Hey guys,

So lately my car has been starting up very sluggishly and when i mean sluggishly i mean you turn it over and it takes more turn overs than usual and then next is what sounds to be like missfires and then it idles smoothly. After the start up i see alot of white smoke which if im correct means coolant. Now heres my dilemma:

I have checkes the oil and drained all the oil that was in it, praying that i would not see any sort of milky fluid coolant in the oil. Luckily there was not. So next i thought id go ahead and make sure the head is all the way torqued down to 80ft.lb just to be sure, and it was. So my last thing was to check the coolant reservoir to make sure that there wasnt any leaks. (i had notice over time my coolant would slowly deplete. And to my surprise the tank is fine. So im kinda stuck.. I understand with a big turbo build sometimes a bit of burnt oil will burn out the back on a start up but this seems to be coolant... What can it be? a headgasket? Ive talked to my builder and he said it should be because our head gaskets are pretty well designed and are metal. but if thats not it what would it be? The problem actually seems to be getting a little worse... Any feedback would be a big help!

Thanks guys!

 

Morning bump.

 

Sluggish start is usually a timing issue. Maybe your cam solenoids/actuators aren't working well.

 

white smoke on a cold start is just condensation i nthe exhaust, when it warms up it usually goes away, if not then coolant.

 

If your coolant isn't disappearing, it isn't coolant. If you're oil isn't disappearing or showing up all over your back bumper, it isn't oil. You should be able to tell from smell what it is.

 

Well what's happening is my car starts sluggish, looks like the smoke burning is oil
Because it takes a whole to dissapear but it's colored white, and still my coolant is disappearing so confused. I did notice timing is a little off on the start but it still shouldnt smoke so much. And it's not just on a cold start. Once warmed up a bit or driving it works perfect

 

That's oil pooling in your cylinders before start. That's usually valve seals.

 

If you start the car and let it run for 30 seconds or so and then turn it off and check the plugs, what do the plugs look like?

 

This has happened to me before on a car I had, but it was a very high mileage car where the seals had worn over time. If I hadn't driven it for a few days it would smoke a little for about half a minute and then that would be the end of it until the next time I let it sit.

 

Ya I was hoping it didn't have much to do with valves. Lol but would anyone put money on it being a head gasket? I'm at 28 psi making 568whp on stock head gasket. I know they are strong but I wonder if I broke this one? I drained a whole tank of Copland driving about 50 mes last night and doing a few pulls on the drive back. What is happening?!

 

possibility of a pourous block...

 

Why are you still driving it?

 

Well I've read up on pourus block and it usually seeps into the oil and makes it really milky but I have clean oil no coolant in there. It's just burning through the combustion chamber. And only way of transportation last night that's why. It drives and runs beautiful just starts very sluggish sometimes and the coolant just disappears

 

bump

 

Some of the cracked-block guys have said that their oil never looked milky. They didn't see anything until they removed the valve cover and saw the milky crap on the underside of the valve cover.

 

i have removed my valve cover already and it looks clean no milky residue. does no one think it may be a headgasket?

 

Are you on a stock block? If so, 568whp is in the territory where you will end up with a cracked sleeve. If you have a tiny crack at the top of a cylinder, it could act like what you are describing. You probably wouldn't notice much happening when you are driving around, but when you shut the engine off, coolant would slowly leak into one cylinder until there is no more pressure in the cooling system.

I would run a compression test and then I would put air pressure to each cylinder individually with the coolant cap off to see if there are air bubbles coming out.

 

Ask FasterIsBetter (FasterIsFreakingExpensive) for pics of cracked sleeve.

 

hmm thanks guys i have done a compression test and all did turn out ok, however i did not do it when the coolant cap is off.

 

To test that way, you will need to use compressed air and the compression tester hose with the core removed. Basically the same as when you change valvesprings.

 

matt, lets say if i am getting fluid leaking into the combustion chamber, wouldnt my spark plugs show any sign of it? or wouldn't i have a huge decrease or some sort of missfire in power or during a pull?

 

My sleeve never cracked...ZZP Girdled 2.1L here. Detonation blew the headgasket and melted the head.

 

Oh, that wasn't you then. Somebody on here cracked the top of a sleeve. Was it miller?

 

Did it still run ok or was it running all funky? I wanna think I might just need a new head gasket but it runs fine driving normal. It's just on start ups

 

I would think that anything that causes smoke and misfires on start-up could be seen on the plugs, but you'd want to shut it down at the right time to check them like Antone was saying.