jeetS

I decided to pull my plugs today. The engine has about 4k miles on the rebuild. Ive had a cold start issue since I got it and it idles a bit rough but otherwise runs fine. The only other thing I can think thats out of the ordinary is sometimes when idling it blows white smoke...



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Does anyone have any idea of why my plugs look like they do?! It pains me to think of what the combustion chambers look like!

cylinders #3 & #4 look fine....

they are lined up 1-4 left to right.


Here is a picture of it idling...it gets daily driven so theres no condensation buildup. about 60 degrees today and its fully warmed up...the vapor disappears right away...its just seems abnormal...


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Im also starting to hear what sounds like an exhaust leak right around the manifold...

Let me know what you guys think!

stock88pickup22re

Are those plugs all the same size? That looks like there are 2 larger plugs and 2 smaller plugs in the picture. A 22re turbo would be so cool... hot... fun.

jeetS

haha ya the plugs were sitting on my tailgate, the two on the right are in a "valley"

stock88pickup22re

OK. The plugs from cylinder #1 and #2 seem to have way too many deposits for only 4k miles. Were the plugs replaced during the rebuild? If those cylinders were burning oil I would expect to see black oil and fouling. Maybe they were fouled during the break-in. All four plugs should look like those from cylinder #3 and #4. Have you tried cleaning the plugs and running the engine? Does the engine run smoothly on all four cylinders without any miss?

The white smoke might be steam from a leaking head or head gasket. That will get much worse very soon if that is the problem. Do you use antifreeze and don't have a leak on the ground?

My head gasket failed and leaked anti-freeze into the cylinder and produced a heavy fog bank for the final mile. The coolant leaked from the water passages between the head and block and into the combustion chamber along where the head gasket failed. Curiously, the antifreeze cleaned away the carbon where the leak was found so maybe that is why the plugs are not oily looking. This is very mysterious.

stock88pickup22re

The deposits could be from either running rich or burning oil. If your white smoke is from burning oil then maybe the valve guide seals are leaking. If your white smoke is from running rich at idle then you might get black smoke under heavy throttle. The black smoke is common with high compression engines when they run rich. There are some more possibilities except there aren't many clues.