[Ryan Paymaster]

Hey.

First, I'd like to say thanks to anyone who can even remotely lend a hand in guiding me in the right direction or any ideas at all. With that said, the issue I have is exactly as described above.

I've had a 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra for about 2 months now, and it smokes above 5,000RPM. The car is in amazingly immaculate condition and only has 55,000 miles on it. Hell, the leather isn't ripped yet. The mods it has from when I bought it are:

4.10 gears
Long tube headers
OFF ROAD H Pipe w/ Spin Tech Mufflers
Pro 5.0 shifter

For what I've done so far in general maitanence that actually matters:

Replaced BOTH front O2 sensors
Replaced EVAP Valve (Solenoid) and Sensor (CEL fixed from this.)
Replaced PCV (Even tried plugging intake and putting a breather on valve cover, no luck in stopping smoke.)
MSD Coil Packs
MSD Super Conductor Spark Plug Wires
Ford Motorcraft Stock Spark Plugs gapped to ~.055 (All the plugs I pulled were at like .044, previous owner had a hard time reading apparently.)
Seafoam (It smoked before the foam too.)

Now the car runs amazing, absolutely amazing. I've even run it at the strip and it's times are incredible, it pulls great, and it's not hurting one bit. However, I have a feeling it's losing oil slowly somewhere, I have no idea where though. The dipstick never seems to be accurate at all. It may or may not be oil, but I really don't see a hint of blue in the smoke.

The car only blows white smoke out of the exhaust eventually after 5,000RPM or so. I can floor it and as long as she doesn't go to 5k+ RPM it doesn't drop a hint of smoke. Never any smoke on start up, however, it spits liquid out the back. Doesn't smell sweet, but it's definitely water. Not losing coolant as it stays at the cold line when cold.

I've replaced a lot of things, and I highly doubt it's a piston ring issue from the headers as it would be consuming oil way worst than it is and smoking much more consistantly I'd assume.

What I'm looking for is any suggestions as where I should look? Id' love suggestions, there has to be someone else out there who has heard of this. I'm going to put in new coolant/water tomorrow as it is half pink and have nasty as hell looking. (Probably never changed.) I really don't think this will solve anything. Maybe valve seals/guides due to it's age and slight milage, but I don't know. I noticed oil on the spark plug threads, so on the new plugs I caked them with antisieze.

Picture of oil on thread probably caused by spark plug gasket leak or just natural. I don't think there's any oil AT ALL on the spark plug, that seems to be a good burn (it was like that in all 8 cylinders.):
Image removed until I make one more post and am here longer than a day on this new account

Thanks for any help you can provide, as I'm not having very much luck in my searching through multiple Mustang forums. There's only a few that seem worthwhile even posting on, as most are "hay uh what rims will fit on my car with a cai? durrr"

Hopefully some ideas will pop up, and here's a picture of her with temp plates and stock wheels. (Have M/T DRs on it w/ 17" Cobra R now.)

Image removed until I make one more post and am here longer than a day on this new account

[Jorge]

It's your fuel to air ratio. With all your aftermarket parts, you need to get your car tuned.

[DrHolliday]

I would say your burning oil. White smoke = oil as I learned it.

The fact that it is only at or above 5k on the tach and not when you start it leads me to believe it is your rings.

Valve seals would have a big burst of white smoke at start up and then settle down after a couple seconds.

With the oil on your spark plugs and the smoke I would say the oil is coming in through the rings. They aren't too bad and may be only leaking on one or 2 cylinder's which is why the car runs great and only smokes in the high RPM's.

Also, check your PCV valve... If its clogged it could possibly cause some crank case pressure and cause similar symptoms.

Just my .02

Hopefully someone can provide more insight on this.

[Ryan Paymaster]

Yeah, I'm afraid it could be the rings since I couldn't afford that at all. However, ALL the plugs had the oil on the threads but there was no sign of oil on the actual electrode at all. It's an extremely clean burn from what I can tell, see the picture. I'm not ruling that out at all, but basically it's kind of like I found a small spot on the CT scan of my car and I'm just hoping it's everything but car cancer at this point.

The air/fuel ratio and getting a tune could possibly solve it. Kind of expensive though, something I wanted to get done when I knew she was running perfect. I'm going to heavily watch my oil consumption over the next few days to see where my oil could be going, if at all. I did my own oil change so I know it was done right and not by some Chrysler dealership.

This is my spark plug, all of them looked like this one. There was no sign the previous owner used any antisieze at all on the installation, it was definitely oil and NOT antisieze. He had these things in there tight, that or they needed a lot of convincing to get out for no reason.

I just tested the PCV, it's working fine.

Thanks for your suggestions. As for the post under me, blue smoke is oil, but it's mixed in with white smoke too, but in my case it's so much more white/light grey than blue I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I might not see the color difference, but usually oil burning pretty blue, so your right. I just won't let myself be fooled, as white can be oil too, especially since I don't think I'm losing coolant.

[98SilverBullet]

I thought Blue Smoke meant burning oil?

[Casper98GT]

Blue is oil.

White means you have an off road X/H pipe....stop wasting youre time and money man.

Big white clouds mean blown head gasket.

[Boomer]

Originally Posted by Casper98GT Big white clouds mean blown head gasket.

Or maybe a steam engine ??????

[Casper98GT]

Im stickingv with the offroad pipes. I just re-read youre post. The oil youre getting is from the valve cover gasket. Only problem you will have is long term saturation of the plug wires and it will bloat them. They are quite easy to do i just did a set 2 weeks ago on a DOHC.

Youre plugs look fine. I dont think youre having any real problems. My car when im on it blow white smoke and has ever since i install my offroad pipe. You have no cats to filter out any unburned fuel. So youre seeing it come out the tailpipes.

[Ryan Paymaster]

Wow, alright. Your probably right and I'm paranoid, first performance car I've ever dealt with. I always thought the offroad no cat set up could cause the strong exhaust smell but never smoke. Thinking about it, that makes a lot of sense though. There's a lot happening in there and there's nothing filtering it before it pollutes our little ball of Earth. My last car was (still have it) a 2000 Roush Cougar, and it definitely wasn't a performance monster, so I never had anything worst than "Oh boy, I'm low on gas."

I just got back from playing with it the Cobra because I'm really batty like that. Up to 5,000 RPM, NOTHING. No smoke or anything as I said.

After 5,000RPM it'll blow white smoke for sure, if I give it a full throttle rev and floor it, it shoots out a huge black cloud and then continues blowing white for about 30 seconds until no smoke is present again. If I do this while it's sitting still the white is more present the further I revved it. Took it to6400 rpms and it really puffs but it dies down after about 30 seconds max. There are water droplets or something all over inside the exhaust tubes inside and the chrome tips are loaded with that brownish / black residue very quick.

Also, my car is definitely using some oil, but not a ton. I've heard that these 4.6L and especially Cobras do use up oil. It never blows blue at all that I can tell. 15 passes at the dragstrip and I was a little low, but still within the safe range on the dipstick by a good margin. If oil consumption is common on these cars, and maybe mine is a bit more than normal because of it's mods, then I am just paranoid.

That's the only thing I'm scared of. Maybe I'm just not used to the world of fast cars yet.


Thanks a lot for your response as it really seems like that could be the case. At least I feel a lot better about it now. If I really want to check, I got the stock exhaust back so I could just rebolt that back up and that'd really tell me, but I'm pretty content with the X/H pipe.

[Casper98GT]

oil consumsion is very common in these cars, and trucks with same motors.

dont be worried.