Suspect blown head gasket (or blown turbo seals?), video of the problem from before it starts, to it being bad Options

[delusionz]

How ironic, after commenting on 2 overheating threads, my engine also overheated. - when this happened, i was missing 3 litres of coolant from the radiator it was completely empty even though i top it up once a week

I flushed the heater core, flushed the system, installed TRD thermostat, poured in 4 bottles of Toyota LL coolant, idled up to temperature, installed TRD radiator cap, rolled down the driveway facing up, ran the engine at 2000 rpm with the radiator cap off and funnel inserted, topped up as necessary and refit TRD cap when bubbles stopped coming up.

Procedure took several hours to complete, afterward I took the car for a hard blast, everything seemed okay and the heater was now giving beautiful heat, however when I got the car back in the driveway I had white smoke start billowing out of the tail pipe.

I re-checked the coolant and its still good, and the oil isnt sludgy so I can rule out the head gasket, I fear coolant is getting into the engine and burning out the exhaust but how??? Where do I go from here?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61f2oO_rrfc

This post has been edited by delusionz: Apr 7, 2011 - 7:02 AM

[Rusty]

How much white smoke is coming out? Just want to confirm, not water vapour?

Rings? turbo seals? warped head?

any cel? whats it like on power, still runs fine no hesitation or miss? maybe take your oil cap off to see if your getting lots of blowby?

[delusionz]

More smoke than a burnout. Not like steam but white coloured smoke.

Power? It still hauls fu*king a$$!!!

No engine light, The needle on the temp gauge sits a fraction lower now with the TRD thermostat

No misfire, no hesitation, everything seems fine bar the massive amount of white smoke

[Drachonius]

Blown turbo maybe? i had a Vr4 that had the turbos seals let go going up a hill, filled the road with white smoke like a burnout, was really eating oil so give that a check.

[delusionz]

Would that allow water into the turbine? I'm not really losing much oil, losing coolant though.

If water was getting into the turbine would that explain why I'm not losing power?

[delusionz]

[4-eyed-freek]

possibky a blown turbo, you wouldnt notice that much oil loss right away because it doesnt take that much oil to make a big cloud of smoke. if its not the turbo, than i would say check everything over again, things dont happen because of pfm (pure fu**ing magic) best of luck!

[Stambo]

head gasket is your best bet. Do a leak down test and you'll know for sure.

[delusionz]

It's white smoke, not blue smoke, Can't be the turbo???

[TEAMFaint]

White does typically mean headgasket. I am with Stambo. Do a leakdown test.

[Smaay]

you have 2 possibilities, headgasket or turbo. if you are using the CT26, it is water cooled. so that is a good possibility. if teh HG is blown then you would loose compression and the car would be low on power. im leaning towards the turbo.

[Drachonius]

Good luck with your car, least you have a reason to upgrade a few things

[delusionz]

Water circulates around the core of the turbocharger, i thought the only thing that could get past the seals is oil?


Does a BHG happen suddenly or would you know it before it happens? As I said it was still boosting as fast as it normally does, but it wasn't until a minute after i got back in the driveway when it was idling that the white smoke came out.

I rechecked the oil and the coolant and the are still not mixed.

I also had another thing happen the same instant the white smoke appeared and that is the upper radiator hose split where the factory clamp had worked its way into the hose and it was spraying coolant everywhere

This post has been edited by delusionz: Mar 2, 2011 - 5:00 AM

[delusionz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61f2oO_rrfc


Tell me what you think of this video, sorry that its 6 minutes long and boring ... The first minute shows the car warming up before the smoke starts..

And nevermind the hole in the center muffler thats not the biggest issue right now

This post has been edited by delusionz: Mar 22, 2011 - 4:01 PM

[presure2]

The smoke out the tailpipe looks like it has a blue tint to me... But where is that smoke coming from when you go under the car? It looks more white.
Does the smoke smell sweet, like coolant? That's a sure sign of a bad hg.
The way it takes a while to start makes me think turbo, but they sell test strips @ autozone or whatever parts places you guys have on your side of the pond to check for hydrocarbons in the coolant.

[trdproven]

i have white smoke all the time, when i first turn on the car but it may be due to water mist coming out of the exhaust. but i don't have overheating or mixture of coolant and oil. idk what mine is either it stumps me.

[delusionz]

The smoke out the tailpipe looks like it has a blue tint to me... But where is that smoke coming from when you go under the car? It looks more white.
Does the smoke smell sweet, like coolant? That's a sure sign of a bad hg.
The way it takes a while to start makes me think turbo, but they sell test strips @ autozone or whatever parts places you guys have on your side of the pond to check for hydrocarbons in the coolant.

Long story short, a rear end crash pushed my exhaust system in and squashed the piping so the center muffler hangs low and scrapes everything i drive over, its got a hole in it now. What you see coming out from under the car should normally come out the tail pipe.

It's white on idle , and black/blue on rev..... it smells of all sorts of things... Fuel, Oil and just smoke. I'm not sure if I smell coolant though, I don't know what it smells like when it burns.

i have white smoke all the time, when i first turn on the car but it may be due to water mist coming out of the exhaust. but i don't have overheating or mixture of coolant and oil. idk what mine is either it stumps me.

thats normal for any car, whats not normal is when the smoke doesnt go away, or gets worse like to the effect of someone doing a 10 minute burnout in a V8 right next to you..

[delusionz]

I was thinking about this some more... I do have a metal clunk sound coming from my turbo area when i rev the engine.. its not a rotational noise but a one off when the engine twists from torque.

It would be good if it was my turbo and not my head gasket, but that doesnt explain why it overheated in the first place or why i lost all my coolant.

Anyways, I'll lookout for a hydrocarbon test

[delusionz]

Mechanic has car at the moment

Compression test (done cold) was 180,170,170,180 not high but atleast consistent

Spark plugs were sandy white colour? Is this good?

Hydrocarbon test tomorrow.

Looking more and more like a simple case of leaky turbo seals?

Nothing really tells me why my car uses oil and coolant or why it overheated, except for a failed IC pump maybe? Seems however unlikely culprit but only suspect?

[nsxtypeR]

You said black/blue smoke while reving? Had the same with my old 2nd gen 3s-gte, and it turned out to be a faulty headgasket.
This is what it look like when I took the engine apart:







It started with a little more oil consumption then normal. That was when the black/blue smoke appeared. Later on, engine started overheating and smoke became white when cold. That also was the moment the coolant start to disappear.
Before taking the engine apart, I thought it was the turbo that caused the problem because of the black smoke at WOT. It turned out the turbo was just doing fine.

The engine itself was running perfectly normal, no powerloss or stuff like that.

Short story: my bet, despite the compression test you'd perform, is on the HG

This post has been edited by nsxtypeR: Apr 7, 2011 - 1:45 PM