White smoke after plug change

[eLindemann]

Title says it all.

First off, I changed out the old spark plugs. They all were in bad shape, warped and blackened. Most were in waaaaay too tight as well (I'm not the original owner, not my fault), and all plug holes had a little bit of oil in them. All except the rear, right-most one, that one had a crapload of oil in it. When I pulled out that plug it looked like I dug a slug out of a heavy bleeder.
I tried to soak up the oil with a rag in the plug hole, but I knew this would be a temporary fix and I'd need to do some gasket work in the near future.

I've since reinstalled new spark plugs (OEM Motorcraft ones), properly gapped and torqued (17-19 ft/lbs, I went for 18). Start the engine and engine runs great. Sounds great, low vibration, I'm a very happy boy. I look to my left to see the wind taking white smoke bellowing out of my tailpipes. I'd like to point out right here that normally I have absolutely no smoke (or an unnoticeable amount), yet my tailpipes are blackened so I usually run a bit rich. I know white smoke should be coolant, which scares me because I would have no idea why coolant would be getting into the engine. I ran the engine for a half hour and still smoke pours out. I checked my coolant reservoir and it's still good. What's more, the smoke smells really gasoline-rich, I'd expect some black in the smoke if it were running rich.

No CEL, but as of writing this I'm starting to think I should go for the KOEO test anyway.

I'll post an update after I run the test, but if anyone has any suggestions before I get back I'm willing to take them.

 

[hawkeye18]

Large amounts of white smoke, with no coolant loss, is pure, unadulterated fuel literally pouring out of your exhaust pipe. Doing this for more than about 30 minutes will completely and utterly destroy your catalytic converters, requiring their replacement as well. It is not recommended that you run the engine for long until you figure out why this is happening.

Since the spark plugs are the only thing you messed with, logic would dictate that the problem resides there. Did you make sure to push down all the way on the plug wire boots? Sometimes if you don't push hard enough the wire will not slip over the plug and you will have a non-firing plug, which will definitely cause what you are describing. Perhaps others can chime in more but you should definitely not run the engine a whole lot until you figure out what happened. What did you gap the plugs to? Was it .044?

 

[HotRodKid]

Its from the oil in the plugwells, it can take a damn long time to burn back out of the cylinders. Im going to assume the car idled for 1/2 an hour right ?

 

[VortecGT]

Did you remove your intake to get the plugs changed? If so maybe you forgot your fpr?

 

[eLindemann]

Thanks for the warning about the catalytic converters, I'll be sure not to start it up until I've rechecked everything again.
Boots are on tight, I felt each one click into place. But I will check again just to be sure. I would think that if there was a misfire I'd be feeling it though, and the engine feels better than when I bought the thing in the first place.

Plug gap was .044, though the gap on the ones I removed were anywhere from .040 to .050 it seemed. I'm honestly surprised I wasn't having misfiring problems beforehand.

Its from the oil in the plugwells, it can take a damn long time to burn back out of the cylinders. Im going to assume the car idled for 1/2 an hour right ?

That would be correct.

Did you remove your intake to get the plugs changed? If so maybe you forgot your fpr?

I left the intake on, I had a long enough extension so I didn't need to remove it.
Though I did unplug some stuff to get to the last plug, but I was extra careful to plug it all back in. What's an FPR anyway?

 

[hawkeye18]

Thanks for the warning about the catalytic converters, I'll be sure not to start it up until I've rechecked everything again.
Boots are on tight, I felt each one click into place. But I will check again just to be sure. I would think that if there was a misfire I'd be feeling it though, and the engine feels better than when I bought the thing in the first place.

Plug gap was .044, though the gap on the ones I removed were anywhere from .040 to .050 it seemed. I'm honestly surprised I wasn't having misfiring problems beforehand.


That would be correct.

I left the intake on, I had a long enough extension so I didn't need to remove it.
Though I did unplug some stuff to get to the last plug, but I was extra careful to plug it all back in. What's an FPR anyway?

FPR = Fuel Pressure Regulator, it's the thing on the fuel rail that the vacuum line sticks out of.

It didn't occur to me that the smoke might also just be large amounts of oil that entered the cylinder when you removed the spark plugs.

 

[Eric VerValin]

Well... was it warmer outside? When its cold I get a lot of steam out the back of mine until it gets warmed up. This morning when I ran to get a pack of smokes it was "puffin" nicely Is the car warming up all the way? Double check the ECT sensor... make sure that didnt come unplugged.. ECU may be stuck in "open-loop" mode making it run rich.. It's below the throttle body on the right hand side, (near firewall), of the thermostat housing.

In an ideal world thats all you should see out the tail pipe. Do you have an LPM by chance? Y pipe? whats "mostly stock" Have you drove it at all?

 

[eLindemann]

Yeah, it was about 80 degrees outside when I ran it. I get the steam in the winter sometimes as well, its definitely smoke.

 

[tardboy21]

Its from the oil in the plugwells, it can take a damn long time to burn back out of the cylinders. Im going to assume the car idled for 1/2 an hour right ?

Don't know why everyone is jumping to fpr problems or fuel overload. He said the car started and idled fine, sounded great, but white smoke was pouring out. He also said there was a lot of oil in the plug wells.

How long did you let it idle? I would start it and hit the gas good a couple times and see if the smoke starts to dissipate.

Depending on how much oil dropped down in there, it could a take a little while and some good heat to burn it off.

 

[eLindemann]

I idled for about a half hour. I did it the gas a few times, but each time I did, more smoke came. No dissipation whatsoever. It very well could have been a lot of oil into the cylinders. Similar to what I said in my original post, one plug was dripping with oil as if I had just pulled it out of a filled oil pan. So that could be a half cup or more of oil that could have leaked into the cylinders during the change.

I think I'll try idling it again tonight, during the daytime wasn't so good - the neighbors didn't enjoy all the smoke.

 

[Eric VerValin]

I used to do a "hot soak" and that would break a lot of the carbon deposits and crap off the inside of the motor, and some times it would take a 1/4 tank of gas to burn it all out. If it's not pinging or knocking I'd think you'd be ok to see if you can drive it out of it.

If you had unburnt fuel it shouldn't be "smooth" running..

 

[eLindemann]

Is the car warming up all the way? Double check the ECT sensor... make sure that didnt come unplugged.. ECU may be stuck in "open-loop" mode making it run rich.. It's below the throttle body on the right hand side, (near firewall), of the thermostat housing.

In an ideal world thats all you should see out the tail pipe. Do you have an LPM by chance? Y pipe? whats "mostly stock" Have you drove it at all?

I'll check the ECU. No y-pipe or any of that great stuff, I'm a college student so very little funding for mods. And yes, I've driven it, but not since the white smoke situation.

 

[hawkeye18]

I'll check the ECU. No y-pipe or any of that great stuff, I'm a college student so very little funding for mods. And yes, I've driven it, but not since the white smoke situation.

yeah, the more I hear, the more it just sounds like oil in the cylinders from taking the plugs out. Go stomp on it some, you might get some of the carbon out of the engine in the process. You shouldn't have any problems. My wife's 95 has a very slow leak from something on the front of the engine (probably the cam seal) and a drop will leak onto the cat. You would not f***ing believe how long one drop of oil can smoke for.

 

[eLindemann]

No kidding. I ran it for a little over an hour last night, stomping the throttle intermittenly. Still smoke. It was dark out so I decided to take it for a drive over what I like to call "my circuit" (an area of highway that the cops never bother to watch) and revved it up to 7000 RPM a good 20 times. Did the trick. No more smoke. Checked it this morning, still no smoke.

Thanks for all the help, guys.