Burning Oil / Smoke coming out of Exhaust

[lowkey_domm]

So yesterday we did a "spirited" canyon drive and my buddy told me he was seeing large clouds of smoke coming from my exhaust. I said the car is just running hot and then on the way down the hill I saw what he was talking about tons of smoke coming out from the exhaust.

It was pretty consistent when I gave it gas and let go I could see a bunch of smoke coming from the rear. The smoke color was darker and smelt like oil. I've spoken to friends it sounds like it can be anything from piston rings going, to just a crank case valve seal letting oil into the plenum and burning through.

The car has just now 95k miles I ran the data its only been about 80 so odd times to redline meaning it wasn't abused all its life. Im getting some conflicting points to look at it so now its going into MRF for a leak down test.
Any word from the wise here? Im not looking to add to the confusion here I just want to narrow down what's happening.

*final note worth mention: I let the car cool down and I moved it around to my garage and there was zero smoke. Even popping throttle to try and get it to come back. So it feels that is primarily only when Im on the car hard.

[SYT_Shadow]

Are you catless?

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Are you catless?

Good question, fully catless, stage 2 alpine tune.

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by lowkey_domm

Good question, fully catless, stage 2 alpine tune.

Catless cars have smoke. It is oil and/or fuel. If you had cats you wouldn't notice it.
This is the most likely thing.

In the list of unlikely things you have valve steam seals, etc.

I would not worry about it

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Catless cars have smoke. It is oil and/or fuel. If you had cats you wouldn't notice it.
This is the most likely thing.

In the list of unlikely things you have valve steam seals, etc.

I would not worry about it

I felt and said the same thing. But after seeing the amount it was a bit concerning were talking a fair amount of smoke. But I may just do this leak down to confirm, the valve steam seals are a pretty easy fix.

[Richbot]

This may be one of the few times strapping the car to a dyno might be a cheap diagnostic with an AF meter to see if the car is dumping fuel for some reason. If it's running pig rich you might need to chase other things like temp sensor, tune, yada

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by Richbot

This may be one of the few times strapping the car to a dyno might be a cheap diagnostic with an AF meter to see if the car is dumping fuel for some reason. If it's running pig rich you might need to chase other things like temp sensor, tune, yada

Yea I have a feeling the Tune is fine here, Alpine well known and tested. If I was dumping fuel I would notice a big difference in fuel economy I feel and its been the same. Also smells like oil burning.. Im going through a good amount of oil. Maybe just time to do my vc seals and stem seals and see where Im at from there. Thank you for input

[SYT_Shadow]

Unless you have a video that shows an insane amount of smoke I bet your car is perfectly fine.

Your friend is probably used to catted cars where the exhaust is squeaky clean

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Unless you have a video that shows an insane amount of smoke I bet your car is perfectly fine.

Your friend is probably used to catted cars where the exhaust is squeaky clean

Im trying to see if my buddy has his car recording system on to get that video. Im use to catless cars have had them for years, this looked excessive to me personally but Im not senior cert mechanic so who knows. All my buddies that saw it called me and said theres a shit ton of smoke. Hes also a catless supercharged m3 and said it was excessive. Thank you for your input

[Scharbag]

I agree that catless cars will "smoke" a bit under heavy load due to excess WOT fuel. However, driving down a hill without loading the engine should not produce enough smoke for you to see it in your mirrors.

If you are consuming a lot of oil, and the exhaust smells like oil... I would have it checked.

Cheers,

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by Scharbag

I agree that catless cars will "smoke" a bit under heavy load due to excess WOT fuel. However, driving down a hill without loading the engine should not produce enough smoke for you to see it in your mirrors.

If you are consuming a lot of oil, and the exhaust smells like oil... I would have it checked.

Cheers,

Thanks agreed, heres an update spoke with MRF so far and we think it could be a faulty piston ring due to a misfire code I had about a month back. Cylinder #2 was misfiring and it took me all day to replace, he feels that this is probably what is happening. Still need to do a leak down test to confirm.

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by Scharbag

I agree that catless cars will "smoke" a bit under heavy load due to excess WOT fuel. However, driving down a hill without loading the engine should not produce enough smoke for you to see it in your mirrors.

If you are consuming a lot of oil, and the exhaust smells like oil... I would have it checked.

