MMO piston soak. Blue and white smoke for miles?

[Gasbuggy]

This was my first time doing anything like this. My reason was because I believe I have a stuck oil ring. If you don't feel like reading the story my question is: is it possible to end up burning more oil after clearing up build up on piston rings? Say the build up was contributing to it sealing. Or is that not likely? My car has a ton of miles and burns a quart in less than 700 miles, mostly all on one cylinder.

I did a 12 hour soak on my 363,000 mile accord. 2oz per cylinder. I expected the MMO to drain down overnight, but that wasn't the case. It took a good 5 minutes to get it started. I'm glad my starter has a lifetime warranty. When it did start, it was a white out. It was 6am so it was dark enough that I couldn't tell if it was just white smoke.

I came home that day, after 130 miles of driving, and put 2oz in each cylinder again. This time the car sat for about 26 hours. It started much quicker. It was daylight, the smoke was horrendous. I live near a road and it was screwing up traffic. People were coming outside of their houses to see what was going on. After 5 minutes of this I decided to take my smoke elsewhere. My honda looked like a DDT truck. After driving for a couple minutes the smoke cut down quite a bit, but my smoke trail had a noticeable blue hue to it. A constant blue/white trail followed me for the next 8 minutes before I came home and shut it off. I was concerned I damaged the oil rings. I went to run some errands 20 minutes later and had no smoke trail.

I feel like I should do this one more time and give it even longer to sit. But I'm not sure, this is uncharted territory for me.

 

[Dakota1820]

Its normal to smoke a lot. If it doesnt help you may try some motor treatnent or b12 . Trans fluid also does a really good job. The longer the better

 

[91344George]

That "white smoke" you see is nothing more than the light solvents in the MMO buring off, if you want to REALLY clean your top end you need to get a specific cleaner , like GM top end cleaner or similar , also a PEA product like Techron Complete Fuel System cleaner might be a good choice as well. MMO is NOT going to get the job done effectively.

 

[spag1]

Originally Posted By: 91344George
That "white smoke" you see is nothing more than the light solvents in the MMO buring off, if you want to REALLY clean your top end you need to get a specific cleaner , like GM top end cleaner or similar , also a PEA product like Techron Complete Fuel System cleaner might be a good choice as well. MMO is NOT going to get the job done effectively.

I agree with you. Mmo is good when added to oil and fuel, but when I do top end cleaning I use Amsoil Powerfoam.

 

[Gasbuggy]

I know the white smoke is normal, it's all the blue smoke mixed in that concorned me.

 

[expat]

Did you crank the engine with the plugs out, before starting the engine?

I'm thinking the MMO may have hydrauliced and possibly broken a piston land (part of the piston body between the rings)

 

[ltslimjim]

^Yes, it sounds like the OP did not crank the engine with spark plugs removed to expel the remaining MMO in the cylinders, not sure what that means now or if that happened for sure.

Otherwise, hard to say it actually broke something. For this Accord, forget piston soaks via the plugs for a while and get a combustion chamber cleaner like Amsoil's Power Foam. Spray it into the throttle body directly with the engine running after reaching full temperature, immediately shut off the vehicle as soon as the can empties (you could unplug the MAP sensor wiring connector if by yourself) but it takes about 5 minutes to ingest the entire thing its a huge can. Then you just let it soak for 2 hours with the hood closed, re-start(after re-connected intake and replugged MAP connector etc) blip the throttle a couple of times only until it starts to idle on its own(even if higher than normal or even if it throws a CEL initially). Then, go drive WOT, stop and WOT again, etc.

If you have an 02 sensor or spark plug that was ready to go anyway, it may just do that. Otherwise, piston soak/CCC product use should be followed by an oil change.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: expat
Did you crank the engine with the plugs out, before starting the engine?

I'm thinking the MMO may have hydrauliced and possibly broken a piston land (part of the piston body between the rings)


Yes hopefully the OP cranked the engine over with the plugs out. Any liquid used for a piston soak can hydro-lock an engine and easily break a ring or worse. Hopefully that isn't the case here. As far as the white and blue smoke, that's the MMO burning off, but it will stop if the engine wasn't damaged as a result of locking it up.

 

[Gasbuggy]

Unfortunatly, I did not crank it over with the plugs out first. Like I said, I thought the MMO would leak down after sitting that long, and hopefully some did. The engine turned over quickly, I would think a hydrolocked engine would strain to spin. Perhaps the plugs were splashed with mmo and didn't fire.


