[CO335D]

Hey all,

I noticed puffs of white smoke out of my exhaust while driving home from the mountains today. It was odd because the puffs would appear while I was just idling at highway speeds, and not really under load. My car has been burning oil it seems recently too. I was almost a quart low the other day. I’ve had to add oil every so often since I deleted the car.

My car is a 2011 w/ JR stg. 2 tune and full exhaust/deletes.

Any idea what could be going on? It was a decent amount of white smoke and was pretty random as far as when it would appear.

[Owen81]

Could be a lot of things. No codes?

[CO335D]

No codes at all, and the car isn’t spuddering or anything like that. I don’t notice the tach going out of wack either. It seems like it’s happening mainly when I’m just cruising on the highway.

[AOJoe]

Sounds to me like the valve cover gasket and maybe egr cooler if you still have it installed.

[335dsleeper]

Are you sure it’s white smoke? Does it have a blue tint?

[CO335D]

Egr cooler is deleted. It looks pretty white to me, but I can try and verify next time I’m out on the road.

[Asonchadwick]

White smoke and consuming oil after delete? Could be turbo oil seal leaking oil into exhaust. Maybe oil was leaking before delete but either way you should have noticed the oil level go down before deleting and tune. The dpf could have caught the burning oil and you may never have seen it before deleting but the level should have decreased. I am going to guess turbo oil seal.

[Yozh]

let’s clarify, it’s puffing on the reapplication of the throttle after coasting on the highway. Correct? Probably oil from your CCV. If in excess, then could turbo oil seals.

[CO335D]

To clarify, the smoke will appear at highway speeds, when I am not on the throttle. Under throttle, I don’t notice any smoke. It seems like it’s only happening at highway speeds too.

[Owen81]

I'd bet a turbo seal as well

[CO335D]

Originally Posted by Owen81

I'd bet a turbo seal as well

Out of curiosity, where would these specific oil seals be located?

[335dsleeper]

Turbo seal failure with our turbos are not common and often misdiagnosed. The oem seals are robust.

I’d look at the following before removing turbos.

1. CCV system
2. Valve cover gasket
3. Valve seals

White smoke is indicative of water, not oil. Burning oil will be blue, not white. If OP is seeing white smoke, he might have another issue all together.

[335dsleeper]

They’re internal to the turbos center section.

Originally Posted by CO335D

Out of curiosity, where would these specific oil seals be located?

[CO335D]

Originally Posted by 335dsleeper

Turbo seal failure with our turbos are not common and often misdiagnosed. The oem seals are robust.

I’d look at the following before removing turbos.

1. CCV system
2. Valve cover gasket
3. Valve seals

White smoke is indicative of water, not oil. Burning oil will be blue, not white. If OP is seeing white smoke, he might have another issue all together.

I will dig into it more this weekend, thank you! I will post my findings.

[Owen81]

Valve cover gasket would be worse with increased boost, same for the CCV. He said there is no smoke with more throttle?
Valve seals would have the most white smoke on startup?

[335dsleeper]

Valve seals won’t make white smoke. Neither will the CCV or the valvecover gasket.

My valvecover gasket only had issues when it was cold. Boost wasn’t a factor and it would chug blue smoke.

CCV can smoke if there’s a restriction, it will cause blue smoke on decel or light tip in, and not boost specific. It smokes at low load since pressure Increases in the crankcase at low loads when the turbo isn’t pulling gases through it.

But again, not white. It’ll be blue smoke.

White smoke is coolant. Op could have a head gasket issue, which is unlikely or maybe the egr cooler is leaking coolant into intake. Hard to diagnose over the web.

Blue smoke is oil. White is coolant/water.

[CO335D]

I’m going to tinker with a few things this weekend, and report back. I haven’t been able to get it to do it again...which is odd. It was at the end of about a 300 mile drive initially.