Cheers,

I agree that if you can see it yourself from the rear view mirror that is too much, however, OP said his friend saw it while following him

[Scharbag]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

I agree that if you can see it yourself from the rear view mirror that is too much, however, OP said his friend saw it while following him

Ahh, I thought the OP mentioned he could see it himself - "So yesterday we did a "spirited" canyon drive and my buddy told me he was seeing large clouds of smoke coming from my exhaust. I said the car is just running hot and then on the way down the hill I saw what he was talking about tons of smoke coming out from the exhaust."

Regardless, if it smells like oil, it would worry me

Cheers,

[lowkey_domm]

So my buddies asked for a video too see how much smoke was coming out. So yesterday I took the car out and shot some video for you guys to see what Im talking about. Also, this is 100% oil not radiator smell. My buddy also said after showing him the video that when we were in the canyons he saw more smoke than in this video...

This is 100% not normal and somethings a miss, it could be something small like a crank case seal thats letting oil pass. Or a damaged piston ring, I have no clue how a misfire code could damage a piston ring especially when I didn't even drive the car on the misfire. I parked it in the garage and fixed it drove home everything was fine.

So far I plan on doing a compression test soon to see if the cylinder is giving me issues or not. From there if the cylinders are fine (I pray) than I'll do a leak down test to try and pin point where it is coming from.

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by lowkey_domm

So my buddies asked for a video too see how much smoke was coming out. So yesterday I took the car out and shot some video for you guys to see what Im talking about. Also, this is 100% oil not radiator smell. My buddy also said after showing him the video that when we were in the canyons he saw more smoke than in this video...

This is 100% not normal and somethings a miss, it could be something small like a crank case seal thats letting oil pass. Or a damaged piston ring, I have no clue how a misfire code could damage a piston ring especially when I didn't even drive the car on the misfire. I parked it in the garage and fixed it drove home everything was fine.

So far I plan on doing a compression test soon to see if the cylinder is giving me issues or not. From there if the cylinders are fine (I pray) than I'll do a leak down test to try and pin point where it is coming from.

[acarr6]

Originally Posted by lowkey_domm

That's definitely not "good smoke". Normally it would be much darker. That's oil burning.

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by acarr6

That's definitely not "good smoke". Normally it would be much darker. That's oil burning.

I think I've got a valve stem seal going bad. This would make the most sense to me. Im getting a proper diagnoses in two days from an expert, I'll fill you in with what comes back.

[JPWEraser]

My money would be on the valve seal.

The PCV is a good guess but it's a horrendous amount of oil smoke all of the sudden it's not the likely culprit. I had one go bad in my 530 a couple of times.

I had a ring go bad on my S2000 and the oil burn-off would occur after the engine was off throttle decelerating and then back on throttle. General acceleration didn't have a lot of smoke.

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by JPWEraser

My money would be on the valve seal.

The PCV is a good guess but it's a horrendous amount of oil smoke all of the sudden it's not the likely culprit. I had one go bad in my 530 a couple of times.

I had a ring go bad on my S2000 and the oil burn-off would occur after the engine was off throttle decelerating and then back on throttle. General acceleration didn't have a lot of smoke.

Same exact symptoms, when on the throttle really no exhaust smoke at all. But popping the throttle or in neutral you see it like in that video. I don't see where the valve seal is on our cars meaning like is it above, inside, or below the valve cover? Or does it mean the valve cover seal itself? Well see.. no expert mechanic by any means over here

[JPWEraser]

The valve stem seal is in the valve cover around each valve stem. A leaky valve stem seal usually shows at all times but more on throttle. It's allowing oil to get into the combustion chamber from the head.

If the burn off happens like I described with my S2000 experience then I would go with a ring being the culprit. It's allowing oil to get between the cylinder wall and cylinder into the combustion chamber. I thought your video indicated something different.

[lowkey_domm]

Originally Posted by JPWEraser

The valve stem seal is in the valve cover around each valve stem. A leaky valve stem seal usually shows at all times but more on throttle. It's allowing oil to get into the combustion chamber from the head.

If the burn off happens like I described with my S2000 experience then I would go with a ring being the culprit. It's allowing oil to get between the cylinder wall and cylinder into the combustion chamber. I thought your video indicated something different.

Sounds like it is time to replace my valve cover seals and bolts! They've been seeping pretty bad so it was just a matter of time before they had to be done. Ill order everything this week and report back once I've completed it. Still going to get the inspection just to be sure but thank you for your input.

[///M Power-Belgium]