04 i-CTDi smoking A LOT, power seems normal though

I wrote about this many months ago but I thought I got it fixed by changing fuel stations. I thought wrong. So my Accord is now remapped to Stage 1, it started smoking before I remapped it, after the remap it just got worse. I feel like its running super fine with plenty of power since 1500rpm all the way till 4000rpm but smokes unbearably. Those are the symptoms:

- if I climb a hill for example, at constant speed of 40km/h lets say, driving on 2000rpm on second gear, there is enough smoke that I can see it in the rearview mirror
- if I floor the car there will be a HUUUGE black cloud behind me, making me ashamed to overtake sometimes knowing people can't even see after me
- if I go down the hill and pop a lower gear, like 2nd on 60km/h, the engine will go to 3000rpm and I will see smoke going out of the car in the rearview mirror though it should not consume any fuel while using the engine as a brake, right?
- if the car is colder, I think it smokes less (though I dont press it hard at all while cold), when it gets to normal temperature it seems to be smoking more
- it burns around 1L of oil per 10 000km and the oil consumption seems to be growing (year ago it was under 0.5L per 10k)
- if I floor it several times in a row it decreases smoking for some time - like it has cleaned the garbage out of the system, but still smokes under load (which might be normal part of the remap)

The car has about 250 000km on it, regularly serviced for the past 80 000km since I got it with original 0W30 oil and genuine oil and fuel filters - in the beginning it was not smoking at all! At the Honda Service where I've been taking care of it they said the injectors are fine and the turbo seems fine. They probably did not understand what I mean by "SMOKES A LOT" and thought its normal for a remapped car.

I have the intention to go back there and make them check every possible component that can cause this smoking and slight oil burning. I consider changing the turbo core with something like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Turbo-CHRA-Cartridge-Honda-Accord-2-2-i-CTDi-2002-2008-140-Hp-/261312822952?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3cd7753ea8
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Honda-Accord-2-2-i-CTdi-761650-729125-CHRA-Core-Turbo-TURBOCHARGER-Cartridge-/181252026196?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item2a33766f54

I don't know if they are any good. Maybe it could it be selenoid valves or MAF sensor? Any ideas will go on a list that the service will have to go through...

I can also remove the map and do some tests...

Thank you a lot!!!

Sticking turbo vanes, sticky turbo actuator (EVR), leaking intercooler/boost pipes? It's hard to know... do you have access to HDS?

Yep this is going to be difficult to diagnose without some proper logs of the car. Even if you can't get a HDS, if you can find someone with a decent machine that can take logs of fuelling, boost, MAF etc and whilst you are driving, get them to look at the target vs actuals and try and identify any deviation.

It might be worth you putting your car to stock also and running the same tests and then see if the remap is exacerbating the problem further, perhaps the problem might be a slight overboost due to a leak somewhere (or sticking vanes).

I have an ELM-327 OBDII reader and Android Torque Pro, can I do some logging that might help you figure it out? My Honda service has HDS and I can tell them what to look for probably... They are just super busy and wouldn't start looking for it on their own without some pushing...

Also I think that those symptoms are most important to determine the problem:

- it does have planty of power, no lag, etc - it should rule out sticky turbo vanes, sticky turbo actuator, no?
- it does smoke a lot less while its not warm - like while the engine is under 70*, when it reaches the optimal 80 it is smoking much more from pressing the pedal much less
- it does smoke when I pop a gear down while downhill and the RPMs go to 3000+

standard intercoolers are a lot too small for our cars on the stock map, so on remaped car is much worse, because after remap car is getting more fuel, but still not getting enough air, as you mentioned when car is cold there's less smoke, as soon as car getting warmer, all engine parts, turbo,cooler, cooler pipes etc are warmer so there is less air that's why you have a lot of smoke, I had the same, but it has changed when I fitted FMIC and temp in the intake has dropped for about 40 degrees.

I think Dimitar's problem is probably something else as it was already there before he tuned, and has just got worse. I think possibly an intake leak/induction or boost leak but it needs a good visual and logging inspection.

Have you got EGR delete as well on the map? Mine does pretty much as you say except not quite as bad, so I don't notice it most of the time until I put my foot down, then after 2 or 3 'feet down moments' it clears up completely to nothing. 10 mins of driving gently at steady throttle and I'm ready to black out again!
Mine didn't smoke at all before the remap so maybe your car had some smokey issues before and the EGR delete made it worse.

