Smokey offside exhaust only during hot start up

[Trainspotter]

Hello all,

Well I'm four months and 2000 miles into Tuscan S ownership and loving every moment

What I have noticed recently is that I appear to get a small amount of white smoke/steam from the offside exhaust when starting up with a hot engine. Typical situation would be parking up and shutting off the engine after a spirited drive, unlocking the house then garage and restarting engine. Probably 2-3 mins between shutting off and re-starting. The smoke/steam is present for less than a minute, but the nearside exhaust does not give off any smoke/steam at all. The smoke can bee seen to a lesser extent when re-starting straight after shutting off. Cold start up does not yield any smoke...

Puzzling thing is it had a 12k service and thorough going over 1000 miles ago and no issues found. It hasn't used a drop of oil since the service (still reading on max), doesn't overheat, haven't seen any steam/water venting from the coolant PRV cap, oil and water temps are fine and it goes like stink.

I have only noticed this problem since I decatted the exhaust a few weeks ago. Most likely coincidental, but thought I'd mention it.

The rear cans are always cool to the touch after a run, so perhaps it's just moisture in the exhaust. I would have expected the same from both exhausts though...

Anyone experienced this or have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Jez

[Daston]

Is there soot building up on the can?

Mine started to do this on the driver side and has slowly started to get worse its now to the point where it blows quite a bit of smoke out when left standing for a few hours. It is also causeing the can to go black. We think its the stem seals starting to leak and so oil is making its way into the piston when left standing.

Off side is drivers side right? If so that is your first 3 cylinders and so could be picking up a bit of oil/moisture through the air box

[Trainspotter]

Hi Daston,

Thanks for the speedy reply.

Yes the rear cans are getting sooty, but equally so and it is the offside (driver's side exhaust) which is smoking so suggests cylinders 1-3.

I was planning to whip the main bonnet off and have a look in the airbox once everything has had a chance to cool down.

Thanks again,

Jez

[Trainspotter]

Took the airbox off and there are signs of oil being vented by the oil breather. Not very much and only evident in the top half of the box around the ports for cylinders 1, 2 and 3 (no.1 showing the most oil film, less on no.2 and so on as expected).

Based on what I've found I think it's probably oil being burnt from the breather and not steam. So I'm not too worried now. I might run the oil breather pipe into a catch tank just as a check, but in the meantime I'll just keep a close eye on fluid levels and temps.

Jez

[Basil Brush]

I'd monitor the coolant levels closely for few miles as I believe white smoke suggests coolant rather than oil. If darker and sooty it could also be a leaky injector allowing one of the pots to fill up with fuel.

[dvs_dave]

Almost certainly the valve guides being worn. Smoke on start-up is the give away. How much oil is it using?

Mine did this before I had it rebuilt.

[Trainspotter]

It hasn't used a drop of oil since the last service some 1000 miles ago. Interestingly it didn't produce any smoke today, so I'm thinking it is the oil from the breather being burnt off. Because it doesn't happen every time I start from hot, the amount of oil vented by the breather could be dependent on how the car was driven prior to shutting off the engine. I'm not an expert, just a guess

The engine has covered 17000 miles since a full rebuild.

I'll be keeping a close eye on oil and coolant levels.