HELP Noise and smoke - almost broke something?

I just had something strange happen to me coming back to work after running an errand. I was at a stop sign and started off with reasonably hard acceleration. I almost immediately heard a loud noise that sounded like lifters and lots of black smoke. I immediately engaged the clutch and was ready to turn off the engine. The noise went away /images/graemlins/confused.gif Drove the rest of the way to work with no issues. Taking it very easy of course. Now I am scared to drive home. I popped the hood and there is nothing obvious. No pools of oil or anything like that. Any ideas?

As always, thanks for your help!

Sorry...violated the cardinal rule...search first...post second. /images/graemlins/blush.gif
OK...I read some past posts and there was mention of a particle being stuck in an injector. Would that really make that kind of racket? And all the black smoke? It looks like another possibility is an issue with one or more lifters.

I guess it is possible that a piece of crud could have come loose since I cleaned the intake a few months ago. But I did not clean the area where the intake meets the head. I guess I will cross my fingers and drive home soon.

More airflow = more force exerted on crud in head ports.

My vote is you ingested a little piece of crud from the head. Probably no problem if problem cleared itself quickly.

Thanks Paramedick...it made such a racket I thought something was broken for sure. You are correct though. It happened that one time and there have been no other symptoms. Car is running fine. Lucky I guess.

i just cleaned the intake on my 96 passat today, after only 198,728 miles. well to say the least IT WAS PLUGED, so it took 5 hours of scraping and brushing and dipping in carb cleaner , and gassoline. but what realy broke the crud free was pb blaster penetrating oil.
anyway the intake runners in the head were full too, so i put the engine on tdc for each intake i was cleaning, then sucked all the crudd out with the suction sine of a sand blasting gun (the hose you put in the sand), got it all back together and started it up. ran fine.
i took it out for a little run, and i musta missed a bit of dirt. because about 3 times it lost power for a second then blew a big ol' cloud of smoke then went happily on its way, and its been fine for the rest of the day. waaaaaay more power. it pulles past 3000 rpm easily, never did that for a long time. but its been a second car for a while too.
so i can say that the engine seems to pas the crudd through it without any adverse effects.

I agree. It is now two days later with no repeat occurrences. It sure made a lot of noise though. I thought I may have bent a valve of something. Had these visions of costly repairs flowing through my head. Panic...not quite but pretty close. If it would have done it again on the way home from work...definitely panic. /images/graemlins/eek.gif

Oh Noes!

I just did my intake cleaning, drove around, felt great but after 10 miles it started making a horrible ticking sound like a valve and it gets louder and faster with engine rpms. Any ideas?

Make sure intake is on tight Bio Todd. No other guesses besides looking around the injectors to make sure they are not leaking exhaust gases.

exhaust from injectors?

please clarify this exhaust form injectors.