Technical Blue Smoke on Start-up (MultiJet 150)

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Technical Blue Smoke on Start-up (MultiJet 150)

no, it was added to about a 1/4 tank and given a good spirited drive on dual carriageway for 20 miles or so at strong concentration then the tank filled up.the millers i added at double dose to full tank,but am still convinced its more weather related.started car just as its stood for 40 odd hours and not even a puff toatally clear.i had been using millers regularly before this and excellium so would have imagined the fuel system was already pretty clean? seems to have ruled out mechanical ie valve stem guides/seals at least.
 
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Finally got a response out of Fiat today (4 weeks from complaint tomorrow), not exactly professional.

Before I give a brief on what Fiat have said, I have been monitoring my cars smoke condition over the last 4 weeks. I am happy that the problem is "FUEL" not oil. I would suggest that you dont spend any money on trying to cure the problem, because, in a nut shell you wont be able to. It all about the engine overfueling at start up, in cold conditions - the colder the worse it is. With ambient temperatures of 14 degrees+ I dont have the problem.

However, I dont exactly know why. The obvious choice would be that the ECU's map is not right. But there are other possibilities that it could be. Work friends of mine who own Vauxhalls with the same engine and the same year of manufacture dont have the problem........Which lends me not to think its the ECU's map directly. Indirectly.......It could be the map. My theory is that Fiat have used up surplus stock of ECU's designated for cars to be sold to a hot climate (obsolescence) or they have modified a position for one of the engines sensors fitted into an engine part, and only introduced the mod to the Bravo, Saab, and Vauxhall ranges (so we are driving Prototypes, which I know Fiat do do. Imagine 20,000 field trial cars - heaven for a manufacturer).

Ok so here it is Fiats official responce.
Blue smoke at cold start is "NORMAL" for the Fiat Stilo 150 JTD Multijet.

This is obviously a carefully worded statement. Yes its normal for us to have blue smoke, because we have all got it - simple. However, its not normal for any engine to have this feature, especially when its thrown in free as part of the "Performance Characteristics" ( Iam always looking for a bargain).

Very thoughtful of Fiat to add such a feature - I wonder why no other Manufacturer has thought of it. Fiat should use it as part of their Marketing Programme. The Italian Job with built in smoke screen to help loose the Poilce on the get away.................!

If I get any further with the problem I will report on this thread - however I dont hold out much hope.
 
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Good round up, I've noticed less (but still some) smoke recently, and also the very rough running. Looks like i will have to make do with the smoke for now and see if a GSR remap sorts it out!

Come to mention it my range drops by around 10 miles every time i start the engine!
 
Come to mention it my range drops by around 10 miles every time i start the engine!

most will probably do that, i think mine does (y)

i like it when i do a long journey for say 100 miles to durham etc, and the range with a full tank setting of wil grow to 600 and odd miles at a steady 70mph, and then once it gets to half a tank it nose dives :p
 
You want to try it when it says "Range 30 miles" (on along journey) and the needle is way down on the red :eek:

Economy driving here I come :D

As you say Josh, it's perfectly normal for the 'range to empty' figure to drop after a start on a coldish morning.
 
Appologies for the delay in replying to my initial findings with this problem. I can now report to you all (well the ones that are interested that is) that I have solved the problem - for myself.............:slayer:

I decided to sell the car any buy something decent. I must stress that this was a difficult decision....Alfa Romeo runs through my blood:worship:....and still does. However, enough was enough... high running costs, depreciation like there was no tomorrow, service from Fiat was being treated like you have the plague, continual denial of a problem...the list goes on.

On a positive note, at the last service which Fiat completed I did notice a slight reduction in smoke, which makes sence. Incorrect oil spec passing the oil seals - same problem Ford had in the 1970's and 80's. I would therefore suggest that you use only Fiat recomended oil as this could compound the problem.