Either way the car is running smoother than ever and is not smoking under normal acceleration.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Shark
Unfortunatly, I did not crank it over with the plugs out first. Like I said, I thought the MMO would leak down after sitting that long, and hopefully some did. The engine turned over quickly, I would think a hydrolocked engine would strain to spin. Perhaps the plugs were splashed with mmo and didn't fire.


Either way the car is running smoother than ever and is not smoking under normal acceleration.



I doubt you locked the engine then. I would have another look at the plugs just to be sure you haven't fouled a plug/plugs from the MMO soak.

 

[ltslimjim]

^Meh, those things are so cheap on these Honda's from that era. If they have any miles on them(over 20,000) just replace them.

(assuming he used OE)

 

[Gasbuggy]

Originally Posted By: ltslimjim
^Meh, those things are so cheap on these Honda's from that era. If they have any miles on them(over 20,000) just replace them.

(assuming he used OE)

Very true, $1.57 per plug, I replaced them over the summer.

 

[[RT] ProjUltraZ]

i would say hot water spray but w/ 363K it may break something

the white smoke should be gone after a few min, the blue smoke is oil burning. Try 10W-40 or buy another

 

[cjcride]

On Topic Question: Should the plugs/ignition wires be grounded when cranking with plugs out? Does it harm the igniter circuitry if it is not grounded? TIA.
Originally Posted By: expat
Did you crank the engine with the plugs out, before starting the engine?

I'm thinking the MMO may have hydrauliced and possibly broken a piston land (part of the piston body between the rings)

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: Dakota1820
Its normal to smoke a lot. If it doesnt help you may try some motor treatnent or b12 . Trans fluid also does a really good job. The longer the better


Tranny fluid? Isn't that an old wives tale.

 

[expat]

Originally Posted By: cjcride
On Topic Question: Should the plugs/ignition wires be grounded when cranking with plugs out? Does it harm the igniter circuitry if it is not grounded? TIA.
Originally Posted By: expat
Did you crank the engine with the plugs out, before starting the engine?

I'm thinking the MMO may have hydrauliced and possibly broken a piston land (part of the piston body between the rings)


Well technically, Yes.
But a quick spin would be very unlikely to do any harm.

 

[Kruse]

I'm going to GUESS that you may have broke a piston ring when you tried to start it. It's somewhat hard to explain, but on a high mileage car, the gap between the piston and the piston ring gets too much clearance. The piston rings then break because they rings begin to flex. Imagine pushing the inside of the piston ring down and the outside of the piston ring up. When that happens ALL THE WAY AROUND THE RING, it will break the ring. With the plug in and the hydrolocking happening, I suspect you broke a ring.
I'm not there, so this is only a guess.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: Shark
I know the white smoke is normal, it's all the blue smoke mixed in that concorned me.

Well you did introduce oil into the cat and the exhaust system so that might have something to do with the blue smoke.

If it didn't stop when you first tried to crank it, in other words it spun right over you didn't break a ring or damage a piston i would bet $$ on that.
I have seen engines that did stop with a bang while cranking and didnt get damaged (luckily).

Engines are not as dainty and easy to hurt as some think, in reality they can withstand an enormous amount of abuse and come back looking for more.

 

[TechnoLoGs]

Seafoam, 1-2oz per cylinder, as long as you can. You will get the pistons that are "down" the best, since half the pistons are "down" and half the pistons are "up." I also used to spray some PB Blaster in there before putting the plugs back in, if I could get to it. Wow, did that make smoke. For an hour or so...

I had my spark plugs out today, but the angle of them meant no Seafoaming this time.

Piston soak prime candidate is Seafoam. Some people say they used Kreen for it. That may work well, too. I could see B12 as it.

FWIW, I sucked B12 up through the brake booster line, and I got virtually NO result, whereas Seafoam.. you all know what usually happens, if there is any crud up there.

 

[Clevy]

I've got an upper intake mister. Basically it's a can of mmo and a tube connected to the vacuum system. It sucks the mmo into the airstream cleaning the entire top end and leaves a light coat of mmo on everything on the intake side of the head.
It's installed in an 88 mustang with speed density fuel injection,so very few sensors to foul.
When I first bought the car I filled the can up with mmo and regane fuel treatment. I drove it to get it hot,went home and throttled it a few times and I left black chunks in the snow out my exhaust(no cats,glasspacks).
I also got that blue haze of smoke for a while however not anymore. Could be that the constant mist going into the vacuum line has cleaned the rings,dunno. But I'm not complaining.
I'm really liking this top end oiler. You can adjust the intake feed and put whatever liquid you want in it. I will say this mustang is much more responsive since I've hooked the oiler up and ran cleaning fluids through the vacuum system.
I bought 2 so the second one is going on my other mustang since its working so well on this one.