My freind has a 96 Trans Am, he was behind me at a red light when white smoke comes billowing out of his car so i get out and get him to pull over and pop the hood...then all the coolant drains out of the car, and smoke is still billowing out of the area close to our the computer...any ideas what caused that? I didnt get to look at the car closely but i checked thoe oil after and the coolant, both were basically gone...

 

the oil and coolant were gone??? the white smoke was centralized in the cpu area? perhaps heater core related for the coolant? i dont know why the oil would be drained though

 

there seemed to be no oil leak under the car, just the car seemed to have very low oil, even though earlier in the day it was fine.


EDIT - Oil level was fine, after i left they straighened out the dip stick, it was sorta bent to hell...so it was just the white smoke and coolant , disregard the oil comments.

 

coolant and white smoke from the cpu area? my suggestion is heater core/hose related.

 

does he have headers it sounds like he might of melted a heater core hose or melt that heater box that dual cat header guys have to worry about.

 

head gasket...

no arguments, im sure of this...


no coolant, billowing while smoke from compartment/tailpipes = head gasket....

replace that, (cheap if you do it yourself) and THOURGHLY examine the head for cracks... if there aren't any.... replace the gasket (i suggest you do both), run the car to make sure its working alright... then change your oil (a must, since coolant got into the chamber)

EDIT: if white smoke isn't coming out of the tailpipes, (misred your post, sorry) then disregard what i said...

 

Nobody said anything about tailpipes bro...

As for the question, he probably blew a heater hose. I knew of this before hand so when I installed my headers I zip tied the hose as much as possible and made sure the heat shielding was on the part of the hose closest to the header... so far so good!

 

I replaced my heater core last week and didn't tighten one of the hoses that connects to the heater core right. When the engine heated up, coolent started coming out throught a little crack from the hose onto the exhaust and started smoking like crazy from the engine compartment. The same place your talking about. For a little while I thought my engine was on fire, thats how much smoke was coming from there.

Check your hoses that connect to your heater core.