Puffs o' Smoke - any ideas?

Hey y'all, I was at Road Atlanta last weekend and aside from doing a little unintended gardening had a great time. I am used to the puff of smoke that occurs on startup after the car has been driven hard. What I am curious about is a cloud of smoke that occurred during acceleration and an upshift after finishing a turn (5). This happened twice during different sessions and it looked like oil smoke to me. The first cloud was larger and I black flagged myself and the track official looked carefully at my car and there was nothing leaking. So I went back out and the car was acting fine. During a completely different session I had a second smaller cloud of smoke in the identical part of the track. The oil level and pressure have been normal and the car is driving great - especially with the extra 55 rwhp that I'm getting from the plenum I stayed off the rev limiter and didn't miss a downshift so I am really kind of stuck. I did a search and found some people talking about an oil separator possibly going bad. Does this make any sense? Thanks, Tonger P.S. They just repaved and shaved Road Atlanta and it is smoooooth. I am so not worthy...

Was your oil over-filled? If so, you might get some smoke in right-hand sweepers.

+1

closed throttle deacceleration can be a sign of oil getting past rings or valve guide seals. But even if, engine can run a long time before these need attention. I've only experienced one -- my '02 Boxster's -- AOS failing and I didn't drive it much after the initial symptoms -- mildly hunting idle and vague hestitation off idle -- showed up and as other symptoms appeared -- smoking pretty good at idle and excessive vacuum at oil tube filler cap -- I shut off engine only to start it again to position car for loading onto flat bed tow truck for its trip to dealership for diagnosis and fix. Still, the smoking symptom you describe could be the result of an AOS going bad. Given the risk if this is going bad I'd be very sure to eliminate this as a cause of the smoking before doing much driving, and if the smoking gets worse or the engine exhibit increasingly untoward symptoms to avoid driving car, starting engine at all. Overfilled oil sump, old (diluted with water/unburned fuel) oil, wrong oil could also account for oil smoke. Sincerely, Macster.

Thanks for your ideas. To answer your question, the oil was two bars short of full on the electronic dipstick and looks absolutely normal to me (no foaming or discoloration). What has me stumped is that they were just a couple of puffs of smoke on the identical straight following a lefthander. It has not smoked since then. It idles smoothly and hasn't used any measurable oil. Macster - is AOS an abbreviation for oil separator? Thanks, Tonger

If you're puffing smoke under full throttle after exiting T5 at Road Atlanta, I suspect the baffle in the oil pan isn't quite doing the job when it comes to keeping oil from the bottoms of the right hand bank of cylinders. I wonder if the X51 pan and baffle assembly would help in this case?

I had this EXACT same problem. It turned out that oil was slipping through, and the culprit was that the oil was too thin. When I bought they car they put 10w-30 in there, so I replaced it with 15w-50 and I never get black smoke anymore. However I am getting a ticking sound from the lifters now when the engine gets hot, so I'm going to drop back to 10w-40 and then hopefully I'm good. Hope this helps!

I appreciate the replies guys. I agree that I don't think that it's anything catastrophic. As far as the oil baffle/blowby theory - is the oil going past the piston bottoms/rings during a hard turn? My car really doesn't use any between oil changes. If this is the case, then shouldn't I be burning more oil? You would think that a leak would leak all kinds of oil, not just the thin stuff. The baffled oil pan seems like a good idea - looks like an easy install. Thanks, Tonger

What oil are you using?