[stewbets]

Like everyone else, I had a bad VCG and changed it. Like many others, I then found out that my valve cover was also cracked, so I changed that as well. I also changed my OFHG right after buying the car about 6 months ago. Anyhow, I'm now smelling burning oil while idling and just noticed smoke drifting out of the drivers side wheel well. I popped the hood and wasn't able to isolate it last night, but it's definitely only coming from the driver's side. I need to remove my DCI's to get a better look, but does anyone have an idea of what could be causing this? I don't see any oil lines on this side of the engine, and even if there were, I wouldn't think there would be enough heat to burn the oil.

[relative4]

Sounds like a pinched VCG. Sorry...

[stewbets]

Originally Posted by relative4

Sounds like a pinched VCG. Sorry...

I've not been able to find any information on smoke originating from the driver's side. Have you heard of a VCG smoking on the driver's side?

[320IN54]

I pinched my after my first time doing it and it was smoking from the passenger side. This is quite common especially cause there isnt anything preventing the gasket from falling or moving around once u flip the cover over to put it back on

[stewbets]

Originally Posted by 320IN54

I pinched my after my first time doing it and it was smoking from the passenger side. This is quite common especially cause there isnt anything preventing the gasket from falling or moving around once u flip the cover over to put it back on

I agree, it's very common, but you mentioned that it smoked from the passenger's side. It's always the passenger's side, and it's the result of the oil dripping on the extremely hot exhaust pipe. These are the symptoms I had the first time around. I don't have that this time. The driver's side is smoking. Not only have I not heard of a bad VCG leading to smoke on the driver's side, I don't know what would generate enough heat on that side to create the smoke.

[relative4]

My apologies, I read the side wrong. Please ignore my post.

[stewbets]

Originally Posted by relative4

My apologies, I read the side wrong. Please ignore my post.

You're totally fine. I can't wait to tear into it tonight and hopefully find the source, because right now this doesn't really make sense.

[WoodE30]

Yeah I don't see how it could be smoking from the drivers side, only I could see which I highly doubt would be the crankcase ventilation, which is more back of engine.

[valibad]

Check cp surrounding

[stewbets]

Well guys, I think I really hit the jackpot on this one. Initially I was again having no luck tracking down the source of the smoke. It just seemed to be throughout the engine bay. But then I looked under the car. That's when I saw smoke pouring out of my downpipes. It appears that I blew out one of the downpipe gaskets, and not only that, but clearly I'm burning oil. That's the bigger issue. And as if that wasn't enough of a problem, I decided to jack the car up to get a closer look, something I've done dozens of times before, only to have the jack slip off while it was fully extended! Totally my fault. I was in a hurry when I shouldn't have been.

I just calmly walked into the house after that, completely stunned. I think it was 20 minutes before I walked back out to assess the damage, fearing the worst. The first thing I saw was that the radiator fan was shoved up above the engine. Coolant had dripped everywhere, so I assumed the radiator was shot, but it looks like only a couple coolant hoses broke. A power steering line was bent up pretty good and my intercooler was resting on the body of the jack. It has some decent dents in it, so we'll see if it cracked at all. I thought it was going to be a lot worse. Of course, I'll know more once I replace these hoses and fire it up again.

This is quite the humbling experience, knowing that I was taking shortcuts and fearing the whole time that something like this could very well happen, but doing it anyway. The whole issue is that there isn't enough clearance under the intercooler to completely engage the center jack point and I was too impatient to use another jack to lift a corner up and fully engage the center jack point. I will learn from this.

[Chris@VargasTurboTech]

That sucks, sorry man. All you can do is learn from it, move on, and put better parts on since you're replacing a few things. Best of luck.

[Tambohamilton]

Damn! Glad you weren't hurt. Learn and move on; deal with the problems in front of you.