Yes, the car has the EGR OFF option. I do expect it to have black smoke when flooring. But this is really A LOT black smoke, making a THICK BLACK FOG behind me lasting for several minutes maybe, also I would not expect it to smoke visibly when going downhill on gear or driving at constant rate uphill.

F6HAD said:

I think Dimitar's problem is probably something else as it was already there before he tuned, and has just got worse. I think possibly an intake leak/induction or boost leak but it needs a good visual and logging inspection.

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Hey F6HAD, I'm really sorry to have to ask this, but would you point exactly which pipes or components you would suggest to need to be checked for leaks? Would you rule out change of the intercooler (what brodziu says seems very reasonable)? Next week I'll drive the car to the service. I can tell them to remove the turbo and clean it, check it carefully and also check all the pipes between it, the intercooler and everything else you suggest.

Hi mate - basically everything, a good visual check with a UV lamp. Also have the intercooler cleaned out and check for any oil inside it and also clean up the map sensor.

Actually I've just thought of something. I've seen a similar issue in the past and it was down to a cracked manifold.

When was your manifold checked for leaks, and are you confident you have no issue there?

Shab from the Admin team had his repaired tonight after I diagnosed it over the weekend. He never realised his was cracked, and you will find with these cars that when you live with it for so long, it's not always apparent as your senses have de-tuned to the smell and symptoms.

Thanks again for the reply!

Intake or exhaust manifold? The exhaust manifold had been cracked and there was strong smell of burned diesel inside the car from it, so they removed and welded it - it seems to be a very common problem with pre-face lift 7th gens. Since then there has been no problems (diesel smell).

So I'll tell them to:
- remove, clean and check the intercooler
- remove, clean and check the turbo
- check all the drivetrain-related pipes, all that may concern air, oil and fuel transportation, like manifolds
- clean the MAF sensor
- MAYBE check the selenoid valves?

I hope to get this figured out, as I'm going to have a 5000km trip in January to France and back, I don't want to go on such trip with doubts about my beloved car's condition...

Yes mate, the exhaust manifold. Can you just check that it hasn't cracked again.

Also with all that smoke and over fuelling, the inlet manifold is likely to be completely coked up, so worth also cleaning that out. can you also check for any injector leaks..

The single biggest thing that fixed my smoking Accord to replace the injectors. I only wish I got round to doing it sooner.

Put it this way, if my Civic starts smoking...it will be the first thing I look at..

What is the price of the injectors? Did you replace or "recycle" them?

ddinchev said:

What is the price of the injectors? Did you replace or "recycle" them?

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I bought a set of used ones from ebay. I don't know how common the Honda I-CTDI engine is in Bulgaria so you may struggle to get hold of some domestically.

I'd order some from ebay.co.uk as well. Right now there are only separate single units for around 80-100GBP. There is a "Bosch Diesel Center" here that claims to fully recycle worn off injectors but I have no idea how reliable that is. I'd rather spend 300-400 GBP for a set of used injectors from crashed i-CTDi with relatively low mileage.

I would go with refurbished injectors from Bosch centre as I believe they'll give you some warranty so if something go wrong you can bring them back, with used injectors you never know what you'll get and it may appear that they're in worst condition then yours

I'd get the car looked at using HDS to see if the injectors are actually over-fuelling. And, to some degree, injectors can be 'trimmed' using HDS to correct their fuelling levels.

^^ yup exactly. Don't ever throw parts at a car without at least trying to diagnose the problem.

Also you can log these cars with a lot of decent aftermarket diagnostic tools now.. And I'd also agree that refurbished injectors with a warranty are a lot better than breaker parts.

I've split a common rail injector apart myself in the past to see what's inside, and they're actually fairly simple devices. A solenoid that activates a spring loaded piston which fires the fuel out of a pinhole (on demand from the ECU signal).

Using some paint thinners, we soaked the injector overnight and then used compressed air to blow through it... i'm not sure if that's as good as a proper refurb but it certainly helped. This was on a Vauxhall 1.9 CDTI injector from the Z19DTH engine. We had them lying around spare so thought we'd give it a shot..

Couple months ago I have the same problem.So bought two refurbished injectors from bosh.Smoking still was,so bought third injector.Still last injector not coded but car much less smoking.at the moment two refurbished,one new and last old.

F6HAD said:

^^ yup exactly. Don't ever throw parts at a car without at least trying to diagnose the problem.

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Yep, fully agree. I would first get the injectors out and tested by a specialist. However each individual has their own logistics problems about having a car off the road, not to mention finding an injector specialist.