Buy AUDI, your problems will disapear.....I assure you....!(y)
 
Appologies, my comment was not ment to be a critism. If you read back through the thread you will see that I have had Alfa/Fiats for years. However, you end up only taking so much before you finally walk away.

I accept that fuel costs have increased, it now costs me 0.8p per mile more. However, service costs are much less circa 65% on Fiat prices - which I found difficult to accept at first, but the Audi, VW group shares its costs around all the cars (common platform) as does Fiat Group. Unlike Fiat Audi keep the cost down and pass on the saving to the consumer e.g. cam belt, tensioner, waterpump, coolant, haldex (4 wheel drive system) oil and filter all genuine Audi £385 all in.
 
I am still getting the smoke but have just learnt to ignore it. More worrying i'm now getting a "chair on stone floor" sound when i start from cold, which sometimes persists even when the engine is warm. Sounds to me like turbo bearings....

Very similar to ananku i just get complete denial from fiat, even when my friend and i can clearly hear the noise. I'm not sure i will be keeping the stilo for the 4 years i had planned......!
 
i still get it also still not consistantly ,some days does some doesnt, 13,000 miles on since ive had the car(22,000 on clock) ,mines had 2 full oil changes both times selina wr 5w-40 and fiat filters,1 tub of diesel injector cleaner,1 new diesel filter(£60 odd).also fitted new cold start/temp sender(made no difference but worth a try for £5)and the e.g.r. valve taken off and cleaned(sure i gained a few mpg after this) .fuelled car with shell v-max ,total excellium, sainsburys cheapest all with and without millers diesel sport 4.still seems to do it roughly same amount and still suspect weather conditions and ambient temperature as it definately dies down in summer.
got some mobil 1 0w-40 on the way to try for next oil change as my work run is under 20 miles each way so engine is cold for half my journey,will report back if its any better or worse?
also some forte injection cleaner coming,will report back also if that makes any difference(fiat sold me silver hook last time).
im convinced its a bad fuel map program from original design overfueling at lower temps, definately not worried about mine any more but still feel embarrased on occation on a cold still when the plume stands out.
maybe in years to come an ecu update may appear?
p.s. spend a fair time on vauxhall forums andive never heard of them having the same issue with their cdti 150bhp engines? (they do have egr probs and swirl flaps sticking also)
 
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this issue has been brought up again recently by another jtd 16v owner so ill revive this thread to keep the other one on subject.
updates from me, never went away with mobil 1 0-40, never went away with new fuel filter and endless injector cleaners, ive had another new fuel filter since ive had a second set of injectors tested, fitted recoded, no difference, ive had 2 new map sensors one copy(no good after 3 months) new bosch was o.k made no difference to smoke.
i went through a spell of 2 stroke added to diesel made no difference.
i have replaced the turbo(due to constant blue smoke at the end even sitting at lights etc, much more than the issue were talking about here) the turbine seal was infact worn from high boost/overspeeding as id had a good few years at 170-180hp but although i thought this had sorted it it still returns and lets out the old puff on start up.
i have recently started to get into the ecu map and whilst remapping played with the cranking map reducing it, thought id cracked it but its still there. some days nothing, somedays same as ever.
so onto the maps
 
im comparing to a jtd 16v euro 4 alfa romeo ducati 170hp map
this im assuming is newer software and never heard of any issues like we have in our fiats. yes this car is not identicle but im pretty sure the turbo is the same(as i have it on my car now and is identicle)turbo pressure map is higher requested, as would expected to be done with a remap.
the injectors are different/better in this alfa and is confirmed in the injector duration map, requiring a fair few less micro seconds to inject same fuel at same pressure.
p.s. any mistakes my appologies im no mapper or software guy,just trying to learn more.
so here are cranking maps
crankingnmcompare.png
crankingnmcompare.png


here are fuel rail pressure(some differnces in red but not related to cranking really)
comparerailpressureduca.png
comparerailpressureduca.png


