Smoke out of header? Intermittent rattle?
11-24-2010, 08:29 AM
#12
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@ImportedPower - winner winner front-line winner!
Ok I am posting this at my own embarrassment so y'all can get a good laugh:
The "smoke" is indeed burning Castrol Edge 10W-30. As it turns out, my funnel had a small crack in it that leaked oil onto the header when I was filling the engine with new oil. We put a small amount of oil onto the header and fired up the engine - voila! The burning Castrol Edge doesn't look or smell like burning oil - it looks like steam and has almost no smell!
Embarassing - but THANK GOD there is no real problem.
As far as the other issues - the fuel economy and rough idle, etc - we pulled the plugs and performed a compression test. Compression was excellent in all cylinders. The plugs however had strange white oxidation on them (consistent with running lean, not rich). Also these were the same NGK laser platinums I had for about 40K miles, before my original valve fiasco. Turns out if you smelled the boot of the ignition coil on every plug - there was a fuel smell! I was losing compression through the plug (somehow) and fuel was getting into the coil's plug boot! So I replaced all the plugs with NGK Laser Iridiums (NGK IFR7G-11KS, same heat class as OEM, etc) and fired her up - no shudder, more power (according to butt dyno) and back to normal fuel economy!!
So happy the fix was $50 of plugs...
As for the rattle... it hasn't come back for some strange reason I can't determine. I checked all the header bolts and they were all tight and to spec torque.
Ok I am posting this at my own embarrassment so y'all can get a good laugh:
The "smoke" is indeed burning Castrol Edge 10W-30. As it turns out, my funnel had a small crack in it that leaked oil onto the header when I was filling the engine with new oil. We put a small amount of oil onto the header and fired up the engine - voila! The burning Castrol Edge doesn't look or smell like burning oil - it looks like steam and has almost no smell!
Embarassing - but THANK GOD there is no real problem.
As far as the other issues - the fuel economy and rough idle, etc - we pulled the plugs and performed a compression test. Compression was excellent in all cylinders. The plugs however had strange white oxidation on them (consistent with running lean, not rich). Also these were the same NGK laser platinums I had for about 40K miles, before my original valve fiasco. Turns out if you smelled the boot of the ignition coil on every plug - there was a fuel smell! I was losing compression through the plug (somehow) and fuel was getting into the coil's plug boot! So I replaced all the plugs with NGK Laser Iridiums (NGK IFR7G-11KS, same heat class as OEM, etc) and fired her up - no shudder, more power (according to butt dyno) and back to normal fuel economy!!
So happy the fix was $50 of plugs...
As for the rattle... it hasn't come back for some strange reason I can't determine. I checked all the header bolts and they were all tight and to spec torque.
11-29-2010, 01:09 PM
#14
Registered User
Rattle on mine was cracked heat shield on the header. Replaced header with aftermarket header with it's own heat shield. Problem solved....until now the aftermarket heat shield is cracked too...engine vibrations over time fatigue the metal I guess causing the cracks which make the rattle.
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