White Exhaust

[AndyDFW]

I'm getting a large amount of white exhaust on my 1994 GA SE, 2.3L Quad 4 OHC, no coolant smell, and car does not seem to have coolant in the oil, so don't believe it's head gasket, performance does not seem to be suffering, either. Just annoying as hell. Any suggestions? Possibly Valve Stem Seals? Amount and volume of discharge increases proportionately with RPM, and sometimes dissapears all together. This is most annoying and would really like to get the the bottom of this and solve the problem. Some other possibilities i think could contribute to it are -

Exhaust system leaks, behind cat cnvrtr, there are only 2 out of the 3 bolts holding the rest of the pipe to the cat.

The small amount of moisture from the Air/Oil Seperator perhaps that gets into crankcase, but i would think this would only produce a short burst of white??

Anyways, just thought i would ask yall and see if anyone else has run into this type of annoyance with these cars... I recently purchased the car, and am not really familiar with these cars, most of my expertise is with dealing with the 2.3L Turbo 4 in the Thunderbirds of the mid to late eighties... (Owned 2 TurboCoupes)

-Andy

[Colin]

Could be a cracked head or head gasket problem . The coolant could be leaking into the combustion chamber and burning threw a small crack in the head . The white smoke usual means the engine is burning coolant . Maybe you should get it pressure tested to verify this . And keep an eye on the coolant level in the mean time . :(

[AndyDFW]

Only one problem with that... I don't smell coolant in the exhaust, it smells fairly normal, but there are also no cooling problems, no spikes in temp, or the other signs of cracked head or gasket... just sort of got me baffled. No performance decrease, either, runs and drives just like it normally would.... but i will still see about doing a compression test on it and see what i find there...

-Andy

[Colin]

Hmmmmm , that is weird . But a cooling system pressure test and engine compression test will tell you whats going on .

[antirice]

have your valve seals checked, I was at a car show with my mechanic and an S10 started up and puffed white smoke, out of nowhere he says, "Valve seals are gone" so I'd check that

[LoneRangers15]

I would probably say you're burning oil. I would guess your rings are bad. This would cause oil to ignite, and since it doesn't burn as cleanly as gas, you get white smoke.

[pittviper]

take your raidiator cap off after starting your car and look to see if your getting back-pressure if so more than likely you have either a blown head gasket or cracked head .
if not then keep an eye on your oil level if you need over say a couple of two or three day period then i'd say it would more than likely be bad rings .

[4kQuad]

Your head has cracks is my guess WHY:
when I bought my 2.3 I took off from work one cold moist morning and when I hit the freeway I was blowing white smoke (steam) from the exhoust so bad the people behind me started to slow down.....No make that hit there brakes. I got about another 2 minutes down the road and it quit. Nothing Smooth running and no smoke.

Reason:The head is alumumn and as it was cold out it had shrunk, so the crack was big enough for the water to get to the cylinder and burn out the exhoust as smoke. When the head wormed up it expanded, sealing the small crack.

It never smoked on warm mornings as the head had not shrunk small enough. I put up with the problem till I cooked the motor and a 1.5 years later. Never lost power nothing. I cooked the motor because I forgot to put the raditor cap back on after checking the water. They found 4 crackes in the head when I went in for a rebuild.

Sound right to you.