heres start of injection
comparesoi.png
comparesoi.png


there are a few differnces highlighted in red but not related to our problem as on a cold start i get around 900-1000rpm and total fuel IQ of 19-23 so well out of that area and values are the same in this area.
here is what i think is pre injection timing
comparepreinj.png
comparepreinj.png


same
 
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if we look at cranking map for say normal conditions 0-40*C /800-1250 revs
crankingmapconverted.png

we have torque figures of 1000-1400= 100 to 140nm

take these figures and look at nm to iq map
iqtonmmap.png

we get a total requested fuel of 1890-2535 = 18.9mg/i to 25.35mg/i
this follows closely to what i saw when logging during cranking.
some random start logs logs
cranking231mm3.png

cranking2294.png

crankingwarmstart.png

crankinghot80deg.png

these may have been original map or could have been my reduced iq map(cant remember)
but i think this was map ive had on since but still see blue smoke now so may well reduce further as noticed no change whatsoever on cranking and starting(side note i am willing to reduce cranking torque mainly due to the fact i have other modifications like lightweight flywheel, decatted exhuast etc that should need less cranking)
crankingmapconvertedlow.png

there may be other maps involved in cranking?
 
I will copy this here also
Loaded up my lower ecomap for winter with low drivers wish for first 25% also advanced soi more around idle area from -43 (or -33 as id already reduced a bit)is now 0 at lowest similar to gt ducati 170.
Done 2 cold starts (approx 3 degrees celcius) no issues started first turn as normal(still got my bluesmoke though)
Did some logging and noticed fes now multiscan has new features for my cf4 car and now logs loads more injection cycle data.
Logs pilot , pre, main, after and post injection data including inj amount mm3, injection degrees and injection duration in ms.I
Should be even more invaluable now, with diy mappers fiat/alfa etc.
I have compared one of the logs and compared data to try to find extra maps for soi pilot injection,soi pre injection etc and maps that look close dont match.
Also pilot injection looks fixed amount 1.002mm3 but degrees change,
these figures are parked up just reving no load.
pilot injection
[email protected]*@880rpm
[email protected]*@1500rpm
[email protected]*@2000rpm.
Pre injection
[email protected]*@880rpm
[email protected]*@1500rpm
[email protected]*@2000rpm
so these dont match the map i put up earlier for pre injection
so still to find and compare are pre injection and pilot injection
also would be nice to find out how the ecu splits up this injection cycle into pilot,pre and main injection, is total mm3 split up as a ratio?
will feed back anything i find.
 
update this as I was looking for some old info.
was cambelt time last year so tried to do as many other jobs at same time to save on labour.
full egr delete for nearly a year now manifold /valve opening blanked and turbo manifold blanked and everything else removed (egr pipes, egr cooler ,egr valve, cooler hoses)
also I deleted my swirl valves and used the press in and glue type aluminium plugs(was a manifold off job, lots of labour cost)
also had cambelt , waterpump , thermostat and new coolant.
also dropped on some bargain mobil 1 5w50 oil (but only in 4L tubs) so running some 0w40 mixed to top up so thicker than the std spec.
so im still convinced its not oil leaking in anywhere, especially now this is a thicker oil.
basically had a really good year again smoke on start up wise and once again it has returned with the colder weather same as usual depending on standing time depends on what you get size wise (still seems lots worse under say 5-8deg c)
under 6-8hrs next to nothing(say while in work)(sometimes something)
between workdays say 14hrs a nice big cloud
say its stood all weekend sometimes not much sometimes same as above.

still been experimenting with fuel additives and combinations of millers, bg244, 2 stroke oil, peanut oil, and supermarket fuel.
just for a second check refuelled this week with shell v power so a clean fuel and still same.

I did reduce the cranking nm fuel map substantially for the colder temps did seem to help as did every thing I have tried , its like a placebo , you try something you have a few no smoke days and think its cracked it.

just seen on tv 2014 was hottest on record so probable reason for good smoke free year.
 
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