Hi All, I had an incident this weekend that reminded me of a recent post here but I couldn't find it. It was along the lines of owning a vintage Fcar and being afraid of every little strange sound or smell. As some of you know, I've been commenting about my suspension lately. And a popping of my exhaust. Well, I had a couple of hours free Sunday morning and I thought I'd just go and run the car on the freeway (no winding roads because of the suspension issues) to take down some mental notes. I also wanted to try some Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) to see if that might work for the popping. As I start the car in the morning, I was greeted to some "flatulence" (for lack of a better term) from the exhaust. Not a full blown backfire or pop. More lke an extreme exhalation. I proceed to warm the car a bit. Then backed her out onto the street. As I baby her down the street trying not to wake the neighbors, the exhaust starts doing it's "pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop". Like a popcorn popper. I'm a bit ticked off by it. But wanted to give the MMO a chance. I finally get her warmed up and onto the freeway and I get her up to speed. Doing a bit of the "Italian tuneup". I notice that on steady cruise, there is next to no noticeable popping. But any other condition, the popping will happen. Most noticeably on deceleration. Now the popping I'm talking about is not the cool sounding deceleration noises that we love. It's just shy of a backfire. Actually, it did backfire a couple of times. Most of the popping seems to be coming from the driver's side. I drove for about an hour and decided to put some gas in the car. I pull into the station driving over a little trickle of water. As I turn off the ignition, I notice in my rear view what appears to be white smoke coming from the engine cover! Now my pulse is racing and I open the cover to see if it is smoke or steam and where it's coming from. It was pretty thick but it dissipated very quickly. I didn't notice any strange gauge readings. I check under the car and nothing is leaking. I get back into the car and restart the engine and all seems fine. It must have been the water that I went over. But I just can't imagine that that would be the case as I went over it at a very slow speed to minimize the amount of water splashing onto the body. But that seems to have been the cause. In any case, the car was fine. With the exception of the popping that didn't seem to get any better. As for the suspension, I think it's time for a complete rebuild. As I was driving, I had to really concentrate on even the slightest of turns as the car turned in, I'd have to counter steer to compensate for the oscillation. I don't know if I described that well. It's as if I put the car into the turn knowing that it's going to over react and I'd have to back off some of the steering to stabilize the car thru the turn. It just felt very loose. And this was for both right and left hand turns. To finish up this post, I have a few questions for the experts here. What causes popping of the kind I described? This behaviour did not come about gradually, it was like someone turned on a switch. One minute the car was sounding fabulous. The next, "pop, pop.....pop". I noticed at Energy Suspensions, they list only 2 bushings for Ferraris. Stating something to the effect of "for most types of Ferraris". I'd like to swap urethane bushings for all the rubber bushings when I rebuild the suspension if I can. Any Dino owner's out there have any experience down this road? Will what's listed at Energy Suspensions work for the Dino 246? Thanks for any help you might provide, Manny
At first I though a carb leak; too much air will make the pops and even some smoke. But then I also thought the exhaust headers could have a leak or be loose. Check the bolts that hold the headers on. You can check the carbs with the carb cleaner trick: spray it around the carbs and if the engine races i there's a leak. Check the spark plugs; could one be fouling? Be sure they all look the same. Fix the suspension. You will likely cause damage as parts rub together that shouldn't. Maybe the tie rod ends need replacing? I don't think your engine has any major issues. Good power, not overheating so your head gasket is okay. Carbs don't go out of tune in a snap. Check any air hoses and vacuum lines; your car has a vacuum line to the brake booster? Could have an air leak there. Just a trial and error check may turn up the problem; good luck! Ken
White smoke typically occurs when using Marvels Mystrery Oil as it burns off. Depending on how much MMO you dumped in, the burn off could take a very long while and you could have fouled the plugs, causing backfiring - what type of ignition system are you using? Stock?
