tons of white smoke, help!!

[Tominos]

hi, i'm about to buy an 85 crx from a friend of mine. it smokes really really bad, but it runs pretty good. so i was wondering, to fix this, what could it be, i don't want to swap motors yet, so i would like to fix this one and drive around for a while until i do, so heres the deal, its a 12 valve carbureted engine. when i start it, tons of white smoke comes out, so much that after about a minute you can't see the car. so could it just be the headgasket, or could it be cracked head? any guesses? thanks

[jl9208]

Well it's got to be one or the other for sure. Remove the heads and check the gaskets and then have the heads MAGNAFLUXED.

This is the only way I know to be certain

Best of Luck :bandit:

[Tominos]

white smoke means burning water right? could it mean anything else? would the oil have coolant in it if the head gasket was blown? thats what a friend told me to do, check the oil, imma do taht today.

[Tominos]

the white smoke is not as much after the car warms up. i finally bought the car and drove it home, so i think its the piston rings that needs replacing. should i replace the rings, or should i just replace the motor? seeing as another motor with about 60 more horses is about 300 bucks. 58hp for the carbed d15. what should i do?

[b16a3sol]

did you check the coolant level to see if its dropping, or the oil level to see if thats dropping? sounds to me like a lot of shit is getting burnt off, so it should be noticeable which one it is. that old of a motor probably should be replaced anyways though. all the labor and parts is probably going to be more than 300 anyways.

[Tominos]

what do you think i should do? rebuild or swap out, i am leaning towards swapping , but i don't want to spend much on the crx. even though i rebuild, its still 58 hp, what would you do? and which is more cost efficient, either rebuilding carbed motor, or swapping in a zc(need new wiring harness, ecu everything). how much does parts cost for a rebuild, im planning on doing it myself.

[strodda]

it all depends on what you want out of the car. is it for running errands or do you want to make it into a racer? and also, have a shop look at it, so they can determine for certain what the problem is. then add up all the expenses for parts and labor(unless you want to do all of it yourself), and compare that to a new motor/ecu/etc.
then again, even if the fix now is cheap, its still an old motor and will probably have more problems down the road. but personally, id still go for the new motor. more likely to be reliable and eventhough it would just be a daily driver id still like to have more power than a gokart.

[Tominos]

i am just gonna use this car to drive around, it doesn't have to be extremely fast, i just want to mob around in it. i am thinking about doing it all myself, its the only way to learn about it, and since its not my daily driver, i am not too worried.

[wagsaccordsir]

Ouch!!