Yeah it was nothing crazy just a little puff but I guess mine was doing it to. Interesting. Hopefully its nothing big.

 

I've never seen the SS/TC's puff white smoke from running lean but back in my Talon days white smoke 9 times out of 10 was a safe bet you were running lean.

And the colors 09CobaltSS1 describes below are the ones I was taught back when I used to work at a shop.

white smoke: possible lean condition, bad head gasket, warped head and/or coolant being burnt

gray/blueish smoke: oil being burnt in some form, or even bad valve guide(s) or seat(s)

black smoke: rich condition and/or ignition problem causing rich condition

 

I gotta ask ya. How does a LEAN condition cause smoke? Burnt air makes zero smoke. A LEAN condition exists when there is too LITTLE fuel being burned. LESS fuel would equal LESS emissions. Smoke included. A RICH condition will make BLACK smoke. Emissions from a rich running engine contain excess CARBON. Carbon is BLACK.

 

That is my theory a lean burn is clean and produces less carbon soot. White smoke is either burning coolant or rich smoke mistaken for "white smoke"

 

Hmm I seem to have spilled a little coolant on my SC to IM Gasket and forgot to clean it up. How bad will this effect the motor? Shoots out white smoke and has a sweet smell to it

 

bump

 

hello?

 

If that is all it is just change your plugs after the smoke show stops. Take it easy on the car for now. The smoking should stop pretty quickly. Might want to run some fuel injector cleaner through the car as well to clean the gunk off the piston and the valves.

 

At NLS, I puff out a ball of black smoke > normal since a car burning rich creates black smoke.

grey smoke is Oil burning. Are you sure its white smoke and not grey smoke?

 

running rich maybe?, my neighbor didn't recognized my brother's RX-8 and thought me and my brother were trying to jack his ****, so he hit the gas hard and a trail of whiteish smoke, I told him about it and he said his car was running really rich, cause his tune was not all set yet or something like that, been awhile and can't remember

 

My 98 eclipse GSX ran rich when I put in my 580s and the 16G. I tuned it out with the SAFCII
I was running it with open downpipe no exhaust. And MY car would shoot flames out the back during shifts. Scared the crap out of everyone. I miss that car just raw power.

 

That sounds a lot easier than ripping the engine apart and cleaning it. How long should it take to make the smoke go away. My car is currently dead because this happened while changing the alternator so I never ran it for more than 15 minutes because I got scared of the smoke.

 

Unless you spilled so much in there that it hydrolocks the motor you should be fine. It might take a couple hundred miles to burn it off completely. Change your plugs after 200 miles or so and put some good fuel system cleaner in to help clean the burnt coolant residue off the piston, valves, etc. Check plugs after another couple hundred miles to make sure they have no yellowish green deposits on them (they will smell like burnt sugar as well). if they are clean then you are good to go.

 

Umm yea. Im not gonna drive with white smoke coming out my exhaust. lol

 

Unless you spilled a ton in there it should burn off pretty quickly. You can let it idle for a while before you drive it.

 

no it's not a ton.I'll see what happens either tonight or tomorrow

 

so is it ultimately safe to drive?

 

I would think so.

 

ya ran it and revved it for a while. no more white smoke