I have a 3000gt vr4 that ive been working on for a few months. the car starts up with alot of white smoke and when i take it for a spin, the car jerks back and forth on every gear above 3000 rpm. inaddition there is alot of white smoke. so i replace the air flow meter sensor, head gasket, spark plugs, gas filter, fuel injectors, spark plug wires, shave the head by machine shop, new timing belt, tensioners, and water pump. but after replacing every thing the car still smokes alot and never goes away. the smoke smeels like gas too. do you think its the ecu or fuel pump? please help me out. o yeah it doesn't overheat, just blowing alot of white smoke and jerk with an engine light.

 

what year? Any modifications to the car? Did you change the valve stem seals? How long did you run the car? Do you have the MAS unplugged? Did you check for boost leaks or a popped off intercooler hose/pipe?

Turn the car on, unplug the MAS, does the car run better or worse? Did you bother to have someone read the check engine light? You probably should have done that first, and saved yourself a **** load of money.


Does your ECS still work? Is your ECS light flashing? Unplug the ECS computer, and see if that stops the bucking and smoking.

 

turbo cartridges are bad. they are cooled by oil and coolant. white smoke indicates a engine is burning coolant. and since it increases with speed that indicates the cartidges are bad. i used to replace ALOT of those back in the day. that back bank is a really tough one to get to. take your time.

 

okie its a year 92 3000gt vr4. i had the mas replaced, so i don't think thats the problem. before the head gasket changed, there were never an engine light bt it did still repeat the same problem. i know it was the head gasket, so i replaced that already. o yeah and the valves were redone, vavles stems replace and shave head. bu still smoke alot. what is trbo cartidges? well this engine smokes white smoke bt has the smell of gas. i changed the fel injectors too. bt still no hope. please help me out. ve been wokring on this car for a year now. the only thing i can think of is replacing the ecu. after the head gasket changed i only ran it for 1 hour. also there are some new sond coming from the turbo in the rear.

 

how were you sure it was the headgasket? The DOHC engines in these cars NEVER have headgasket problems.

Take the ecu out, and open it up. If there's any black or melted areas, then your ecu is bad. If you're not sure, take a picture of it and post it up, we'll let you know if it's bad or not.

A bad turbo will cause bad smoking, but usually oil/black smoke, not gas smelling. Pull off the piping/hose near each turbo. If there's a puddle of oil, that turbo is bad. If there isn't any oil, check for play in the wheel (pinch it with your fingers, and try to wobble it around). It shouldn't move really at all. If there is any in and our, or side to side motion, that turbo is bad.

 

hmmm do you think the ecu could of cause all of these problems? this car is a 92 vr4. i bought the car last year at 30 thousand mileage,but i abuse the engine so much untill the car starting acting up like this. every day i would drive pass 180 miles per hour. can you give me more clues on the turbo? when i took the head gasket out it was bad. guess it was becuase of the rev abuse i did on this car. plus i let idiot friends drived it. now i just want to fixed it up back to normal state.

 

could be the ecu, could be the ecs computer (suspension computer), it could be any number of things. Where are you located if you don't mind my asking?

 

The smoke could also be because of a bad "seal" on the exhaust side of the turbo. Oil can get into the exhaust housing and into the downpipe, and once it starts to heat up, you'll see smoke. It may appear white but is actually a light blue color.

Not sure what the ECU has to do with the smoking. and although a bad ECU can cause all kinds of werid problems, it usually results in a steady misfire or stuttering.

And I don't understand how the ECS has anything to do with smoking and jerking.

 

lol dude Nick, I didnt know you posted about my car on this forum. This is Jeff BTW and to all the viewers this is my car and yes we have been working on this car for one year, one problem became another.

Let me try to rearticulate and break it down for you guys on what problems there are with this car.

Here is a list of replaced parts.

-Spark plug/wires

-Both heads are new and shaved via a machine shop and are in perfect condition. The valves and valve stem seals are all brand new and was replaced.

-The head gasket has been replaced, it's a brand new multi-layered metal head gasket.

-Fuel injectors and fuel rails are replaced-due to a diagnosis via machanic that states that 1 fuel injector was leaking (so, I replaced the whol entire unit excluding the fuel injection harness)

-Fuel filter has been replaced.

-MAF has been replaced with a brand new one and a used one both didnt do much, the same problem presisted (when the MAF sensor was unplugged, it ran just as horribly)

-Water pump has been replaced TWICE.

-The Timing belts has been replaced 3 times.

-Cam Gears has been replaced with new aluminum Fidanza models.

-New push rod and Tensioner pulley

- We pulled both turbos out and had it checked out, it's in perfect condition.

I'll explain the problem in full detail , when it initialy happend and the problems it currently has.

About 1 year ago, give or take , It was fine and running perfectly. I turned the car off and went inside my home and came back and started the car, the idle was fine, everything checked out, no engine lights or anything. I pulled out the garage and drove up the hill. Everytime, I throttled the car above 3000 RPMS the car would buck(jerk back and fourth violently), It doesnt matter how hard you throttle, at 3000 rpms it would have the same issue; at this time the car did not blow any smoke out of its exaust, that randomly happend later.

I went to a shop called CAPITOL TRANSMISSIONS(located in hyattsvile, MD) I got it coded and they told me the MASS AIR FLOW METER needs to be replaced and fuel pump and I needed a 60k mile tune up. They wanted to charge me well over 3000 dollars+ for those two, parts and labor. I had our mechanic here whom initially posted the problem up above replace all of those parts, except for the fuel pump( because we all know if the fuel pump doesnt work, the car wont start lol). The problem persisted after we changed the parts that were coded. So, we decided to do a 120k mile tune up, after we finished the problem still persisted. So, the the shop was dead wrong.(they even stole my air filter lol)

The symptoms this car is giving off now is.

-Exaust smoke is white, and smells like gas, gas also drips out of the exaust pipe.

-The check engine light is on, the ECS computer has been unplugged about 1 year ago, I too thought it was the problem.

- The EGR pipe has a major air leak and the oil is dripping out a pipe near the rear turbo area(but he have found the problem and will fix it, but that was not the cause of the initial problem.

-We have changed nearly everything, I heard this the 92 3000gt vr4 has had major ECU problmens and the caps tend to leak(could that cause an engine light and bucking at 3000 RPMS and above, and white smoke due to fuel injectors staying open even on idle?)

-Could the fuel injection harness be a problem?

-Right now, we are thinking it's the ecu but I'm not sure, can the ECU cause such problems? The transmission is fine, it was also checked out.

I'm located in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Any solutions or thoughts of what can be causing these mysterious problems will be very much appreciated!! as you can see this car has a host of problems lol

yours truly,
Jeff -Poorvr4

 

If you are interested, we are located in Easton, PA 18042 (if you want to mapquest it). We have a performance shop here that specializes in 3000GT's and Stealth's (my boyfriend is the owner, he occassionally posts on here) and he can fix it for you. (610) 438-0439 is the shop number. We'll be here all day if you'd like to give a call, and I or Hans (my boyfriend) can speak with you and help you out.

-Emilie