Ebay headers...updates?

[shadrach74]

Originally Posted by turbo mc kwek

Does anyone know if the headers are to blame for the smoke??
The engine is all stock and in mint condition and has only 72.000km on it (about 45.000 miles), recently replaced the AOS but that was more a preventive measure.

Seems unlikely. What color is the smoke?

[turbo mc kwek]

The smoke is light grey and smells like gasoline..

I'm not trying to be a wiseguy, but I'm pretty sure it's gas...

The engine doesn't have any oil in the coolant, coolant level stays the same, no sludge in the oil system. Even the oil filler cap is perfectly clean on the inside. There's no abnormal vacuum on the filler cap or dipstick....

Tomorrow I'll put the stock manifolds (with the catalytic converters) back on and take the car for a drive to see what happens...

[shadrach74]

Originally Posted by turbo mc kwek

The smoke is light grey and smells like gasoline..

I'm not trying to be a wiseguy, but I'm pretty sure it's gas...

The engine doesn't have any oil in the coolant, coolant level stays the same, no sludge in the oil system. Even the oil filler cap is perfectly clean on the inside. There's no abnormal vacuum on the filler cap or dipstick....

Tomorrow I'll put the stock manifolds (with the catalytic converters) back on and take the car for a drive to see what happens...

The thing is, even if all of the O2 sensors in you system were not working or hooked up, the engine would go to a default factory setting, which is a bit richer than optimal, but not enough to cause smoke.

[turbo mc kwek]

I've been working on it all day, and I'm pretty sure my NEW AOS is broken...

I didn't check it right away because I thought that it could not be te source of the problem since it was a new part and only about 500 miles old...

The hose to the intake manifold and the pipe on the AOS had zo much oil in it that it started to drip once the hose was disconnected...

Now my question: was I so unlucky to get a broken new part, or did it break because of something else?

[shadrach74]

Originally Posted by turbo mc kwek

I've been working on it all day, and I'm pretty sure my NEW AOS is broken...

I didn't check it right away because I thought that it could not be te source of the problem since it was a new part and only about 500 miles old...

The hose to the intake manifold and the pipe on the AOS had zo much oil in it that it started to drip once the hose was disconnected...

Now my question: was I so unlucky to get a broken new part, or did it break because of something else?

Is it possible you overfilled at the last oil change? My first inclination was toward a bad AOS...

[turbo mc kwek]

Well, I'm pretty precise on those things, so I would say no

I already ordered a new AOS @ pelicanparts (somehow it's much cheaper for me to order parts in the US, even with Germany being our neighbour country, and some parts are up to 50% cheaper in the US)

In the pelicanparts forum was something very interesting; There's a PCV valve in the driver side valvecover and one of the two vacuum hoses to the AOS comes from that PCV valve. If this valve gets clogged with oil residu or something, the vacuum on the AOS will rise and result in AOS failure..

There seem to be people that replaced the AOS four or five times in just a few hundred miles before looking any further...

[turbo mc kwek]

Problem solved!!

I saw someone else on this forum who posted a movie with the very same problem as my car had!

Maybe this is helpfull for him to:

The problem was the oil filler hose... When this gets older the plastic gets hard... My guess is that, when I replaced the AOS, the tube broke when I removed it from the oil filler tube on the engine..

There's a ribbed part in the hpse where it bends... there was a crack in between the ribs.. When the engine was at idle, the tear was closed and the vacuum under the oil filler cap was good, but when the car accellerates the engine somewhat tilts over and opened up the crack. With this, the vacuum dropped and the AOS stopped working, resulting in huge clouds of smoke.

I'm happy I found the problem and the repair only costed 30 euros!