blown head gasket? mabey? i didnt have any smoke after my mac install, and neither did zshark after we did his.

 

Put macs on with orp. As soon as we left the shop i had smoking problems. car runs great but when u get into it and let out on decel. I have WHITE smoke and LOTS of it . my car never smoked and never used any oil. now it smokes and uses oil like it has no rings at all. has anybody else having this problem. i personally know of three cars that this has happened to . 1 of witch finally blowed up. heard the mustangs were having same problems with the macs. any ideals or help would be great. thanks

 

Rnr27band1, do you non smokers have cats ? Did you also address tuning right away ? How about WildRon, what did you guys do tuning wise ?
Coating or not may also have something to do with this.

 

Were your MAC's coated? I know back when I had Hooker shorties on my car I had them Jet-hot coated and they smoked for about an hour or so. I don't think that is the problem. I believe if it's white smoke that is coming out it means that your car is running lean. You probably need to pick up a MAFT.

 

So there is no obvious causes in the header setup itself, at least within sampling this small. Damn, these occasions are wierd, I've heard of the smoking so many times right after a header install only. Could the head gasket fail because of sudden change in a/f possibly overheating the head ? What did you guys do with tuning ?

 

I have had the macs on for 6 months now and no tuning, zshark has had his on for probly 4 or 5 months and he just tuned with ls1edit, and i will be tuning with ls1edit as well soon.

 

THE HEADER COATING HAS BURNED OFF . ITS NOT THAT I KNOW. PUT ABOUT 300 MILES ON IT . SMOKES BAD ON DECEL ONLY AFTER YOU'RE IN IT RPRETTY GOOD. NORMALL DRIVING NO SMOKE. THERE IS A LITTLE BLACK SMOKE WHEN YOU NAIL IT BUT THATS DUE TO RUNNING RICH. USES OIL NOW ABOUT 3/4 OF A QUART SO FAR.

 

THE HEADER COATING HAS BURNED OFF . ITS NOT THAT I KNOW. PUT ABOUT 300 MILES ON IT . SMOKES BAD ON DECEL ONLY AFTER YOU'RE IN IT RPRETTY GOOD. NORMALL DRIVING NO SMOKE. THERE IS A LITTLE BLACK SMOKE WHEN YOU NAIL IT BUT THATS DUE TO RUNNING RICH. USES OIL NOW ABOUT 3/4 OF A QUART SO FAR.

 

Simple answer of course is "don't do that".

I still think this sounds like a PCV deal.
There's something about oil slosh on some
models, depending on where the pickups are
located on the valve cover / head. When you
are revving high, you load the top end with
extra oil that takes time to run out the
drainback holes, you just have more of it up
top. Then you decelerate hard, slosh it all
forward to a PCV system breather port that
should be flowing the other way but isn't,
'cuz you snapped the throttle shut and vacuum
is high. Maybe also get more of it going
down the valve guides, if it's an older
car with worn guides and seals, under suction
from the intake.

Everything about this sez it's oil getting past
someplace it shouldn't, because of high vacuum.

If it does this on the driveway too, then you
ought to have a buddy hold a piece of plate
glass, or clean aluminum, etc. right in front of the pipe as you are about to let off your smoke
bomb. The cold will condense some of it for you
to examine. If it goes away, it was water. If
it's still there, oil (or maybe antifreeze, but
you should be able to taste the difference).

Headers improve exhaust scavenging, meaning
there should be less residual cylinder gas
and therefore higher maximum intake manifold
vacuum as the cylinder can draw in more on the
intake stroke.

I recall I had an old '78 Pinto that used to
do something like this, and at the age of 19
I thought it was pretty cool. I put a cherry
bomb "muffler" on it and a piece of flex hose
pointing up and back, so whenever anybody got
on my *** (which was easy to do to a Pinto
with no guts) I could rev it up, drop throttle,
and give them a big oily fart cloud. It amused
the hell out of me, anyway, right up until I
rear ended a Corolla, smudged its bumper and
totalled that Pinto. Quality is job 1.

But that's not the effect most people want out
of a car like these.

 

If the white smoke is comming only from the exhaust, its a motor issue. If the smoke is comming from under the hood when the car is stopped, its a header coating, coolant leak, oil leak issue.

Enjoy your cars.

 

You're probably right Jimmyblue.

 

I am curious as to the answer to this problem. I have called many different suppliers and they dont seem to know anything about this problem. I personally know of 5 cars that were not having any problems and when the headers and orp were installed the cars went to white smoking terribly. I am not talking a little puff, I am talking enough to cover the backend of the car to the point of making you think you had set off a fire extinguisher! It is not a head gasket issue, it is an oil issue. My question is why does it start after the header install?

 

I have a 2000 Camaro (the year w/ oil consumption problems). I always was consuming oil, but the exhuast never smoked. When I put on cam/headers, smoke would come out of my tailpipes at WOT. I am running a stock cam and stock manifolds, and smoke still comes out of the tail pipes at WOT.

 

I asked about the coating because it affects how the heat builds in the head area and also what temperature the o2 sensors operate in. Cats also can have an effect on o2 sensor readings as they damp the exhaust pulsing past the sensors and contribute to the temperature too.

I don't have answers but I would really like to hear more about which setups cause the smoking and which do not. At least it would point in the right direction. One thing I'm suspecting is that what the PCM sees is not always the real thing and may cause a/f problems.

 

Ok my macs are coated, zhsarks are not coated, i have the mac cat pipe with gutted cats and he had teh off road pipe, which he has replaced with a 3" cutsom y pipe/catback. When we installed our headers some "smoke" came off the headers under the hood at first but that was just the grease and **** what was on our hands that got on the headers during install burning off, but after a 30 min drive it was all gone. Mine dose not smoke out the tail pipes except for if its really cold and wet, but thats just normal and any cars exhaust will be like "smoke" and be visable. IF you have billows of white smoke i would check and see if you have a blown head gasket.

 

Did you guys make sure it's not the PCV ?

 

It won't cure your oil consumption but why not install a oil catch tank, there are plenty on the market to choose from including the one Justin Sutton makes.

Al

 

The pcv has been changed on these cars and also an oil catch tank. The smoke still flies. What next?

 

Well, like I conjectured, it could be the
valve guides passing some oil under suction
from the intake manifold. These aluminum
head cars probably have bronze guides,
which wear. Seems like headers go onto
card which have more miles on them. I guess
a set of new valve stem seals would answer
the question although it's a nuisance to
do if the heads aren't already off.

I still wonder about the PCV. Most of the
catch can schemes I've seen are addressing
the "forward path", through the PCV valve.
But there's also the breather path, the
breather is also behind the throttle plate,
and here's another kicker, you're going
from max blowby to max vacuum when you
drop throttle hard.

How to distinguish between oil through the
valve guides, oil through the PCV, or even
oil out the exhaust guides (to be vaporized
rather than combusted) I dunno, other than
to totally disconnect both PCV suction and
breather returns for one good run and see
if it's unchanged.

You do need to be sure whether it's oil or
coolant as I said; hope you can do it at a
standstill on the driveway. That's the most
basic question and it hasn't been answered yet.
Try the cold mirror / glass / aluminum trick
and tell us what you collect.

 

THANKS GUYS FOR ALL OF YOUR INPUT. BUT STILL NO LUCK IN STOPPING THE SMOKE BOMB. THINK I'M GOING TO PUT IT BACK STOCK. ANY ONE THINK CATS WOULD HELP. MAYBE IT WOULD PUT SOME BACK PRESSURE.ONCE AGAIN THANKS