I thought I would post this technical issue here as well as Under the Hood because is is autocross related. Wanted to see if any autocrossers had observed anything like this.

Any insights into this scenario would be appreciated...

At autocross Sunday I had lots of white smoke only on one particular corner (see map at bottom). 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 (fuel guage when low can lie, need to turn ignition off then back on to see truth).

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

 

my S2000 blows tons of smoke at various tracks, but always in the same spot..... usually a hard right hand turn followed by some braking... then once back on the throttle it will smoke for a while.

At road atlanta turn 1 is hard right uphill.... when I get to the top to brake for turn 3 it is like a smoke screen.

supposedly a catchcan setup works to cure that..... so instead of burning the oil (and losing power while doing it), it catches the oil. I need to do this to my car sometime....

At VIR North course mine did it right as i braked for the first time after a hard right hand turn as well.....

did that help? My car has endured about 120laps between VIR and Road Atlanta.

 

This happens to me sometimes on hard right hand turns where I am off the throttle in a low gear as I turn. The combination of high intake vacuum and the g force of the turn allows engine oil up into the engine vent line and or the PCV line and the oil then enters the intake manifold and in turn the combustion chamber. I find it happens less if I keep the throttle open slightly as I turn. It has not happened to me on a left hander though. The one in the diagram does not look particularly severe.

 

catch can or the 04 valve cover with it's newer PCV valve will solve this. My 00 was the original smokescreen, yo, but my 04 never does.

 

Oil smoke is often blue.
White smoke is often coolant.
Grey smoke is often tires.

Any possiblity the smoke was not from your exhaust? Locking up a wheel or inside wheel spin would generate some grey colored smoke. Is your coolant resivoir possibly low or even overfilled?

 

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.

 

[QUOTE]jerrypeterson

 

a torsen LSD let's you light up the inside tire as much as you want when it's unloaded. it provides no lsd action when one wheel is unloaded.

But, you are definitely getting oil into your intake. used to happen all the time in right turns to me, in my 00. Just get a catch can or get an 04 valve cover.