45k miles on the car... however it is strictly a track car now and is only used once per month as of 6 months ago... today at the track i started it and tons of white maybe bluish smoke... no engine lights and oil levels are fine... engine temp is perfect... what could it be??? It seems to be a ton of smoke at first and then diminish the longer the car is running...

 

did you just have the oil changed?

 

nope ... havent had the oil changed in 5k miles

 

Gremlins

tw

 

It's totally normal since you only use the car once a month. I use the car once a week and get the same thing. Several Porsche mechanics (especially my personal mechanic of more then 10+ years) told me it's because of how our engine is positioned where engine oil would sometimes seeps down to one of the exhaust compartments and would burn the oil giving the white smoke when the engine starts.

 

hope nothing serious with your car. as far as my experience, i had no instrumental indications of my engine failure. car was running fine next second, puff, large cloud of black smoke in my rear view mirrow. your exhaust smoke sounds completely different than what happened to my car. don't know if this helps or not. good luck...

 

This could be normal. I used to have a similar situation in my 996. A mechanic advised me to NOT switch the car off immediately after coming off the track. Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then switch it off. Since I do this in any case with my 997S I haven't seen it on that car.

If it does not:

a) Happen every time.
b) Happen when you are not driving on the track.
c) Happen after you let the car sit for a couple of minutes before turning it off.

Then it probably not a problem. Could be just some oil seeping round tthe rings cause they are hot and loose, whatever.

If it happens every time take your car in to the shop immediately! If the engine runs fine it is probably the air/oil separator. Happens in older boxsters all the time. Haven't heard of it in a 997 yet though.

Hope this helps

 

In addition to the above comment ..

If the blue smoke is caused by a faulty seal (and oil is leaking through) most likely your spark plugs would fail and misfire .. which would cause a engine light.

Just to be on the safe side, I would change the oil/filter and check the headers for any residue. Then see if the issue repeats itself.

 

What a coincidence. The same thing happened to me yesterday at a track day. After two seperate 20 min. sessions, I started the car for the third session and smoke billowed out of the exhaust. OPC mechanics were on duty who informed me to let the engine run and sure enough the smoke went away. on the 4th and 5th sessions same thing. Smoke first, then nothing. Mine is a daily driver so this morning when I went to work... all ok. No smoke!

 

What Cl997 above experienced is exactly what used to happen to my 996 and a couple of others on D.E. days. However, it did not happen to other cars.

The mechanic told us to just wait for the engine to cool a bit and to let the car settle down before switching it off. The smoke went a way with that. Also you should not experience smoke on regularly on day to day startups. Would appreciate if you let us know what happens on this and if it is a sign of trouble to come.

Thanks

 

A friend of mine that owns a shop is currently running a diagnostic test on it so we will see what happens... the car seems to run fine... nothing out of ordinary but smoke!

 

Drive it more and you won't see blue smoke anymore...

 

45k miles... it hasn't been driven enough?!?!?

 

Here's a weird thing... when Synergy installed my IPD plenum, there was a good amount of oil in my stock one. This hopefully is from the overfilling of oil on my last change, which was recent. Is there any way that this could be oil from sitting in the intake?

 

man I sure hope its something simple... we couldn't figure it out using my buddy's diagnostics so its going into the dealer first thing in the morning...