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blue smoke?!?!

thethirdmurph

New CEG'er
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
Messages
6
so I jump in my car this morning just like any other day however after pulling down the road I noticed a large blue cloud of smoke following me... the car doesn't seem to be running too bad. I thought it may be the head gasket but after driving it a little more it has become sporadic. it chugs a little bit spitting out blue smoke but then stops chugging and runs fine... my brake booster has been acting up and seems to have given up the ghost yesterday so I'm wondering if this could be affecting it in anyway.. thanks guys
 
Blue smoke is burning oil. there are really only 4 ways for oil to get into the cylinders, 1 of which isnt common on any engine that i know of.

through the intake manifold via the PCV system - pull the PCV lines and look for oil. ideally they should be dry but a small amount is still ok.

rings - do a compression test. write down the numbers. then add a small amount of oil to the cylinders and do another compression test. if the compression increases your rings are bad/going bad. post the numbers here.

valve stem seals - i have yet to see any contour actually have problems with the valve stem seals. even at 241K miles my old engine didnt have any problems.

head gasket (least common) - it is possible to blow the head gasket into an oil galley, however it will normally blow into a coolant jacket instead. this would allow coolant into the cylinders and produce a white smoke.
 
I pulled the plugs and the two inside plugs had black crap built up on them and the two outside ones looked perfect. haven't had a chance to do the compression check yet. the smoke hasn't been constant though.. I drove around all day today and it smoked like 2 or 3 times for about 5 seconds each time (at least from what I could see from the drivers seat).
 
Clean the plugs with some gasoline, and put them back in. Pull them a few days later and see if they look any different.
 
I check the compression today and got 155, 150,150,151.. now I'm baffled. any help would be great thanks guys..
 
Try cleaning the plugs, if they're that dirty, they may not be firing properly. Pull your air filter, does it have any oil on it?
 
I can try cleaning the plugs but what would cause only the inside 2 plugs to look black when the others are fine? and I have a cta motorsports intake with a 9" k&n air filter on it that needs cleaned but other than that it's good. no mass amount of oil or anything though
 
Make sure there isn't oil coming in through the crankcase breather... at least on my intake, it vents right back into the intake, and mine used to move a decent amount of oil.
 
no oil coming through that tube either.. mine is clear so i can see if anything is running through
 
just cleaned the plugs and took her for a spin seems alright. I guess I'll just drive it till it starts acting up on a more consistent basis.
 
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