Smoke/Steam out of exhaust? Normal?

[nat225]

wide open throttle... basically flooring your accelerator.

[Corey_R]

hehe, yeah, the more PC version of WFO

[darkfriend]

hehe, yeah, the more PC version of WFO

I think I can work that one out!

[Corey_R]

Legendary New Jersey thrash-metalists Overkill have an album titled W.F.O. and it features a song called Fast Junkie. Whilst the MTV video lyrics don't feature the WFO term of the album version for obvious reasons, it's all about racing

[AdamD]

A lot of the smoke under hard acceleration on turbo car is the fact that the ECU runs the engine rich at WOT.

Precisely. I think this is what the OP is seeing.

Guys, most engines are tuned conservatively from the factory. Under heavy loads at high revs, the ECU can mix additional fuel into the mixture to reduce the combustion temperatures inside the cylinders (more fuel in the mix = a cooler burn). This mixture may make the engine perform less well than a leaner mixture (a lower fuel/air ratio), but at least it can prevent detonation and piston/cylinder damage that may occur should the motor run too lean at high RPM or under high loads.

So, the upshot is - give the car a good hard rev and it's not unusual to see a bit of black smoke/soot, or sometimes the appearance of vapour/steam from the exhaust (depending on the air and exhaust temps). If the car is blowing smoke or heavy vapour under normal operating conditions, however, you may have a problem.

[hentaiboy]

118TSI Blew Smoke

Hi Guys, just picked up my new (used) 118 and after a sedate 20 minute drive home gave it a boot-full up my street only to see a large cloud of black smoke in rear view mirror

From reading an R32 thread, this may just be unburnt fuel. Can anyone confirm? Cheers.

[wai]

Black smoke is excess fuel/carbon. Blue smoke is oil, and white "smoke" generally indicates water coming into the system as well.

TSI indicates it is a turbocharged spark ignition, so it is can also be carbon build up in the turbo that gets "flushed" out when you gave it a bit of wellie.

[hentaiboy]

Thanks, that's put my mind at ease a bit. Had fleeting thoughts of the "118TSI Engine Failure" threads I've been reading.

Previous owners were an elderly couple so it probably just needs a bit of a blast to 'clear its lungs'.

[russ83]

Hey all,

I also have this smoke out the tailpipe issue on my MK6 118TSI. At first I was worried, but later found out it is normal. I was told it was fuel dumped into the engine to cool or heat(?) it. I notice that it only happens when the engine is cold and on boost.

Fix, let the car warm up well and truly before wide open throttle aka WOT.

[hentaiboy]

Fix, let the car warm up well and truly before wide open throttle aka WOT.

I'd been driving for 20 minutes before my little blat (half open throttle). But I'm happy based on observations from other members.

[bigdave260]

When you say 'air stuff' do you mean

78.084% Nitrogen
20.9476% Oxygen
0.934% Argon
0.0314% Carbon Dioxide
0.001818% Neon
0.0002% Methane
0.000524% Helium

Yes, it's normal.

9000000% Carbon diOxide if you believe the government!

[acheater]

I must admit. Before I was a vw guy I always noticed lot of golfs do this while accelerating from lights. Especially from those old R32s ad Gtis. I figured it because they are to hardcore to be clean. Hope my R is gonna be that cool!

[regu]

I had a big puff of black smoke coming out from the exhaust while going uphill. I also had some loud "tic" noise coming from under the car. It didn't sound really good. I can understand the cleaning puff of smoke but the noise????

I guess it's another trip to the dealer (I had the water pump and the clutch packs already replaced)

[Sentinel]

I get the "tic" noise from the engine area, as well as the smoke. Everything else is just as described in this thread.

I heard somewhere that the "tic" noise is caused by the various waste gates and compressor bypasses in the 118TSI engine. I hope that's true.