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Hi everyone!
Today I took out my Z and was riding in front of my friends van and decided to show off a little. So I was doing about 60mph and down shifted from 4th into 3rd and hit the gas (hard). The car took off and really surprised me(only had my Z06 for just about a year-oh, it's a 2001). Later on my friend was really impressed by how quick the car took off but he told me that there was a noticable amount of black smoke that came out of the exhaust pipes. Now I have noticed some carbon build-up on the chrome tips (Corsa exhaust system) and I thought it was normal. Should I be concerned about this? The car has 35k on it and I do put oil in it between oil changes. About 1qt or so.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. This is my first Corvette and I really love it. I hope my car is ok.
Thanks so much !
Don
Is there a way to correct this... it is black smoke
as already mentioned:
Fuel rich smoke is usually black.
Oily smoke is usually light blueish color.
Coolant smoke is usually white.
if you only see this black smoke at WOT, you are probably alright, as the fuel management system is in fuel enrichment mode. If you see this black smoke during cruise and light acceleration, then you may have problems. I assume you checked for error codes and don't have any. Bad O2 sensors can lead to rich running condition.
Also, if you are burning a quart of oil every 3K miles, and with only 35K miles on the odometer, you should get that fixed. That's too much oil getting past your piston rings.
2001 is the famous and most popular year for the oil burners. I would not mess with it if its not under warranty anymore. I've owned several cars that consumed 1 quart of oil every 3-4k miles. Never had any problems with the motors.. The black smoke can be eliminated by a good tuner and a Dyno Tune, you will also pick up a noticable amout of hp. Cost is $400-$500.. If you are planning future mods I would wait until you do those first and then do a dyno tune. Always better to run a little rich than a little lean, even though you are leaving some horsepower on the table
Thank you all for your info. I'm a new vette owner and I still am learning all about this wonderful car. I told my wife after reading about one member who had to sell his Z for his kid to go to collage, that I would either sell the kid or leave .. Hey, I live in the Ridgewood section of Queens,Ny. Anyone know of a good tuner or a place where I can get this Dyno tune done? I've been bringing the car to the dealer and I would love to find a good mechanic instead.
Thanks again for all your help. I'm happy to read though that my car is fine and that oil thing will get checked
If you plan to Mod your car down the line then I would establish a relationship with a tuner that has a lot of experience with the Mods you are thinking of doing.
Vette Doctors is a good tuner and not too far from you (on the island).
I use East Coast Supercharging as my tuner and they have a great reputation. They are located in NJ and plenty of people from NYC area use them.
I would hold off on any tune though until you figure out what you want to do with the car. If you are leaving it stock I might not even do a tune, but that is your choice.
I have an 01 too and burned oil. You said 1 quart of oil is what you burned between oil changes which really is not bad. Mine use to burn aobut 1.25 every 800 miles
Good luck with the car and if you have any questions let me know.
Thanks Bob... Will look into these "tuners" you mentioned. I'm a liitle low on funds but I do want to do something to the car that would increase HP without draining my wallet..any ideas?
Don
hey you own a Z and really there is not much you can do without spending a ton of $$$. One thing you can do though is change the Air Intake System. Maybe go to a Halltech Stinger or Blackwing. You can do the install by yourself and your car will breath better.
Outside of that you are looking at cat-back, headers, cam, heads, and the list continues, but gets more expensive.
i bought a 2001 coupe, not a z06 and it used 1 quart every 1200 miles. I heard that if you run it from about 1500 rpm to 3000 rpm for about 2500 miles,and no higher, the rings may seat in. If yuo hot dog it a lot, they may never have seated because the synthetic oil is so slippery.
well I tried it, and guess what ?no oil consumption for almost 3000 miles! it's really hard not to rev it for that long but I did it and it worked.