White smoke at idle after injector nozzle installation

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
I have been noticing that my 110 non pd leon has been putting out white smoke at idle , since I done the nozzles, I'm unsure what this could be, is it because of unburnt fuel or could this be a damaged turbo, as I'm also getting a p0324 turbo overboost engine code when I go over 100 mph. Want to find if I'm doing damage to my car and how I could prevent this.
 

Carlos_TJ

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2014
Location
Tijuana Mexico
TDI
2009 Bora (BXE PD)
Does the white smoke smell strongly smells like diesel?
If yes you may have an overfuel condition. What are the derails on those nozzles? Rebuilt? Bigger?
 

KLXD

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 22, 2009
Location
Lompoc, CA
TDI
'98, '2 Jettas
Were they quality name brand nozzles?

Were the injectors properly calibrated after the the new nozzles were installed?

Was the timing checked?

Was the IQ reset?

Seems to me smoking at idle on a warmed up engine would not be overfueling. Too much fuel would increase the speed to which the ECU would respond by decreasing fuel to maintain the programmed idle.
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
Seeing as you diy the nozzles, you need to have a trusted tdi mechanic do a pop test and tune on them with a Bosch flow machine. Many have tried to diy them, some have had success but all of them were incorrect and the (good enough) approach was taken way to far.
In extreem cases you can hydro lock the engine with fuel or even worse, burn a hole strait through the piston and into the block, or just melt the turbo and warp the head with extreem high EGTs
Chances are slim that it could happen to you but if it did, it wont be the first time its happend from a diy nozzle swap.
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
You should post this on the MkIV section of this site.
At least provide all the other details about this TDI's problem.
 

Diesl

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
TDI
'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
White smoke = water, no? Blown head gasket, or other water leak?
 

Giberish33

Veteran Member
Joined
May 30, 2017
Location
Montreal, Qc
TDI
1997 Jetta TDi 1z
White smoke = water, no? Blown head gasket, or other water leak?
From what I have read, white smoke is usually a stuck open injector. Not exactly sure how you get white smoke from over-fueling when that usually generates black smoke, at speed at least.
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
If the fuel does not burn at all, or the fuel is not sprayed properly, it will not burn. Both black smoke and white smoke are both symptoms of poor fuel injection black smoke is a lack of air to burn it.
 

fatmobile

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Location
north iowa
TDI
an ALH M-TDI in a MK2, a 2000 Jetta, 2003 wagon
Air in the fuel line going into the pump will cause white smoke.
Retarded timing?
Pissing injector?
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
White smoke from a cold engine can mean one of three things. If it smells like oil, you may have wear on the valve stem seals. This allows a small amount of oil to seep past the seals and into the cylinder, which then burns on engine start up. It usually only lasts a short period of time.

Another source of white smoke is that which smells like diesel and is indicative of incompletely burned fuel due to a cold engine. It clears up as soon as the engine warms up. Sometimes it may also be caused by lower compression due to some other problem such as incorrectly installed glow plug(s) or compression loss due to cylinder or piston ring wear, or valve sealing problems. I have experienced glow plug installation problems, and that one cleared up in a few minutes after the plug warmed up and lengthened enough due to the heat to seal itself against the seat. Compression losses due to ring or cylinder wear or valve problems might not seal at all - I don't have experience with these troubles.

White smoke that smells like coolant may indicate a head gasket problem. You may have this problem accompanied by oil in the coolant, and certainly exhaust gasses in the coolant. While a coolant cloud would dissipate more quickly than oil or unburned fuel, if it were due to a head gasket failure it probably wouldn't stop as the engine warmed up.

Massive over injection due to a nozzle or injector failure will result in possibly white smoke at first, but as the engine warms a bit, you should see black smoke when the fuel tries to burn, is not held back by cold temperatures, but forms soot because of a lack of sufficient air for the fuel getting injected.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Cheers,

PH
 

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
Bit late getting back to this but, in the Finnish up I took the nozzles back out and decided to do a few more things to the car first, I put a pd130 turbo in along side a 1.8 t smic, now I am back to the nozzles, I had bought the nozzles of eBay as I couldn't find anywhere near me who had any, they hadn't been pop tested, the car hadn't been mapped to suit them and still had the original map sensor which I believe was the reason the car was overboosting. Now I am trying to decide what to do, do I put the nozzles which I had previously got back along with 3 bar map sensor in and hope for the best. Or should I get new nozzles and if so where is the best place to get them ?
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
there is so much going on here and most of it is being done poorly or incorrectly.
putting larger nozzles on, needs to be pop tested and installed properly with quality parts.
you have NO EGT gauge and your probably doing damage seeing as your overfueling with no tune. eBay nozzles, 100mph issues, geeze, SMH
Kerma (IMO) is where you should order a hot swap kit, get proper nozzles with a proper tune. best you can do is talk to a tuner (like Kerma) or maybe one in your area? I dont know where Tyrone is, or if that's a joke or what. no idea. all i know is that your asking for trouble doing things half hazzard like this. i did and its not a good recipe.
lots or arguing here about if you can DIY them or not and if its a bad idea so you will get mixed reviews on this but for the most part, unless your dedicated to a clean work area and doing things properly, dont DIY a nozzle job.
what size nozzles are they?
 

