I recently purchased the kinetix intake manifold. I installed it but because I was rushing I hooked the coolant line where a vacuum line was supposed to go. I tried cranking it and it ran like ****. I went back and fixed my configuration, and got my car running fine. It idled amazing but it was dumping thick white smoke still, so I let it sit for 5 min and it was still smoking. So I got in my car and took off down the road hoping to burn out the rest of the coolant. It ran great all the way until I turned into the gas station and as soon as my engine dropped to an idle again, it shut off. It still won't crank back up. Doesn't even sound like it's firing. Just turns over.

I thought it might be fouled spark plugs because of all the smike but I replaced them and there was no difference.

I have no clue what it could be. Other sensors fouled? Just don't understand how a little coolant would stop and engine from running.

I know I'm an idiot but I need help. Thanks.

 

I tried starter fluid also after the spark plugs were installed.

 

Checked all fuses

 

tow it to a professional and have them look it over

 

Could cost an arm and a leg.... I'll have to do it though if no one has ideas

 

Water ingestion and then "taking off to try and burn off the water" is where most of damage probably occurred. Take everything apart and see how much water is in there. That's where I would start.

 

^^^

+1

ouch!

get one of those suction pump thingies

sounds like a nightmare

 

If the coolant got in the combustion chamber, that's bad news. Coolant doesn't compress like fuel so I'd be really concerned with your connecting rod(s). I bet your car will start eventually. One of my previous vehicles had a bent rod and it started after a few days (after numerous attempts). When it does, and if it has a loud knocking noise, then you know you have a bent rod.

 

do a compression check, see if you have compression issues now. After that I really don't know. I would think the reason for the white smoke is from the bottom of the plenum was filled up with water. When you turned it cascaded over into the runners. Should have cleaned it out before running.

 

^^ Yes ...

A compression check would verify if there's some sort of leak in the combustion chamber, such as bad piston rings or a cracked block. A car will burn oil with bad rings, but it will still start. White smoke means water in the combustion chamber, like when you have a bad head gasket. Black smoke means you're burning oil. It's the former so you had coolant in your combustion chamber.

 

Likely.

 

Big time ouch on this. I know hindsight is 20/20, but why in the hell would you rush through an install like that. That's a costly mistake, and an even worse mistake to go tearing out down the road.

Best of luck getting this figured out. Let a professional shop handle that mess. Hope you've got some $$$ in savings.

 

Ruh roh...

 

others have already given you the news.... just subing to see when the mechanics say

 

Since the car was running, and you didn't hear any horrible knocking sounds, I'm going to guess you didn't bend any rods. But, perhaps the oxygen sensors were damaged? I'm not sure if a Z will run with bad O2 sensors, but that's what I might check first.

 

So.... update. You all are right I did a lot of stupid things. I called a shop and one of the guys said I probably did lose compression and told me a little trick to regain compression to get it started again. He told me to put oil in each cylinder where the spark plug goes in (just a little)and then crank it up.

It worked!

Thanks for the replies and this is a huge lesson learned.

 

So, is it back to running completely normal? I know you got it to crank back over, but did you pull the manifold and make sure all the water was gone? Hopefully you dodged a very lethal bullet this time...