Good luck

[nissubaru]

I was thinking about making a post specifically for this but I didn't know how many people would find it worthwhile. My car is low as balllls, as well as my twin turbo 300zx so I'm no stranger to jacking up a low car. I recently bought Race Ramp Trak Jax for $100 shipped and I couldn't be happier.

https://www.raceramps.com/garage-ser...ps/p/trak-jax/

There are two models, one with a lip and one without. I dunno who would get the one without the lip, obviously I have the one with the lip. Angle of approach is extremely low but it gets your tires 3 inches off the ground which for me is enough to slide my jack under the front.

Previously I was using two jacks, one on the side to get the car up high enough to slide the jack through the front. I don't have a garage unfortunately so I throw all my tools and shit in my trunk and do work down the block from my house on a dead end street. Having to bring out both jacks for something like an oil change is just awful. These weigh practically nothing and are super easy to carry around.

They are also 12" wide so you can fit a 10" tire on them. If you guys do a lot of work on your cars and they're low as shit, definitely check these things out. I might sound like I work for Race Ramps lol but I'm just happy to have found a perfect solution. Rhino Ramps are too steep and the Race Ramp equivalent cost $220! And then I still couldn't get my BMW or Nissan up there because of the angle of approach. It would be $340 to buy the Race Ramps that are long enough (72") to have a low enough angle of approach to make it work.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread, I saw your issues with the jack and thought you might appreciate this.

[Knerr]

Yeah man its a super scary thing.. Glad you werent under it!

Years ago I was barely 21 and my brother and I were replacing the brakes on my WRX, all we had were scissor jacks and we used two to lift the whole front so we could be quicker... I knew what we were doing was sketchy but... I was still a kid LOL I was careful to not upset the car, but my 19 Y/O brother was shoving on the car from his side, I had my legs criss-cross on my side & before I could say "don't do that!" the car shifted and both jacks failed at the same time.

By god's grace, the jacks slid rather than the car moving towards me, but the hub was so close to landing on my knee that the lugs left bruises on it.

After I finished shitting myself, we went to the tool store, bought a 2"-36" low profile jack ( I know that's an awesome range lol) and four jack stands...

Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way lol

[Tambohamilton]

Originally Posted by nissubaru

I was thinking about making a post specifically for this but I didn't know how many people would find it worthwhile. My car is low as balllls, as well as my twin turbo 300zx so I'm no stranger to jacking up a low car. I recently bought Race Ramp Trak Jax for $100 shipped and I couldn't be happier.

https://www.raceramps.com/garage-ser...ps/p/trak-jax/

There are two models, one with a lip and one without. I dunno who would get the one without the lip, obviously I have the one with the lip. Angle of approach is extremely low but it gets your tires 3 inches off the ground which for me is enough to slide my jack under the front.

$100!?

Make your own from some planks of wood screwed together for $0-20ish. Just have them so they go single thickness, double thickness, triple thickness. No need to taper them. Boards about 3/4" thick will do nicely. Excellent, nearly free tool.

[stewbets]

I appreciate the kind words, everyone. It was an idiotic move.

I bent the power steering line back into shape and glued up a coolant hose connector while I wait on my replacement. I also installed a couple Fel-Pro 9547 gaskets for my downpipe-to-midpipe connection and my test drive last night was a success. It looks like my FMIC isn't cracked. If that's the case, this was a very fortunate mistake.

[Wolf 335]

Are all pulleys ok?

[nOshi]

Glad everything worked out! I had smoke on my driver side and couldn't pin point it for anything, eventual noticed that one of the silver sleeves was missing from the intake manifold where the bolt post protrude through. Just wanted to add in case someone stumbles on this thread, they at least will have some things to check

[stewbets]

Originally Posted by Wolf 335

Are all pulleys ok?

Yes, it managed to just miss my pulleys without puncturing the radiator. I replaced my upper radiator hose tonight and we're good to go.

[stewbets]

Originally Posted by nOshi

Glad everything worked out! I had smoke on my driver side and couldn't pin point it for anything, eventual noticed that one of the silver sleeves was missing from the intake manifold where the bolt post protrude through. Just wanted to add in case someone stumbles on this thread, they at least will have some things to check

I'll certainly make note of that myself. Thanks for sharing!