289 help.. white smoke

Unburnt fuel is black.

From my understanding (which could be wrong), you need the thermostat to help slow down the movement of coolant or else it moves to fast to cool the block.

Are you going through coolant? Do you have to top it off to drive down the road?

Usually, if you have coolant going into the exhaust, some compression will leak back into the radiator as well. And ditto on needing the thermostat, it definately needs one. Without it, it takes longer for the motor to warm up, but when it does, it wil usually overheat due to the coolant circulating too fast.

the white smoke could be normal from condensation in your exhaust. Before ripping the heads off and doing all kinds of work, you should start by checking the basics. Are you losing coolant? How do the spark plugs look? The carb sat for 8 years without use? It probably needs a rebuild. Check those things first.

runawayabc123 said:

From my understanding (which could be wrong), you need the thermostat to help slow down the movement of coolant or else it moves to fast to cool the block.

Click to expand...

A closed thermostat restricts the flowrate of engine coolant... thereupon reducing the amount of heat dissipation via the radiator... thereupon allowing the engine block to raise it's core temperature during the "warming up" phase. At a preset temperature, the thermostat begins to open, thereupon allowing greater flowrate of engine coolant to the radiator, thereupon dissipating excess core temperature in the engine block - ideally on an "as needed" basis.

When the McLaren F1 Team won 2 championships in'98-'99 with Mika Hakkinen, one of the design breakthroughs that year was the Mercedes (Illmor) 3 litre V10 engine was made some 20% smaller, allowing it to run hotter without integrity issues, thereby producing greater horsepower. Core heat is actually a good thing in an engine - assuming your intake air charge maintains a low (as in dense) temperature prior to the combustion chamber. The maximum horsepower per gram per hour figures being produced today hover just on 39.5% of fuel burnt, and they remain F1 engines. Most road engines would be lucky to break 32% of potential to realised energy conversion. It doesn't seem much, but that extra 6% of energy liberation per gram of fuel burnt creates a great deal of difference at the back wheels.

But I digress. Back to your regular channel.

Well you can start now by filling up the coolant all the way and giving it some run/drive time and keep checking the coolant level. I suggest to drive it one day, then check it the next morning, drive it again, check the next morning, that way it is consistent with what temp you are checking it and so forth. Is your white smoke problem happening when the engine is at operating temp? Is it worse when it's cold?

Have any of you ever wondered how stuff works?

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/cooling-system8.htm