Sounds like my NA FC has been since I bought it, but it started getting really bad recently and I'm rebuilding the motor now. It's most likely the oil control rings (the circular oils seals on the sides of the rotors) leaking oil when sitting still. Once you start it up, the oil goes into the combustion chambers and produces smoke. I had it foul my plugs a few times too, to the extent that the car would not start without cleaning them. This was after it got quite bad though and wouldnt stop smoking til like 5 minutes of running. At least when you rebuild you get the opportunity to port the housings I think the main things that can cause these seals to fail prematurely is 1: driving the car without letting it warm up completely (or letting it do the AWS (idle at ~3krpm during warmup) causing excessive-unlubricated-uncooled wear on these seals and 2: leaving the thermo-pellet in the front of the eccentric shaft which cuts most oil flow to the eccentric shaft and consequently rotor bearings and rotors (used for cooling) which seems like it would put more stress on these seals, especially during warmup (or driving with a failed thermo-pellet). I've since installed the thermo-pellet plug mazdatrix sells and will be removing the thermo-wax on my FC throttle body. I'm not sure what the setup is like on the FD though, but I am sure the FD still has the thermo-pellet, and it should be elminated with the plug as a reliability modification. However, if your oil control rings are already worn, and you do the thermo-pellet mod, it seems to cause it to smoke alot more at cold startup than before, due to it permitting complete oil flow to the rotors during startup where before it was restricted. Fortunately, leaky oil seals are more of a nuisance than anything, I took my car on many long distance road trips with the seals going out and never had any problems, other than dirty looks from people when I would start the car just had to keep a case of castrol GTX on hand

 

If it is just the short distance trips that make it smoke, you could always just bike the mile and save the FD for longer trips. By the time you let the car warm up it would probably take you just as long.

 

the turbos seal dynamically, if they arent spinning they dont seal as well, maybe it gets all loaded up on your drive to work. maybe you should pull off an intake pipe and see if its oily in there?



mike

 

There is a little oil in the intake tract... and the thing about the turbos not sealing as well if they aren't spinning sounds VERY logical...



But, funny thing is, car hasn't smoked since my last post, and I drive it everyday!



WHATEVER....

 

i say leave it alone until it gets worse



mike

 

My thoughts exactly

 

Thanks fellas!!

 

i dont think it has anything to do with the turbos because my 8 does the same thing smokes on start up after light running and mine is stock non turbo ...................

its kinda embarrassing to smoke out when you start up looking for a fix if anyone figures it out ..........

 

Old thread but...the OP mentioned "white smoke" That suggests steam, which suggests coolant seal issue.

In your case, if your talking burning OIL (blue smoke)...Oil control rings.