[fox87stang]

i didnt have time to read the whole thread, so im sorry if someone has already stated this, but my 99 cobra does the same. It smokes at start up and at high RPMs while shifting gears. It will very rarely smoke by just revving the motor. I put 10w40 Casterol with a quart of lucas and it does help. I've also been told that my heads need a valve job. Im going to go ahead and port/polish them if i keep the car.

Also, my rear seal is bad and is slinging oil on my pipes, which Im thinking will contribute to some of the smoke.

If you find out how much rebuilding your heads will cost, please post so I can see if im getting a good deal. Thanks

[JohnC]

I'd say PCV valve sucking oil in the intake or valve guide and seal wear.

[Ryan Paymaster]

Originally Posted by JohnC I'd say PCV valve sucking oil in the intake or valve guide and seal wear.

This is the most likely cause at this point with any of these cars smoking - or at least I'd think so. I've heard nothing but horror about the seals/guides.

Surprised Ford never addressed this.

[Black02GT]

Originally Posted by Ryan Paymaster This is the most likely cause at this point with any of these cars smoking - or at least I'd think so. I've heard nothing but horror about the seals/guides. Surprised Ford never addressed this.

im surprised the dealer i took it to couldnt figure this shit out and just correct it without making me do this lame azz oil test


just for an update ive put almost 200 miles on the car and the oil is still on max..... i havent hardly noticed much smoke either. i dont understand. they put 5w20 back in the car... im wondering if they did some kind of temperary fix so the oil wouldnt leak for a little while? is there such a task they could perform to ' trick me ' out of my warrany miles since they are almost up?

[Black02GT]

Originally Posted by fox87stang i didnt have time to read the whole thread, so im sorry if someone has already stated this, but my 99 cobra does the same. It smokes at start up and at high RPMs while shifting gears. It will very rarely smoke by just revving the motor. I put 10w40 Casterol with a quart of lucas and it does help. I've also been told that my heads need a valve job. Im going to go ahead and port/polish them if i keep the car. Also, my rear seal is bad and is slinging oil on my pipes, which Im thinking will contribute to some of the smoke. If you find out how much rebuilding your heads will cost, please post so I can see if im getting a good deal. Thanks

yeah sounds like the same issue im having. did you have time to watch the videos posted in this thread? i posted two or three. or just go to YouTube - Red96TA's Channel


yeah start up if i dont touch the gas and just let it idle.. it takes a minute for it to start smoking but then it puts out smoke like a smoldering fire for about five minutes. if i go down the road and down shift from say 4th to second and tromp on it.. the car behind me gets a cloud of smoke. cloud not meaning they cant see and run off the road, u can see through the smoke but its enough that they are going to smell burning oil inside THEIR car and they are gona say ' ok sumthings wrong with that stang in front of us'

[Black02GT]

after alot of suggestions about the pcv valve. im eager to locate it... and check it.. is this something i can check without taking anything apart? from what i understand its the little 3-4 inch hose coming out of the valve cover that hooks into the intake pipe right? do i just pull it straight out? or is there any special way i need to do this. and when i do get it out what am i looking for thats " bad"

[JohnC]

The best way to check is by taking the upper intake hat off and look inside for oil. Like when I swapped to the TF plenum, I could see a small amount of oil being sucked in my intake from the PCV.

[Black02GT]

i guess im just not sure what im looking at / for and what do u mean upper intake hat. im not all that familiar with any of this stuff

[Black02GT]

I can't beleive its been like two days and no oil loss. and its still smoking.. tomorrow ill hit 200+ miles and that means i have to take it back and let the dealer check my oil.. when it reads full they are just gona tell me to take a hike... its weird that thurs night i changed the oil and by sunday it was a quart low with just around 200 miles put on it in that time period.. maybe the racing saturday night is what burned it up so fast? hell idk... ive gave it hell the past two days making sure to burn oil up for them to find it to be ' low' and i cant seem to burn anything off but i still smoke like a train coming out of hell

[JohnC]

You might want to ask around here to see if there are any known issues with the machs consuming oil.

[Black02GT]

i tryed mach registry no one has said anything but the thread had several hundred views. haha

[JohnC]

That sucks!

Try ModularFords and see what goes.

