89 Supra Problems

Hey well i have 1989 toyota spra nonturbo auto with 160k miles on it now I jest picked it up and no less than a week goes by we have a major problem. It has an extreamly noticable loss of power and when we whent to look at it and fired it up it blew smoke from the engine and it didnt start on the first try. We noticed the smoke came from the cold air intake and around that area the smoke was in the tubeing for the intake. At first we thought it was the distributer but when we looked at it nothing was out of order, It also seems the that fuel isnt being burnt I dont know if this is common and easily fixable or if its a major problem. Now it jest started to drive like crap the thing rattles and shakes like mad when i start it up. If you can help me i would greatly appriciate it thanks!!

Grr...they have Toyota as well as Supra sections of the forums for these types of questions...and you post in the MuscleCar section...

But regardless, it's most likely a valve seal problem, especially if you're getting smoke...but I'm not sure why it would be coming OUT of the cold air INtake, but...that's all that I can really think of. The distributor would have nothing to do with your problem, besides the fact that the fuel doesn't appear to be burning correctly, which would most likely be due to the timing you have dialed in. Other than that, I can't see why the distributor would have anything to due with the smoke...If the problem isn't a valve seal, then take it to a dealership and see what they say. You may wind up paying a bit of cash up-front because I doubt the '89 has retained it's warranty.

I have heard and acutally experienced this before, i used to own a 73 honda passport (yes it is a scooter) and when i tried to start it it would just blow white mist out of the carb, well we found out that the mixture of compressed air and fuel was coming back up through the carb because the intake valve was opening at the wrong time, after messing with the cam (it had two lobe's on it) we got the problem fixed. Hope this helped.