20vt blue cloud of smoke on startup

[Mihnea Cotet]

Hi all,

So, the oil has been changed 3200 km ago (2000 miles) and I had to add 0.5
qt of oil a week ago. I've noticed the blue smoke yesterday after a pretty
spirited drive (and 2 hours of sitting in the parking lot) but I didn't
drive it like a rallye driver, so I'm really puzzled...Before yesterday I
had driven it a lot more violently (overboost from 1st through 4th gears,
this means roughly 0-115 mph accelerations in less than 25 secs) but never
noticed any smoke nor that burnt oil smell before, so I assume it didn't
exist before... I didn't have time to check the oil level or the
compression tonight after work because it was already dark but as soon as I
get a chance I'll do it! The oil and water temps stay pretty much the same
as before and I didn't see any "mayonnaise" on the oil filler cap or on the
expansion tank cap, so I assume the head gasket *should* still be fine,
even though the boost produced by the MTM chips I have in it right now is
pretty high (2.7 to 2.9 Bar overboost in 4th and 5th gears with the stock
wg spring almost completely unscrewed).... When my friend was sitting in
front of the exhaust pipes yesterday while I was starting her up he told me
the smoke was more like white (it's definitely a very light blue but blue
and not white!) and he also told me it sort of smelled like coolant but
after the engine was started I went back there to check and there was
nothing anymore, no smell and no fumes, except for the cloud that went out
of the pipe when I started the engine...


Thanks for all the replies and I'll let everyone know how this eventually
works out, but hopefully the "beast" won't be my daily driver anymore in 2
weeks because I'll be ordering a new Opel (GM) Corsa with a 1.7l 16v DTI
engine that does more than 50mpg of diesel (and diesel costs 3/4 of the
gasoline price here) for my daily 90 miles commute. (how I wish it was a VW
but they are way too expensive for me right now!!!), so I guess that in a
few months I'll pull the engine and the tranny again in order to install
the brand new tranny I have in the garage, swap the head gasket for an RS2
(or S6, it's the same reinforced gasket), the EM and maybe the turbo as
well, and have the car repainted....


Mihnea


PS: here is what the Corsa looks like... doesn't have quattro nor 4 rings
on it but it's cheap, uses very little fuel and will serve well its
commuter pupose:

http://www.opel.be/showroom/imagegallery/corsa/images/01.jpg




At 11:03 28/10/2002 -0700, Brian Link wrote:

>Mihnea,
>
>Did you recently change your oil?  Check your intercooler to intake hose
>for excess amount of oil.  If I fill up with 5 quarts (4.7L) I will
>usually get a little extra oil in the hose which leads to the start up
>smoke.  Once I empty out the hose and clean my intake it stops.
>
>Hope that helps
>
>Brian
>
> >Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 03:37:39 -0800 (PST)
> >From: Mihnea Cotet <c_mihnea at yahoo.com>
> >Subject: 20vt blue cloud of smoke on startup
> >To: quattro at audifans.com, 200q20v at audifans.com
>
> >Subject line says it all, since yesterday I have a
> >huge blue cloud behind the car on start-up, but
> >nothing more afterwards, even when pulling hard. I
> >know the intake plumbing is not perfectly tight and
> >leak-less but at least it's not enough for the ECU to
> >run in limp home mode. Could this be the cause? Could
> >it be the turbo? I'll check tonight when I get home
> >for any shaft play, before installing the engine this
> >summer it had virtually no play!
>
> >Thanks for any valuable input,
>
>
> >Mihnea
>
>_
>
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