Source of white/gray smoke?

Exenos

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Location
Ontario
TDI
02 Golf
I'm chasing after a smoke issue with my AHU swap project. I get a good puff of white/gray smoke on startup that settles down to just slightly visible smoke at idle. It just gets worse at anything past idle. At 3k its putting out quite a cloud of smoke. It looks more white than gray to me and the smoke burns my eyes.

I've checked the compression and all cylinders read 380 +/-10. Seems low but my car checks out at 390 and its running perfectly fine with absolutely no smoke at 360k Km's so I'm chalking it up the the gauge. I swapped the injectors with known good ones minus the #3 cylinder because that one was not coming loose with no luck. I can probably rule out a sticking/bad injector unless it happens to be the #3. Timing is correct and the cam timing should be correct because I just did the timing belt. The turbo is freshly rebuilt and I've tried it with and without the turbo with the same results. I think I'm down to either a bad head gasket or valve seals before I have to open the engine up properly correct? I did notice a not insignificant amount of oil in the #2 intake port while the rest were dry when I had the engine on the stand.

Any help is appreciated, this is the only thing preventing me from calling this truck road worthy.

Two videos I have of the smoke.

https://youtu.be/jFGtedE7QUE
https://youtu.be/SgcAArh9GJM
 

[486]

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Location
MN
TDI
02 golf ALH
the one in the engine bay is with the turbo completely removed?
either way it wouldn't be turbine ring on startup, exhaust isn't hot yet then, EGTs are like 300 deg F at idle

You can run it with the intake manifold off and look in the ports while its going, see if you see oil running down the #2 valve stem that the port looked wet on before.
My ALH's valve guides were GONE at 125k miles, talking 3/32" of side to side movement at the valve head.

ETA: does it continue giving similar huge amounts of smoke every time you mash the go pedal? If so, injector, if only once then a relatively constant low haze, valve seals and guides
 
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