White smoke on start up

[BlkSC]

I have an '03 6.0, head studs, egr delete, straight turbo back exhaust, no tunes, and as it's been getting colder, white smoke has been coming out when I start it. The turbo has a noticeable whistle at an idle when it's warm and when it was warmer out, it had it about as soon as I started it. Now it doesn't start whistling till I start driving. I'll let it sit in my driveway to warm up a bit before I drive and it doesn't whistle and a little bit of white smoke will come out until I start driving. It's starts and runs fine, just really don't think this is normal but I could be wrong. I do have on order a remote FICM programmer and rollback from PHP and I just put Rev-X in it hoping it might help but it didn't. Any ideas? Thanks

[bfrank81]

I was going to post a similar thread but since you have this one I'll jump on here. Hopefully this will give you something to reference. If not sorry...

For the first time today I started mine and it was in the low 30's. The ECT and EOT were at 33 when my CTS came online before starting the truck. After it started I looked and there was a small cloud of blueish smoke which is normal for my truck when it is cold. Then I clicked the hi-idle and I had the pic below. After I snapped the pic I went back inside to finish getting ready to leave.


I let the truck hi-idle for almost 10 min and by the time I came back outside the white smoke was gone and there was nothing visible coming from the tailpipe. I am assuming that is normal?

[thenubsterman]

i know mine sokes white when its cold on satrt up my fathers does too. i just dont worry about it lol. he has 193,000 i have 163,000

[bfrank81]

Originally Posted by BlkSC

I'll let it sit in my driveway to warm up a bit before I drive and it doesn't whistle and a little bit of white smoke will come out until I start driving.

Do you have the hi-idle switch? I bet if you did yours would look just like my pic.

[phantom-3k]

Mine smokes white too when its cold out, and after its been running for about 5 or so minutes its gone. This seems to be normal on the trucks, maybe someone will chine in why. oh and mine has 135000 miles on it!

[Texas~KR]

Mine does it in 50-60 degree weather. But, if you turn your key to on position, and let it sit there for a few seconds, maybe 5-8 seconds, it will start up easier with less smoke. This allows the sensors and glow plugs to warm up better.

[PGreenSVT]

IMO that is not a normal amount of smoke. There is usually a little smoke when you start up which is unburned fuel because the cylinders have no heat in them. It shouldn't take very long for it to build up enough heat to stop that.

Mine used to smoke like that on startup and it would gradually decrease over about 10-12 minutes. I thought I had a potential injector issue but in my case it turned out to be my FICM headed south.

I would check your FICM voltage just to rule that out. If that checks out I wouldn't worry too much about it. Another sign was it ran like crap if I didn't let it warm up to 100* or so before driving it.

[BlkSC]

I checked my FICM voltage a couple weeks ago and it was 48.xx volts all the time except for a dip into the 47.xx range that was so quick I couldn't even read the last two numbers.

[BlkSC]

And I don't have the high idle mod. That's about what the first puff of smoke looks like when it starts but it then just turns into wisps of smoke. It really hasn't even been that cold yet, I think this morning it was around 38 degrees

[PGreenSVT]

Originally Posted by BlkSC

And I don't have the high idle mod. That's about what the first puff of smoke looks like when it starts but it then just turns into wisps of smoke. It really hasn't even been that cold yet, I think this morning it was around 38 degrees

If you are just seeing a quick a quick puff that goes wispy pretty quick that is normal behavior. That is just the unburnt fuel due to the cylinders having no heat. That's what mine does now too. Blows a puff for about 5 seconds. As soon as the turbo starts to spool it tapers off to a little wisp.