96 cobra white smoke from exhaust

[Garrett Brooks]

Hey everybody I have a 96 cobra and flushed the coolant system and after I got the system flushed and back up and running the car started to smoke white from the exhaust. I also had o2 codes being thrown and I pulled the plugs and the plugs had white powder on them.

I let the car idle for awhile it never overheated and continued to smoke. I haven't got new plugs just cleaned them up and put back in so far.

Any ideas what the smoke is from? Also once I pulled the plugs the o2 codes stopped being thrown.

Thanks.

 

[Garrett Brooks]

These are the codes I have been getting but once plugs was cleaned up they went away.
Also smoke has a slight gas smell.

 

[JustinG60]

Well, was is prevalent smoke that persisted through a cold start or a thin misty white smoke that only hung out in cold start or some revs in the cold. One, the thin smoke in the cold, is normal. The other, thicker more consistent smoke, is a sign of burning coolant in the combustion chamer ...i.e. blown head gasket.

A head gasket can be a pain to diagnose ...I am curious, has the car over heated semi recently? Any cooling issues that led you to flush the system?

I am betting the O2 sensor read a lack of oxygen from what ever is burning (coolant) and threw a code.

On the other hand... did you run. Seafoam through the car? That blows white smoke too.

Maybe answer my thoughts and we can help further...

Hoping for the best for your car

 

[Garrett Brooks]

It started during a cold start but I ran it for at least 30 minutes last night and it kept going but I just started the car up and it's 72 degrees out and not smoking but it smoked at 50 degrees so maybe it was just cold out and I over reacted.

I haven't had any cooling issues or the car over heating I just wanted to flush the system since I haven't since I owned the car, and not sure when previous owner did it last.

I haven't noticed loss in coolant so don't think it's burning coolant. But I do believe it'd burning some oil. Burn oil isn't milky at all.

 

[JustinG60]

Yeh, oil burns light blue but definitively a blue hue.

When you flushed the systemost did you notice any brownish sludge/goop coming out? A lot of times when a head gasket gives out oil goes into the cooling system.

Unfortunately it is possible for a headgasket to not leak oil into the coolant but leak into the combustion chamber. Likewise, you can get coolant into your oil. Have you changed it since you noticed the smoke? It's pretty easy to tell, the oil gets much much lighter in color.

Realistically if it's not a thick, milky as you might say, I doubt it's coolant. You smell a sweet maple syrup almost smell? Haha odd but it's another tell sign

 

[Garrett Brooks]

Coolant didn't have any brown sludge or anything it was good.

And I haven't changed the oil yet since I noticed smoking, but today it did not smoke as bad.

No maple syrup smell mainly just a gas smell from exhaust. May just be fumes