[fox87stang]

Originally Posted by Black02GT i guess im just not sure what im looking at / for and what do u mean upper intake hat. im not all that familiar with any of this stuff

Yes, please emphasize on this. I dont know what your talking about either. And my pcv valve was broke when i got the car. I have one ready for pick up at the ford dealership. What damage could not having one on your car cause? Thanks

[Ryan Paymaster]

Originally Posted by fox87stang Yes, please emphasize on this. I dont know what your talking about either. And my pcv valve was broke when i got the car. I have one ready for pick up at the ford dealership. What damage could not having one on your car cause? Thanks

An improperly functioning PCV valve will allow the crankcase gasses and basically oil into your upper intake plenum or whatever you want to call it.

Damage done to the car would be very minimal. I think in the worst case scenario with .0001% chance of this happening the oil could be so severe it causes detonation in the motor or something equally as insane. Most of the time, except in the case of our cars*, a bad PCV valve could cause exhaust smoke. So what's my point here? You're safe. (*I've searched boards for a year now and have hand dug through pages of threads on top of speaking with countless people. 4v seem to smoke and no one has ever fully pinpointed the issue past "Ford valve seals sucked.")

What can you do to negate what happened since the PCV was broke and improperly functioning?

Pull your upper intake off. What am I talking about? Do you know where your thottle body is? It's that big thing (I think in a 99 it has a Cobra on it still) the TB is connected to. You'll have to remove a few bolts here and there but it comes off in about an hour if you're using a Fisher Price toolset. The gasket is like $40, just reuse your old one - it should be fine unless you really feel like replacing the gasket.

Here are pictures to show you what happens with our PCV systems when they are functioning.





That was mine. Make sure on the bottom intake you get the oil that has pooled up all out of there also. You can remove this bottom intake but if you take your time and have fun with an air compressor, rags, TB cleaner then you can get it done without taking off the fuel rails.

Basically a quick off the top of my head general how-to would be:

• Remove the air intake system (tube and filter).
• Take off all the emissions and other monitoring devices. This includes the EGR and everything else attached to the upper intake.
• The throttle body can stay on the intake, but you're going to have to disconnect your throttle cable and cruise control cable. Very easy to figure out.
• Take off all the bolts needed to take the upper intake off. Should be like eight of them or something, at least on a 96 there's around 8.
• Once you're inside wipe down the upper intake as seen in my first picture. Ford says don't clean the throttle body, so don't. If it's gunked to hell then I don't see why you can wipe it off with a dry rag, just don't use any cleaning solutions.
• Really get at the lower intake. Shine an LED light or another high powered light and take a look at an Iraqi oil field down there. Give it your best shot and go to town with some throttle body cleaner, rags, small sticks to help shove rags in there to clean (my hand fit a lot of the time), or better yet air compressor. If you go the air compression route it's going to get messy so go spray your engine bay down later unless you don't care about it's cleanliness.
• Put everything back together. Most of the stuff actually has torque specs such as the EGR valve and the intake bolts, however,they're really low. I'm talking like 8 lb-ft of torque for the intake bolts. Don't go bananas on these, your standard torque wrench unless it's digital at its lowest probably goes to 20 lb-ft. Just equally hand tighten them snug all around and don't do them when they're hot, they'll break. The most important thing to remember when putting the intake back on is to tighten the intake down in order. You can do a search online or do the smart method: Buy a Haynes (or equivalent) manual. If you don't own one of these instantly order one online - they're very useful if vague sometimes.

[JohnC]

What he said^

I'm so glad you explained all of that for me! Thank you!

[fox87stang]

Thank you very much, i will be doing this shortley

[JohnC]

Originally Posted by fox87stang Thank you very much, i will be doing this shortley

Post pics in here if you find a lot of oil inside.

[Ryan Paymaster]

Originally Posted by JohnC Post pics in here if you find a lot of oil inside.

Realistically it's probably not why our cars smoke. I think the chances of it fixing it are slim. What it may do is make the top end feel better all around.

Pictures are awesome though, definitely post them, I like watching stuff "get clean!"

[Black02GT]

ill be glad when my issue is figured out. if the dealer cant figure it out im going to say the hell with it and go ahead and get the supercharger

edit: and a case of oil

[baine21225]

so did you ever take i back to the dealer?