ShadowDrake

Hey,

Had a bit of a problem with my stang this morning, let me set up the story:

Saturday I went auto-crossing for the second time. I finally hit my rev limiter for the first time ever... It only cut fuel/spark once, and I was off... Otherwise, most of the race was 3000-5000 RPM. 4 passes total, at about 50 seconds each with about 40 minutes in between, not a whole lot of time up high.

I drive home, everything is fine.

Yesterday, I start the stang to move it out of the garage, starts up fine, all is well. It's running for about 20-30 seconds and it never went above 1300 rpm... it sits till this morning.

This morning, I go out to start it... it starts fine, but the idle is extremely rough (but exactly at 800 rpm as it should be). The whole car is shaking, I immediately, turn it off, and re-start it... same thing. I pop the hood and step (read: jump) out of the car. I notice a small blue cloud floating away from the back of the car. I now run to the front, and pop the hood and look... No smoke, no missing plugs, still running really rough. I put my hand on all of the coils in an attempt to feel for any misfire or problem, but find none... I walk around to the back of the car and attempt to smell for burning oil... there's some smell leftover, NO smoke... it's harder for me to determine the smell of burning oil without cats.

I walk back arond to the front, pull the throttle open a little, no ticking noises, no abnormal sounds... I give it a little rev (engine is still cold as can be), maybe 2300 rpm tops and no abnormal sounds/smoke.

After about 60 seconds from the startup, the idle settles in to being fine, and no smoke. I drive it to school, and it sits for 6 hours, long enough to get back to cold. When I go out and start it, it starts just fine, like nothing ever went wrong. I let it wam up, go WOT through first and second, no smoke out the back... everything is normal, and it has been so far.

Short version: Yesterday I start my car, all is well. Today I start it, it idles like **** and blew a puff of blue smoke. Idle returned to normal in about a minute and there has been no smoke since... WTF?

I've been told it was the EGR valve getting stuck, but I don't have a clue. What was it?

Derf00

You realize if there was you could've zapped yourself right? [8D]

You should hook up an OBDII scanner. Not all codes are thrown on the first mishap. Some wait for a consecutive occurrence oftwo or more times on two or more drive cycles. See if there are any pending codes stored.

Blue smoke is usually oil. Doesn't sound like EGR. Could be valve stem seal, could be an oil ring had to reseat. Pull the plugs and see if any plugs are oil soaked. If you find any, do a compression check on it and the two closest to it.

Added: You could've just sucked up some blowby from the PCV system. A lot of times with high reving, oil may get past the valvecover baffle, through the PCV and into the intake. Since you made some high RPM passes and you haven't had any further issues with the oil or idle that was probably the case. I would still check all your plugs and codes though just to be safe.

ShadowDrake

Yeah, could have But I didn't have a better way at the time to feel for anything wrong. I was just going to buy a new set of spark plugs when my paycheck comes (thursday) and rent a compression tester and see what I get.

There was no high RPM between the last shutdown and the problem occuring. Like I said, I started it for about 30 seconds or so the day after the auto cross and it never got above 1300 rpm or so, was just moving it out of the garage. Had no problems then, but on the next start the next morning, it blew smoke. I'll have results on if this is a repeat case tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

Edit: Because I never said it, the CEL never came on... I know you acknowledged that, derf, but someone might say "go get the codes scanned!" Well, that gets difficult when there's no light anyway

ShadowDrake

Started this morning, no problems... Granted it was about 15 degrees colder yesterday morning... but all is well. Weird, randomly burning a bit of oil only once is strange, I have never seen that before.

Dan04COBRA

Derf is right about the PCV, if your car was parked in any strange incline or maybe autocrossing oil managed to get in there and burned on the next start up.

I remember with my GT, if I parked on a steep incline it would smoke and idle a little rough for a few seconds before it cleared up. However it never once happened when it was on a level surface with no incline.

I would just do a quick compression check and look over your plugs, if everything checks out okay I would go have a beer and relax...all is fine.

RHR281m

i had this problem too, exept i ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for months untill on a whim i checked my pcv, $2 fixis better than a $2000fix.

02WhiteGTVert

CHECK YOUR PLUGS!!!! my buddy had this same problem just yesterday,found out is was because a plug started to back out...luckily he caught it before he needed a heli-coil!

racer02GTstang

my car use to do it on cold morning untill it would warm up. around 20-30 degree's the car would backfire some untill it got past cold.

Fobra

do you have long tubes? do you have a dyno tune for any of your mods?

With my car, sometimes if it sits for awhile, the car has to remapp - so it will stutter and run like *** for a 1 or 2 mins, if i drive it everyday - then no problems... I think I need a dyno tune to permantly solve it

ShadowDrake

Still running strong so far, new plugs tomorrow. All are secure, I am very wary of a plug backing out and stripping the heads, I know it's way common in the 2v engines.

I am using stock exhaust manifolds on a stock tune (+ home made mil eliminators for the O/R Prochamber).

No more burnt oil, no more problems at start up (or ever)... seemed to just be a freak case... but I'll still check it out. We'll see if the problem comes back next week when it should go back to being colder. It's been nice the past few days, was about 45 the day I got the burning oil, and it's been 60 or so in the mornings lately... weather got warm again, yay