4age 20v smoking

[novocaine]

Hi guys,

Im from Cape Town, South Africa, i drive a corolla 20v.

The car smokes, if i start it up theres nothing, then after a few minutes sometimes you will start to see some light grey smoke.. when driving the car hard it smokes and my oil goes rather quickly: From the high mark to the low mark on the dipstick in one week, about 550km.

The car does NOT feel underpowered at all, in fact i just fitted a 63mm exhaust and its going better than ever.

I know the symptoms of worn oil rings are smoke and loss of compression and hence performance, but i dont feel a drop in performance at all.

Could it be the valve stem seals?
It doesn't puff smoke on decceleration or when starting the car, in fact if its not idling it only smokes under hard acceleration.

Any help/insight would be appreciated, thanks.

[robokill]

could be the valve stems ..... but what have you done to the engine that is suddenly started smoking ? have driven 4age's for more than 80k's now and never had that problem!

[novocaine]

Hi Robokill, I recently bought the car and it was smoking from the start. I'm planning to fix it up properly. I've had a 16v before and it didn't ever smoke and i drove it to the limiter everyday so i see what you mean.

I could have the rings replaced but that mean i will be immobile for at least 3 days, whereas if its the valve stem seals I can source my cousin's spare blacktop head, fix mine and pass it back to him...also works out cheaper, i already have teh genuine toyota head gasket

[E-volve]

You should do a compression test to say something about the pistonrings.
If the compression is low on 1 or more cilinders en you put in some oil (into gaschamber) and if the compression seems to be higher, then the pistonrings are worn. The oil works as a seal on de rings.

Otherwise you could think of the valvestems.

[novocaine]

I'm going to to get my mechanic to do a compression test, but really, my car is running really well, making power constantly all the way to 8000 RPM so I really doubt there is a drop in compression, and if there is i must have bought a real monster...

[E-volve]

Can be that only the oilrings are worn, but thats not very common.

Besides at high RPM there is to less time to loose compression, so you won't feel it then. You should notice it more in the low rpm region, like idle.
My 16v uses 1ltr @ 300km and still running like the one from another friend. (in better shape). Only at idle it doesn't run that smooth.
It's not that you will loose 25% of the power or so

[TE71corolla]

probebly you have a broken piston ,i have the same thing now,problem is detonation,engine runs okay,only when pushing hard it will smoke