Help. Look at my plugs. Car started smoking also.
 

This last weekend I installed Matt's excellent OCC. While I was doing this, I installed some plugs as well. This was on Sunday. Well, my car started smoking. I think it may have been VERY lightly smoking for awhile now, maybe, but not ever really noticeable, but I could smell it. But now it's smoking pretty bad at idle. White smoke. This was really bothering me since my car has never smoked. It has 12k miles on it now total, it's an 09.

It's now Tuesday. So just in 2 days the car went from no smoke, or basically no noticeable smoke, to quite a bit. So I pulled one of the plugs to look at how it was doing. This is what it looks like, after just 2 days (sorry for the blurry cell phone pics, it's all I have)...

http://members.cox.net/shpankey/sp1.jpg
http://members.cox.net/shpankey/sp2.jpg
http://members.cox.net/shpankey/sp3.jpg

Can someone tell me if these look ok? Or could this be where my smoke is coming from? What concerns me is the horribly black carbon around the edge. Where is all this coming from? What worries me is something like terrible blow by or something along those lines.

I've posted this for awhile, but my car's performance has been in the shitter for awhile now, and it's only gotten worse and worse. Now it's smoking at idle. Very frustrating.

Any advice appreciated.

If you installed the kit wrong you will get smoke. I had the hoses reversed for a short while and it smoked white smoke. Thats very likely your problem.

Your plugs look alot like this one:
http://crunchiemummy.files.wordpress...y_20030715.jpg


Did you make sure you don't have a vacuum leak? That could reduce the vacuum in your crankcase and adversely affect your turbo seals, thus giving you the tell tale k04 smoke issues.

Always a good idea to pressure check the intake system after installing / modding one of its parts.

yeah you might get a better response on your plugs if you actually photographed your plugs, and not the kitchen floor with spark plug in front of the lens.

Sorry, I only have a crappy cell phone camera. I'll try to find my cord for my real camera tomorrow. Still, the plugs are fine except for the super bad black carbon buildup all around the edge, which is evident even in these crappy pics. Which is all I was really wondering about. Just forget everything in the pic except for that.


I put the OCC exactly as Matt's instructions said. But to clarify, what are you saying I might have backwards? The second PCV from the intake manifold? Or are you saying I have the two hoses that run connecting to the OCC wrong? Also, the OCC is working great. It's collecting gunk very well, I just emptied it today and got quite a bit out already. So wouldn't that indicate I have it installed correctly?

LMAO @ the pic! There must've been some leftover Vaseline on the lens...
Good to know about the possibly reversed lines OCC & vacuum check. I'm interested in how this turns out. OP- I hope these suggestions work our for you, and I feel your pain. I had only smoked 3 times (with no smell) since owning the car a year and a half. I just added the TP (and AP) a couple weeks ago, and tonight I got the 'stinky' smoke screen really bad. The good news is I blew away a G37 at a light on the way to the store (it goes down to 1 lane), and it was the first time I got to leave someone in a stench cloud! lol

I had the hoses switched,so the PCV was in the wrong place. I was sure that I had it right, but it wasn't. Maybe you have it right, but it seems pretty coincidental that it started smoking right after the CC install.

I wonder even if you had it hooked up correctly if a bad pcv could cause this?

I just double and triple checked. The hoses are all correct. Any other ideas?

P.S. After I did the OCC install, I did a Seafoam treatment, then changed the oil and plugs. I Seafoamed it b/c I wanted to clean it out good now that I have a catch can to catch most of the gunk.

check youre can and see if its full of seafoam or black tar

That black stuff around the edge is normal, as is the overall whiteness of the rest of the plug, particularly the strap. Modern EFI cars run mega-lean under normal op and pretty rich under power, this is what you're seeing here. Reading modern car plugs ain't the obvious cakewalk it once was.

I may have figured it out. The hose that comes from the IM then into the new PCV then to another hose after the PCV bend. That last part of the hose looks like it was almost off of the new PCV. I barely touched it and it slipped all the way off. There is a clear plastic lining around the orange part of the PCV where the blue hose slips over that. The clear thing is kind of slippery, everytime I tried to re-tighten the clamp the blue hose would slip off. So I just took the clear inner lining off and clamped the blue hose straight on the new PCV. This appears to hold pretty well.

I'll see if it smokes tomorrow. But it appears that it might just be that hose slipping off. ::crosses fingers::

I also reinstalled the PTP pill fix. I've had it off for about 5k miles as I never had an issue with the Turbo smoking, but went ahead and put it on tonight.

p.s. Thanks Darth! That's what I was wondering about. Just seems odd for it to be that bad after just two days. Worried me a bit. But since you say that, I won't worry about it.

You can also try swapping the extra pcv valve with a check valve or something that requires less of a crack pressure.

Unfortunately this is fairly commonplace for the k04. The turbo seals seem to depend on sufficient vacuum in the cc to keep them sealed during idle.

Hopefully that does it. Let us know.

Just took it out brought it up to temp, brought it back and let it idle for awhile. No smoke at all. I wonder how much the PTP pill played a part though.

:)

Thanks everyone!

i trade you new sparkplugs for that kickass trampoline!

take some digital pics and ill help u out, but with the blurr its hard to see if i see orangish hue from actual plug or fucken fuzz

need good pics

Ok will do. I have a nice camera, the problem is my daughter lost the cord that connects to the PC to transfer them to it. I can say however, that inner part that is normally white, does have an orange hue to it. What does that typically mean? I'll try to get some new pic's up tonight though, and thanks for the help.

Drove the car into work this morning and still no smoke. So it looks like that is completely solved. I do worry about the plugs though. Now to find that damned cord. lol

diddiyo, are you in the Northeast Oklahoma area?

i would take the occ off and go from there. do u have smoking issues b4?

Check your anti-freeze levels. White exhaust usually means that anti-freeze is getting into the engine. There can be many sources of this, but first determine if your anti-freeze is low.

Dark exhaust smoke is oil burining; white smoke is anti-freeze.

It needed to be repaired or you will do significant damage to the engine.

I fixed the smoking issue. See above.

Orange can mean fuel additives. Use only good gas.

more likely u will smoke again. just throwing it out there...

You're right, it started smoking again. I will need to get under the car tonight and see if the hose slipped off again.

Catch can with a second PCV actually made me smoke more due to the air flow restriction on the pcv air flow path. Perhaps adding the catch can has pushed you over the edge and made your "smell-able" smoke into the visable smoke like so many of us have. Do you have one of my restrictor bolts too?

I ended up taking my CC off for other reasons, but I need to get it back on there as oil condition is greatly reduced without it. :-(

No, don't have the bolt. I asked about it in the other thread though. I'm interested in it, for sure, now.