Any insights into this scenario would be appreciated...

At autocross yesterday I had lots of white smoke only on one particular corner (see map below). Here are some clues.

• The speed approaching this left turn was about 40-50 MPH (estimated), then hard brake, turn and accelerate. At the point of acceleration I was told that I had lots of white smoke.
• Visual inspection of the car revealed nothing and on subsequent runs similar amounts of smoke appeared only on this one corner.
• I had changed the transmission oil the night before with MT-90 and over filled it by some amount due to my car being raised from the drivers side.
• When starting the car to leave for the day the low fuel indicator was on and I did not see below two bars while I was racing. I normally start autocrossing with just a bar or two below half, but I had arrived with less fuel to this event. The reason I did not see below two bars is because I never turn the car off through all my runs. I read a thread in the past that talked about this feature.

I have read a lot of threads on white smoke and most talk about coolent introduced to the combustion process. In at least one thread it talked about running lean. For this circumstance I tend to think it may be because of running lean as indicated by the low fuel light. There was no noticed degradation in performance while accelerating out of this corner. Does this sound plausible?

Thanks,

Rob

 

That is really surprising that you would blow smoke on a left turn. It is very common for S2000s to blow smoke on hard right turns. An oil catch can between your PCV valve and intake manifold should resolve the problem.

 

This may or may not have bearing on what's going on (you guys decide).
I'm keying in on the "white" smoke, which usually implies coolant ....................
For those of us who live in areas where we use our heaters a lot (like in winter), I've noticed that once the car has gotten up to normal operating temps, upon any kind of brisk left hand turn, the heater suddenly puts out a LOT more heat while in the turn. It goes back to normal within a couple of seconds once the car straightens out.

 

Thanks for the insights, based on the responses I asked two other people (not the one that reported it to me at the event) what color the smoke was. The answer I got was blue. This answer makes more sense since it was only happening on one particular corner. I also think that it was likely that it occurred on the swing back to the right near the entrance to the last slalom.

Does this scenario sound plausible? I won't be settled until this makes sense to me.

 

This could be way off base, but could it be a tire rubbing on something - especially since this was a tight corner taken at a pretty good clip. At speed it is sometimes hard to tell if the smoke is coming out of the tailpipe or from the tires - especially since you're getting the info second hand. I suppose if it is a tire rub you should have some evidence somewhere under the car.

Just a thought.

John

 

Believe me or not, same here. On our local Autodrome, I get white smoke only after a hard left corner ("parabolica"), than it goes a bit up the hill into 3rd and a long right hand corner.When I floor it, the rpm STOPS at 6500rpm, hell lot of white smoke exits the exhaust and after 2-3 seconds the show is over and the car runs fine..till the next lap:O(
Please let me know if any of this helps:
1.Mugen oil pan
2.oil catcher

 

When you check your oil, is there any indication of a milky looking residue on the dipstick? What about checking the radiator and coolant reservoir looking for any sign that oil is/has been present?

 

yeah i've put milk into my oil but it smokes only on 1 turn on ine track

 

It looks like you're indication that you ran the course counter-clockwise and the turn was to the left. Is that correct?

As others have suggested, blowing smoke in hard right-hand turns is a known characterisitc of the S2000, especially when oil levels are full. The catch can solution works well.

However, if the turn was indeed a left-hander, I don't know what to suggest.

 

That's a good point... I got the smoke on a left-hander yesterday, too... and didn't even think about the fact that it was a left-hand corner, and not a right-hand corner. It was a similar configuration to the diagram in this thread (ours was actually a "Chicago box"). So, there was heavy braking (from 63 down to about 30) in a straight line, transitioning directly into the left-hand turn. Mine may have had just a wiggle of a right hand turn, but not much.