Grey Smoke

[Zeke]

Car: 1998 Honda Prelude base 5 speed.

Repairs recently done to the car.
New clutch
New pressure plate
New flywheel
New transmission fluid
New engine oil Castrol Non-Synth 10w-30.
New driver and passenger side axles.
New clutch fluid.
New transmission axle oil rings.
New oil pan gasket
New rear main seal
New oil cooler oil ring
New radiator hose (upper hose)

After I got the car back together. I noticed smoke coming near the headlights. I opened up the hood. I noticed smoke coming from the header. I was thinking maybe I didn’t tighten up the bolts when I took the b-pipe off. I also had spilled some break fluid and coolant in that area when I was filling up my radiator and bleeding my slave cylinder. So, I wrote it off as that problem.

I have the car and drove it at least 20+ miles today to help break in the new clutch on the car (Stage 1). The clutch grabs fine, goes into every single gear with no problem, no slipping, kept it under 4000 rpm. I got home and noticed some smoke, so I opened up the hood thinking it might have been the header smoking again, because I bleed the clutch again last night since I still had air at the time. But I didn’t see no smoke coming from the header. I saw it coming from around the intake manifold and the fuel rail/injectors and underneath it (from what it seems like).

Now, this is a first time I have ever had it happening near the intake manifold. The grey smoke has really no smell to it. It’s not coming out of the exhaust. So I’m pretty sure it’s not a blown head gasket as I haven’t had the car overheat. It barely even reaches the halfway mark on the temperature gauge.

I have done all the repairs myself. So, I probably did something wrong, but I followed the Helms service repair manual to the T. I’m still a novice at repairing cars, so hopefully someone with better knowledge could lend me a hand at figuring out this smoking issue. Oh and I should say. It’s not like a bomb went off kinda smoke, but just a medium size light smoke iirc.

Topic

[college man]

you either spilled some fluids and its burning off
or check the pcv. keep an eye on it.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Agreed, it’s likely to be where fluid or grease got onto the exhaust from when you did the work. If it lasts past a week then worry otherwise you should be fine.

[Zeke]

Thanks guys for the reply.

Yeah, I drove her today and didn’t see any smoke like before. I think the problem might have been when I pulled off the oil cooler o-ring and filter some might have got on the exhaust since it sits right underneath it. I gotta remember to put a bag when doing that.

I’ll update this thread, if it ever pops up again.

[EricTheCarGuy]

That sounds like a plan. Keep us posted.

[Author]

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