Smoking at startup

I have a friend who has a 2002 996. We track our cars and whenever he starts his car, there are bellows of smoke. I mean alot! There is so much smoke that everyone near clears out. Has anyone else had this problem and if so is there a fix?

Does he have an aftermarket exhaust or catalytic converter?

Our local Porsche service manager suggested to a "smoker" at our last track day event that he do a cool down lap and then let car idle for a few minutes to avoid this.

correct, but it is not something that you should worry you.... it is normal to have this smoke after hard driving....

Does this happen everytime? Or is this a track-reaction? -Eli

From what I heard it's fairly common for 3.6 liter engines. I'd suggest letting engine idle for 10 secs or so before shutting it off. This let's the oil settle, leaving less of a chance for it to seep past the ring gaps.

The smoke is so heavy that folks come over to see what happened. Cooling down helps a little but still the smoke is very heavy. Stock car, exhaust and cats. Seems to happen mostly at the track.

But it happens everytime even not at the track? -Eli

This happened to me after several sessions at the track, it scared me so much I had the car trailered home by a friend straight to the dealer who could find nothing wrong except an oil level that was too high! I had had the oil changed at the time of the pre-track inspection the the mechanic said that oil sloshed around during hard charging was getting burned at start up, he took a little oil out, problem solved. When the smoke formed at start up, it was very impressive and drew a crowd over to my car in a hurry! It was whitish-grey but I have never seen it since.

Next time he know this is gong to happen, remove the crankcase ventilation hose before starting it up. See if this drastically reduces the smoke out the pipes.

The smoking only occurs during track time...running hard. He says it doesn't happen while driving the streets.

Is your friend running that ****ty 0w40 oil? I'm waiting for one of these cars to seize up using that stuff. No way it provides protection when it's temperature is 230F and higher.

I've had it happen to me a couple of times after running the car hard at the track and not letting the car cool down. The story was the same both times, I pulled off the track to get some space in front of me. Just as i pulled off, the checkered flag went up so I ended up shutting the engine off without a good cool down lap. After the 2nd occurrence, it was burned in my brain to not do that again. I haven't had a problem since.

BTW, As with the guys on this board, many of the experienced Porsche guys told me that this is a normal occurrence under the circumstances.

I had also experienced this with my '02 at the track. Sounds fairly common, although I did not see any other 996s doing the same thing. Next time I will be sure to idle for 30 seconds or so before shutting down. Thanks for the info. Paul.

I know cool down (actually idle for at least 2 minutes) for a Turbo is a "must"...not sure if this is also true for an NA (I understand why for a turbo, but do not know why for an NA?).

Not the same, and not as critical, but probably better for the car...

Yes, this happens with the 3.6 at the track once in awhile. As far as I can tell, cool down has little to no effect on this. I find that it happens after I have a particularly good run. My car never really runs very hot (it stays between the 1 and the 8 even on the track), but it will smoke a little upon startup after a very good run (doesn't sound like as much as your friend's car does). It also puffs a little puff of smoke right between T1 and T3 at VIR, nearly every time. I have seen many, many 3.6 996 motors do this, and I have talked to mechanics who say it is nothing to worry about. It never does it under normal street driving conditions.