Engine's smoking
 

After my engine has been running for a few minutes, it will start smoking from what appears to be the passenger side heads. The smoke is gray and has no noticable odor. Not quite sure what it would be.

Oil, most likely.

if its steamy then its coolent, if it smells burnt then its oil,

Well, either way it's doing it pretty bad, what would cause it to suddenly start smoking badly?

Could be clogged PCV, or a valve cover gasket blew out and oil is coming out.

Look at it, I am pretty sure you should be able to find the cause.

I have, can't really tell where exactly it's coming from.

dude be more specific so we can help! either take a vid if u dont dont know wat ur saying or tell us

Well i'll try to take a video when i have time. But here is what is happening to the best of what I can describe. I start the engine, after about a minute a gray smoke with little odor to it seems to be coming from somewhere on the passenger side of the engine. It seems like it might be coming from under the valve cover, and there is quite a bit of it.

then maybe valve cover gaskets

Take it to a shop. Problem solved.

i may be wrong but mine was doing the same thing i couldnt figure it out for the life of me, then one day i turned my wheel and i heard the ever so famous powersteering whine, so i looked real closely and the hose had a small leak, it leaked long enough that it caused my alternator to go bad but when it idled for a second it would smoke so u may want to check that just imo

Here is a video of where it was coming from, you can't see the smoke very well but it is noticable. http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...t=MOV00590.flv

It smokes for a good bit after the engine is turned off as well.

old school small block. Definately valve cover gaskets. Ive dealt with that before.

Hmm, can anyone else agree or disagree with this. Hopefully this is all it is as I'm going to be getting some work done on it in next few weeks that is the only problem. What makes it smoke so long after the engine's off?

I concur. Quite possibly the valve cover gaskets. Did you switch to synthetic recently?

ya change the valve cover gaskets, if its still doing it put on a new pvc grommet in case its coming from there

I've been using synthetic since I've had it, though if you guys seem to be all agreeing on valve cover gasket I'm hoping thats it so I can go through with this work asap!

what makes it smoke is there is still oil on the manifold. The reason the old small blocks are so bad, is because the oil drain back holes are not big enough to drain the oil out of the rocker area. Plus the sealing surface of the head sucks and only has four perimeter bolts to hold the cover down. When GM switched to the centerbolt valvecover in 86-87? most of the valve cover gasket problems quit. They also put a lip on the inside of the valve cover to keep oil from directly hitting the gasket. I would recommend the fel-pro rubber gasket. Those are the ones I have had the best luck with.

Ah cool thanks, well when I get some work done I'm getting new heads/intake as part of the work so I imagine that should help, not sure if I need new valve covers though.