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White Smoke from Engine bay (not exhaust)

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Radianation

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I've been searching the internet (and this forum) for white smoke tonight and most of what I have seen indicates that white smoke from the exhaust is related to a cylinder / head / turbo. However, I'm getting white smoke from under the hood only.

I have a fairly new RB20DET and after getting some new suspension & wheel/tire upgrades I did a very mild slalom on my way home down an isolated stretch of road just to see how everything handled (fantastic btw).

Anyways, I pull into my driveway right after that and I've got white smoke billowing out from the passenger side of my hood up near the firewall. I shut off the car and pop the hood to hear something sizzling a bit, it smells mildly burnt, and the closest guess I have as to where it's coming from is under the intake manifold / ABS area. Under the car there was a small amount of fluid, but not much.

I checked my coolant levels the other day and they were fine. Today when I checked after the car cooled off a bit, the radiator was empty along with the overflow reservoir. I filled both up with a water / anti-freeze mix and waited a bit then started the car. Again, white smoke starts appearing after the engine heats up a bit.

My temperature gauge appears to be working and is not indicating that anything is wrong, but I wouldn't trust that 100% after the swap.

My gut tells me that this is a coolant line that either got rubbed from my new 8.5" wide tires in the front or perhaps the sudden motion during the slalom jarred something that wasn't properly fastened in the engine bay and caused a leak.

However, that doesn't explain why the coolant would be completely empty? My fear is that coolant got in the engine and now I'm screwed. =(

Any thoughts? I'm going to probably get it towed in to the shop tomorrow to have a look at it. I can't get under the car to see what's going on at my place.
 
#2 ·
I had this problem aswell. I took my intake manifold off to discover that the coolant line had a needle size hole draining coolant from my radiator along with the reservoir tank. That is why I probably over heated most the time because of loosing pressure and coolant. Sometimes it drained and sometimes it didn't depending on my drivings. Please tell me you changed your coolant hoses. This sounds like the problem.
 
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Discussion starter · #3 ·
I had a shop do my swap for me (no flames please hehe) and I've been discovering that some things were done properly and some things were done in a hurry. I had a similar problem with the power steering fluid recently. Thanks for the tip. I'm glad somebody else had a similar problem.
 
#5 ·
ya your just going to have to tear into it. Drain the oil and check it to see if it has foreign fluids in it ie. water. White smoke always means coolant which could be a blown headgasket as well so i would get a new headgasket and make sure that you dont need to get the head redecked. These are the reasons i dont let shops touch my car unless i absolutly have to, unless its owned by my friend and i can work on the car with the mechanic so i can be sure nothing is half assed. Although it seems that your shop is good in the fact that if they screwed up they will fix it. But it sucks that they screwed up in the first place.
 
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#6 ·
Yea you dont want your motor looking like this:

Image



Sad. Thats why Im going to tear it down in a couple of weeks. Checked oil and everything and still runs strong!!!
 
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#9 ·
This seriously sounds like a hose problem. On my current POS car, this spring I ended up replacing almost every radiator hose in succession as they all started breaking. If the smoke is in the engine bay and you hear a sizzle as you said, that means that the coolant is leaking out, probably onto something hot (thus the sizzle.) If you have a leak like that, your radiator can definitely leak all the water out, because the entire time you are driving, the coolant is steaming out the hole, and you only notice when your car isn't moving. Just check all your hoses and you should be fine
 
#10 ·
No problem man. We're here to help you as much as possible as long as you give us a detailed description of your problem. Be sure for them to check the hose UNDER the intake manifold where the coolant line is.

Image


See the small 2" hose on the intake manifold?? Thats where I had my small ass needle size hole. Tell them to take a look at it. Something like that can cause more headaches down the road. In fact let them replace all hoses if possible. Good luck!!
 
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#11 ·
looks like ill go ahead and replace that while my motor is out .
 
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#16 ·
Radianation said:
Yep. I think they said something about heater, but coolant was leaking. I'm a little confused on that. It was definitely under the intake manifold.
Click to expand...
What are you confused about? Coolant travels through the heater core.
 
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#17 ·
Sometimes when it leaks like that, it might be a busted heater core, which is what I believe they are saying.
 
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