Hey guys. My car's doing it now. I started it up today and poof big cloud of grey/black smoke. It also runs very rich on startup. I know all maxes run rich, but if we idle in the garage for any period of time (with the door fully open) the car fills with rich exhaust smell. Perhaps a problem with ignition coils? The puff of smoke seemed awfully large for a car with only 20k miles on it.

 

hmmmm.....it could be the coils, but is your car pinging at all? Check the plugs and see what condition they are in. That may give you some more info.......good luck

 

Well... it pinged when I had the Pop Charger on... :/

I'll have to take a look at the plugs. Damn... I gotta get a spark plug socket now. hehe

 

Let me know if you find a fix to this problem. I'm still looking.

 

Irvine78's and my sparkplugs were sort of white (lean) when we took ours out. I'm pretty sure yours will be white also.

 

There was a big @ss cloud... it nearly killed my GF. It was large enough to be comical.

 

Hmmmmm...... that doesn't sound right. Dealer?

 

I bet they'll be looking at intake. I think I'll remove my oscai tube and put the paper filter back in.

My only other thought is my tank is really low right now. Perhaps a lot of fumes are causing this?

I gotta go in for an oilchange soon so if it doesn't clear up after a fill up then I'll mention that. Plus my stupid AC fan is ticking.

 

bad tank of gas?

 

I normally fill up with Texaco... they're supposed to be good. Right? 3 different stations too.

 

I think Texaco gas is fine as far as I know. I stick to Chevron, but either way it should not make a huge difference as long as it is not a really cheap/crappy brand.

 

You should take the car in if it's been happening for a while already.

 

I would defenitly reccomend going to the dealer if the cloud of smoke is that big. I don't think it could be the spark plugs cause they say the stock platinum plugs are good for 100,000 miles. Not that i would ever wait that long. What do you guys suggest the spark plug change interval to be? 30k 40k? Thanks

 

It's not that the plugs are bad, but you can examine them to see what's wrong with the engine by looking at their color. I would change the stock plugs probably around 50 or 60k miles....

 

Check the plugs if not.
go beat nissan's head
100k miles my ***

 

Thanks UMD.... You think it's worth getting those Platinum +4 spark plugs. They are supposed to give a little power and once i incorperate the Twin Spark thing it should make some hp. you think? Thanks

 

I would stick with the OEM NGK's.......

 

I have heard good things about the Denso Iridium plugs. Some have shown dyno sheets claiming pretty significant improvements in power. This is what the Lexus GS400 uses I think.

http://www.densoiridium.com/

The accord v6 guys like it, and their engine isn't tuned very aggressively (it only needs 87 octane)
http://superhonda.org/board/showthre...=denso+iridium


this is the dyno claiming a power improvement. It is just one sample, but who knows...
http://www.autocarparts.com/images/p...o_AccordV6.gif

 

Thanks. Alexis, i went to that page and those iridium plugs look pretty hot. I may give them a try and see how they work.

 

thanks for the info.....

 

Just curious, are you one of the guys who regularly races and runs the engine to red line?

A warmed up Ferrari can do this all day long as they are designed to be run hard.

The Max on the other hand is still a "family" car. I doubt the designers intended red line to be hit on a daily basis.