Coolant-oil swapping

[Ameer Antar]

if you know compression is good, very good, then you know there are no 
leaks. White smoke is very normal in the morning. Water tends to build up 
in the exhaust as the car cools down and the vapor condenses, especially if 
you lot's of short trips, or the exhaust doesn't get hot enough to 
evaporate all the water. BTW, water is a product of combustion...so it's 
perfectly normal for it to be in there. Every car I've owned spit up a bit 
of water in the morning...it's very normal, that's why mufflers can rust 
internally and sound like there's dirt in the muffler. If you really 
dislike this, you can try to adjust the muffler or design a new system that 
angle down as it travels back, so the water doesn't get trapped at any 
point in the exhaust....but it's really not worth it for normal amounts. A 
better idea would be to run the engine longer to get all the water out of 
there, but it's harder in winter since the muffler and pipes get cooled so 
quickly.

Sounds like you really have some fuel or ignition issue. 4 things are 
needed for good running...good compression, lots of air, fuel, and on-time 
ignition. These are the areas to check. A Bentley manual will help you 
diagnose....many times bad temp sensors can cause problems. Do a tune up, 
check everything, change the o2 sensor if it's old, clean up any idle 
control valves, check all sensors....etc. BTW, do you have a special cam in 
there...that causes rough idle...just some ideas, but there's many more 
possibilities. Best to just get under there and examine everything. good luck.

-ameer


At 04:08 PM 2/5/2001 , you wrote:
>     Compression was good, very good.  Though the car makes lots of white
>smoke, all the time, has been loosing coolant on and off, coolant system
>leaks down quickly with no visible leaks, replaced the heater core, and more
>head gasket type related problems.  The exhaust spits out lots of water as
>well.  All these symptoms, besides the compression test, point to a problem
>involved with the headgasket, head, or block.  The idle has ALWAYS sucked,
>it's an Audi 80 4 cylinder characteristic.
>
>Cheers!
>
>Alexander van Gerbig -- '88 80
>
>The Audi  80 Pages-----------------
>http://surf.to/the80pages.com
>
>North Ferrisburg, VT 05473