White smoke 2009 rx8
 

New to the rotory and my first rx8......
issue I'm having is white smoke. I was told it was the oil metering pump amd just want to make sure its the right part. https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...54664a653a.jpg

Welcome.

Thick white smoke is usually coolant. Too much oil tends to burn blue, can occasionally be white, though.

Read the links in my signature if you haven't done so already.

will do. Thanks

What you were told is incorrect. Is smoke the only issue you have?

Not that I know of....Besides a few blown fuses, which I'm hoping is just the o2censor.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall him saying in another thread that he has some thick white smoke, which means leaking coolant. It's pretty easy to check anyway, just look at your coolant level when the car is cold. Should be between the H and L lines.

Another possibility is if you have a rebuild recently. I heard freshly installed reman engines can have some white smoke coming out.

I guess it depends on how thick it really is. If it's like a very thick vapor then see above. If it has the consistency of steam then it can be normal.

it was pretty thick. I didn't think it smelled sweet like coolant. I do have a new metering pump, but if its not that thennnnn......🤔I'm new so please be patient. Thank you.

Is this similar?


The other possibility is that it could have been overfilled with oil. Pretty quick and easy to check, too. Just disassemble the airbox and take a look inside the accordion tube.

I recall that mine never had any excessive smoke, but since I was doing the air filter(that was when I just bought the car), I decided to disassemble the intake up to the throttle body. Found quite a bit of oil in the accordion tube.

Sorry I meant what he was told about it being caused by the OMP is incorrect. Not your stuff, you're probably right about coolant.

O2 sensors don't blow fuses, that makes no sense.

Is the smoke only present when starting the car? Or at all times?

The only way an oxygen sensor will blow a fuse is if the wires are cut from a loose heat shield, chewed by a rodent, or damaged by road debris which would be extremely rare. The wires could short together from a loss of shielding and cause a blown fuse. I had it happen when I lost a converter heat shield. When that happened, the engine stalled and would not restart. I replaced the blown fuse and replaced the oxygen sensor and all was well.

With that said, when do you see the smoke? Is it under load, is it all the time when driving, or just on initial start up?

You can remove the cap from the expansion tank and start the engine. Observe the coolant in the expansion tank and see if there are Alka Seltzer like bubbles flowing through the coolant. Also, is your engine running hotter than normal or are you having to fill the coolant occasionally? Are you having issues starting the engine? Any of these point to a faulty coolant seal. If you have none of these symptoms, its time to look elsewhere,

Have you checked the oil level and condition? A drain and fill with filter change is only 3.7 quarts. Ensure that the oil is not overfilled. Are there any modifications done to the engine? Do you notice a lot of oil in the throttle body?

Thanks you. Checked coolant level and they were fine. No bubbles. Oil is depleting rather quickly with a check engine light and blinking oil light.

You haven't answered WHEN the smoke happens. On start up? Shut down? Acceleration? It matters.


This was mine.

My bad.. the smoke is continuous. And there was oil all over the rear bumper.

Ok, then I feel confident saying that you have an OMP failure, and one of your OMPs has entered a default / limp mode and has it set to max, which will produce oil smoke nearly continuously, trigger a flashing oil light, and burn through oil at an alarming rate, all 3 of which you have indicated.

What precise type of failure it is, I don't know. Check the wiring to the OMPs, ensure everything is clean and secure, and not just looking at it, unplug, check pins, check for corrosion, check for wire or pin damage, clean it as needed, and re-plug it in.

Then do both ECU resets (http://www.rx8help.com/resetting-the-ecu.html) and see if you still have problems. If you do, it's a hardware failure, not a software fault, and you will probably need a replacement OMP. Get to a parts store and have them read the code for free if you don't have a code reader. There is a CEL code associated with that fashing oil light.

Then I would start with the intake accordion tube. All you need to take the airbox and the accordion tube out is a screwdriver to loosen the metal bands.

Here is what mine looked like just as I was doing some work when I bought the car. You can kinda see the oil pooled in there.https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ce931b71d6.jpg

I would get it done before the oil gums up something in the intake.

When did they install the new motor? A common fault to the O2 sensor is that the wiring harness gets pinched between the block and the tranny and shorts out the heater circuit.

if its a new rebuild then you could also have a bad oil control seal

thank you for your help. It turned out to be a complete omp failure. I will update after the new omp is in.