White smoke at start-up?

[Rossafeller]

My friend has a 92 Gt, and about 7 out of 10 times when he starts it up, white smoke comes out of his exhaust for about 3-4 seconds, does anyone have an idea of what might be causing this? It doesnt do it when the car is actually moving, and like i said, sometimes it doesnt do it at all?

 

[chobracobra]

White smoke=steam?? Head gasket leak maybe?

 

[stang22]

Check to make sure you are not pushing in any oil from your PCV valve. If it only does it at startup, that could very well be your problem. Oil gets shot up from the PCV and runs down the intake after it sits for a while.

Tim

 

[Rossafeller]

If it was a head gasket leak wouldnt it be smoking all the time? I will check his PCV tomorrow and see what kind of shape it is in; we did just install a cobra manifold on not too long ago, so we could have knocked it loose during install. Thanks for the info guys, i will definatley relay both messages.

 

[mfewtrail]

If the car has no other symptoms of a headgasket and/or oil(blue smoke...can be mistaken for white though) leak, then it's probably just condensation/water burning off inside the exhaust system. Water is afterall a byproduct of combustion. Also, I've noticed that my cars without catalytic converters seem to smoke more at start-up due to condensation vs. my cars that have cats.

 

[stang22]

How many miles does your car have on it? I am putting my money on oil. If it was water, which it could be, he would more than likely be seeing steam which most people can tell the difference. Hot on the inside and cold on the outside equals steam.

Tim

 

[LX302]

It could be that the gasket at the throttle body to the EGR spacer is bad, allowing some coolant to drip into the upper intake, and pool there when he has the car off, and it burns off when he starts the car.
Just a thought.

 

[whiteyford0212]

Check to make sure you are not pushing in any oil from your PCV valve. If it only does it at startup, that could very well be your problem. Oil gets shot up from the PCV and runs down the intake after it sits for a while.

Tim

if oil is getting pushed up thru the PCV valve how would you fix that?

 

[stang22]

You can change your PCV valve and clean the screen out and see if that helps. If that doesn't work, do a search on the PCV valve and see what some of the other fixes are. A lot of people use a fuel filter and a purge can. DMAN302 uses a filter on the hose that goes from the valve cover to the throttle body. Thats another place that oil could be getting in from.

How many miles are on your car?

Tim

 

[Rossafeller]

The car is a 92 GT with about 140,000miles on it, and it has only been doing this smoking stuff since we put a cobra intake on it. I am guessing that it does have something to do with his PCV, we are gonna take his upper off this weekend and check it out.

 

[90mustangGT]

Plain and simple, textbook symptom of bad valve seals. I am almost positive, but there is that chance it could be something else....