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
there is so much going on here and most of it is being done poorly or incorrectly.
putting larger nozzles on, needs to be pop tested and installed properly with quality parts.
you have NO EGT gauge and your probably doing damage seeing as your overfueling with no tune. eBay nozzles, 100mph issues, geeze, SMH
Kerma (IMO) is where you should order a hot swap kit, get proper nozzles with a proper tune. best you can do is talk to a tuner (like Kerma) or maybe one in your area? I dont know where Tyrone is, or if that's a joke or what. no idea. all i know is that your asking for trouble doing things half hazzard like this. i did and its not a good recipe.
lots or arguing here about if you can DIY them or not and if its a bad idea so you will get mixed reviews on this but for the most part, unless your dedicated to a clean work area and doing things properly, dont DIY a nozzle job.
what size nozzles are they?

I understand that what I did before putting them in without testing wasnt such a good idea issue, see I live in Ireland and there's not many people who offer these types of services, the reason I put the nozzles in myself in the first place was because I was advised to do so by the tuner I went to, was told this was a simple job that I could do and any .216 eBay nozzle would work. Now I know this was bad advise. As for getting other nozzles I'm not sure if I can get nozzles from likes of kerma to here, hence why I went for the eBay nozzles. The ones which I bought where apparently dsla150p764 nozzles or at least that's how they where advertised. What sort of issues could I run into with such nozzles, say if I get them tested, and everything is ok, are eBay nozzles known to cause other issues later down the line?
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
well, doing a DIY is not a big no no, you really should do a pop test on then and calibrate them with shims.
764's are HUGE, i mean MONSTER. i run 764's with a gt2052 and even with that turbo i get 1600+ temps easily, even back when i installed them and set the QA to 5 to 6, on the stock turbo for the AHU, i still saw 2,200*F on 2 pulls, toasted the stock turbo, it was getting replaced anyways. but that was on a HARD LONG pull. i have no doubt that you are over fueling way too much and exceeding EGT limits on your turbo. you NEED a EGT gauge installed at the very least, otherwise you face not only melting a turbo but pushing a hole through the piston from a bad spray.
what is the QA your running right now with those nozzles, needs to be at least 7 or even 8 to call it safe on a stock or small turbo.
 

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
well, doing a DIY is not a big no no, you really should do a pop test on then and calibrate them with shims.
764's are HUGE, i mean MONSTER. i run 764's with a gt2052 and even with that turbo i get 1600+ temps easily, even back when i installed them and set the QA to 5 to 6, on the stock turbo for the AHU, i still saw 2,200*F on 2 pulls, toasted the stock turbo, it was getting replaced anyways. but that was on a HARD LONG pull. i have no doubt that you are over fueling way too much and exceeding EGT limits on your turbo. you NEED a EGT gauge installed at the very least, otherwise you face not only melting a turbo but pushing a hole through the piston from a bad spray.
what is the QA your running right now with those nozzles, needs to be at least 7 or even 8 to call it safe on a stock or small turbo.
Well I don't have the nozzles currently in the car haven't a clue what the QA was at the time. I put them back to stock nozzles after about a week what size actually would them nozzles be? And what would a good nozzle be to pair with the 130 turbo?
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
you need VCDS, and to inspect your turbos heath for end play and how much poil pressure is coming out the back end vs the input of the oil feed.
im not a guru with your or anyones TDI so i cant answer but just trying to share my experience with what you got going on.
 

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
well, doing a DIY is not a big no no, you really should do a pop test on then and calibrate them with shims.
764's are HUGE, i mean MONSTER. i run 764's with a gt2052 and even with that turbo i get 1600+ temps easily, even back when i installed them and set the QA to 5 to 6, on the stock turbo for the AHU, i still saw 2,200*F on 2 pulls, toasted the stock turbo, it was getting replaced anyways. but that was on a HARD LONG pull. i have no doubt that you are over fueling way too much and exceeding EGT limits on your turbo. you NEED a EGT gauge installed at the very least, otherwise you face not only melting a turbo but pushing a hole through the piston from a bad spray.
what is the QA your running right now with those nozzles, needs to be at least 7 or even 8 to call it safe on a stock or small turbo.
The turbo was only put in the car a few days ago so it should be all good. I'm looking to get the car to like 160-170 ish for now on your experience what sort of nozzles would be suited for that power?
 
Last edited:

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
i know what i'm going to say is going to rub people the wrong way here, but due to your location, issues with getting quality parts, and so on, i would suggest you buy a car that does what you want, vs making your TDI do this. your going to spend LESS. IMO
How much does a early 200's boxster run over there?
 

Bigleondriver

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Location
Tyrone
TDI
1.9 non pd MK1 leon mapped and .216 injectors
i know what i'm going to say is going to rub people the wrong way here, but due to your location, issues with getting quality parts, and so on, i would suggest you buy a car that does what you want, vs making your TDI do this. your going to spend LESS. IMO
How much does a early 200's boxster run over there?
Not cheap over here insurance is crazy expensive, your talking about £3-5k to buy a car such as that and then another 3k for insurance and that's being generous, hence why Im doing what I'm doing, I'm not trying to make a track car out of it as I already have one just can't stand its current power.
 
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