilds, ect. They would beable to probably know right off the bat. Or you could do some digging and see what the specs are for your shaft play, or just look at both the intake and outtake sides if your turbo so see if theres alot of oil from either side. If so, id blame the bearings and youd be either in the market for a rebuild or a good used replacement. Or if your really sassy, a bigger upgraded turbo. But just remember as that option you would have to retune the whole car, bigger inj, bigger fuel pump, boost retard, and all that good stuff which of course will be pricey, a rebuild or good used replacement will be pricey enough in itself.

 

if your not loosing coolant its more than likely your turbos are going out

 

Is the air coming out of the ABV or CRV?

---Edit---

Well, judging from the video, it may be the CRV which is strange since the second turbo shouldn't be seeing positive pressure from the exhaust at idle.

 

ok. so i did some work on the car last night and this is what i have come up with...

compression on the car is perfect after the test... 8.4/8.2/8.3 at 232rpm on the front rotor and 7.6/7.8/7.7 at 229rpm on the rear rotor. way above the mazda recommended wich gives me great peace of mind!

the rough idle must have been caused by one of the boots on the spark plug being loose, since i put the plugs back in and it seems to have fixed that issue...

i let the car warm up and it seemed to cough and spit for a bit but ran without stalling... i let it run for aprox 20 mins...

in that time it was running i did notice that it did continue to burn a little oil (small amounts but it never burned oil before) and a lil smoke was coming out from the turbo area, i looked underneath and it seems like it was coming from the wastegate area? or like where actuators that control the wategate.... if that makes any sense.

oh and a small amount of air was still coming out of the BOV but not alot like before, and when i had no issues there def was no air coming out of the BOV

So i decided to take it for a drive and it seemed to drive like it normally did as i was putting around, but when i went to accelerate it started to build up boost like 2-4psi then the call falls on its face... just loses all power like when you hit the govenor on the car...

SO. now i know i have a good strong block! strong internals! and im not burning coolant! so im thinking somthing to do with the turbo setup or some electrical thing....

Neoturi.
im not sure what an ABV of a CRV is but if they fail what happens?

my car.
aprox 70,000kms on my car at the moment. petite intake and high flow cat, new thermostat and fuel filter other than that the car is stock.

and car is burning oil. not coolant!

I will post a new video tomorrow when i get the chance to see what my is doing then...

 

So i ended up solving my problem...

The car's ecu was cutting boost to protect itself from the spark plug issue that i had earlier. All i did was unplug the battery and touched the two terminals together then pumped the brakes a few times to drain any remaining power to the ecu to do a hard reset and it solved all of my issues

im pumped to have my car back but unfortunately it is going into storage for the winter spring time!?! cant wait

thanks for all of your advice and help