To smoke or not to smoke

[Drumraven12]

Was smoking now I am not smoking.... background

I was running an AEM intake hypertech tune, testpipe, GHL catback, and a pg inlet turbosmart dual port (full recirc). I ran this setup for a little under a year with no hiccups or problems then one day driving home I am sitting at a light and I "smell" something and I thought it was the car in front of me then noticed lots of white smoke in my rearview mirror....
For the next 2 weeks I monitor very closely when this happens and after 4 weeks it happens on 3 different occasions every time it was at idle after driving awhile and it always dissipated after I started driving again. There was no change in performance of the car but scared me either way.
So I decided Im going back stock and taking it into the dealership. So I removed the pg inlet and removed the testpipe I then ordered a stock bpv.... so I still had the hypertech tune on and the aem intake and the catback..... Well now it has been 2 months and I have not seen any smoke at all?? I took a trip last week to the smoky mountains and put a good 2000 miles on the car and with varied driving from pushing it to being a grandma I never saw one ounce of smoke?
? Did I have turbo issues?
? Did the lack of cat cause smoke?
Have my issues just been "band aided"
Im lost on what caused the smoke and what my next step should be I was resolved to get rid of the car but I honestly fell in love with it again on the long trip....
I was almost to my goal with modding this car... I was lacking the top mount upgrade intercooler and a downpipe... do I leave well enough alone? Or drop this baby at the dealership?

Curious if anyone else has had smoking issues and then they go away with removal of "mods"

Thanks in advance

 

[tddvrrn]

sounds like your turbo seals are going bad. the dealership won't replace the turbo unless they can see it, and it probably won't smoke stock.. poop!

at some point you'll need to replace the turbo, but that maybe years down the road. so it's your call. you could drive it with your mods back on and increase idle to 950rpm to get rid of smoke. then, when you've had enough, put it stock to trade in. hopefully it won't smoke then. or you could commit to keeping the car and plan on a turbo replacement one day..

sorry to hear you're smoking.

 

[blackdragon0731]

I've been smoking since I put on my catless DP in September. It's not something we can do anything about, really. It's a combination of the turbo seals being bad and the PCV system on the car being bad. Basically a problem there from the start is made worse when you start modding the exhaust especially. Taking out one or both cats (both in my case) allows the oil to just escape instead of get burned off by the cats. Any modification to the DP/MP area of the exhaust will further the smoking because you decrease the backpressure and thats the issue with our PCV system, not enough backpressure for the turbo seals to seal correctly.

Don't let the smoking scare you too much, it's most likely going to happen when you start modding the exhaust. My car is the same way, no performance differences with the smoking problem. I did install an OCC kit, and that alleviated it a little bit... it still decided to smoke when I let it idle to warm up the few days it was below freezing down here in FL, but that was it since the OCC install. You can always go with the restrictor pill from PT-P.

Talk to your dealership too, don't let them know you have mods unless you need to, but see what they say.

 

[SallySpeed3]

Yeah I wouldn't worry too much. If you plan on getting a DP be prepared for it to get much worse. For that reason thats one thing I won't tamper with, even though I know I'm missing out on big gains. However,there are some guys who are completely catless and don't have any smoking issues. With normal idle rpms and my test-pipe I was getting smoke after first start up, but would go away for the rest of the day once driven for a few miles, which led me to believe it wasn't my seals, only the bad pcv system not draining oil out of the turbo as it sat over night. Some easy editing in ATR took care of the problem for me. Yeah its true that it smoking might cause the need for a turbo replacement sooner than later, but I still think you have a while before that happens. If you're out of warranty when that happens, which you most likely will be, you could always just go the PG route and have them rework your turbo. In addition to some performance gains, they also take care of the bad seals. Don't stress too much

 

[meicalnissyen]

and increase idle to 950rpm to get rid of smoke. sorry to hear you're smoking.

Soo.... how do you increase the idle???

 

[Drumraven12]

thank you all for the replies...

I try to always error on the side of keeping my engine safe and I have been back and fourth on messing with this car so naturally as soon as I saw smoke I freaked out... especially reading these forums and people blowing up all the time or so it seems.

I really wanted to contiue modding... like i said I was only lacking tmic and downpipe to complete all I wanted to do engine wise but the little bit of smoke stopped me. If its not a serious problem then great but dang I felt like a D-bag sitting in the drive through with white smoke everywhere lol.... i really miss the extra exhaust sound even with just the test pipe and I miss the quicker spool with my inlet.

 

[blackdragon0731]

Yeah man, throw em back on there and have some fun! Just... ya know, park and go inside instead of using the drive thru, lol. Also for the best gains, go the FMIC route. TMIC upgrades are better than stock but obviously they're still prone to heat soak sitting right on top of the engine like they do. A good FMIC kit might run you a good chunk of change more, but it's worth it. With our turbos the lag is negligible, I honestly have felt no differences, maybe because of the quicker spool over stock with my intake and whatnot... either way, lag is negligible, power gains are great! With my bolts a tune got me an extra 40whp and 54wtq.

 

[tddvrrn]

Soo.... how do you increase the idle???

as far as i know you need to use the cobb ap to adjust idle. i'd love to hear from others who know of alternate ways to change idle..??

 

[SallySpeed3]

A good FMIC kit might run you a good chunk of change more, but it's worth it.

My kit from PG including shipping and powdercoated pipes was $500. Thats cheaper than any TMIC upgrade on the market. PG doesn't offer them anymore but you can still search around for piping kits and supply your own core for a very affordable fmic. Just gotta do some work and not worry about having a "name" on the kit. But it definitely is worth it.

 

[Drumraven12]

Just updating for small bump

It has now been several weeks since I had some smoke and went back to stock. What I have been doing is slowley adding mods back on to do some "testing" myself. I have read several post about the smoke and the cats are what stops it or most people would be somking and this seems to be acurate in my case.

I now have the hypertech back on the AEM CAI and my GHL catback.... two weeks ago I reinstalled the PG inlet and I have yet to see any smoke at all ever..... only mod I am missing now that I had when it smoked is the test pipe??

Guess that one extra cat was catching all that oil?

 

[blackdragon0731]

2 cats in the system definitely did a good number on burning up the oil, thats for sure.

 

[Domino81]

I called my local dealer here and spoke to him. I'm in the industry (I sell auto-parts to them), so he may have been giving me a break because he told me he didn't care that I had a CAI other than the Mazdaspeed. I didn't mention I have a race pipe. My issue is this, if I get them to replace the turbo, this is only going to happen again (eventually). Does the PT Performance mod even ******* work? If I have to spend money to replace the turbo, then what good is warranty? If I upgrade to a BNR Stage 1, I'll need an AccessPort to run it. Which isn't a BAD thing. But now we're talking more money. It's a good amount of money I didn't to want to spend. Right now, I have to tell you... I'm pretty discouraged with this car. Up to this point I've been really happy with it. Now... I'm really upset that I have this issue now, too. I've been thinking about the PTP mod and changing the oil because it's getting a little old. I've been using 0W-40 Mobil 1.

 

[darkthunder]

I was skeptical when i bought the ptp fix. I was driving over a very steep grade pass, when I would get the car down to the other side the car would smoke like a bastard. Pouring out if I let it idle for over 2 minutes. The ptp fix did work. Unbelievably. My seals are going out anyways due to wear and tear, but after the install of the ptp fix I have not had a single issue with idle smoking. Not one. It has been on for around 20,000 miles. Now I burn a little oil at full throttle, but like I said, thats from the seals just going bad. I also live at 6500 ft, and use Castrol Syntech 5w-30.