I have a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 with the 4.7l. It has 90,000 miles on it and its always been taking care of. I used to have a flowmaster exhaust on it but the muffler rusted off so ive been running it with straight pipes for a few months. It throws 4 engine codes and ive been thinking it might be the exhaust being straight pipes or coil packs are going. Right now it has a miss fire in cylinder 1,4 and 8 and then a random miss fire. Starting yesterday when i start it up and start driving down the road it blows ALOT of smoke out of the exhaust for like a minute. Its a white smoke but doesnt smell like antifreeze or oil and doesnt have a blue tint to is so idk what else it could be..... Seems like the antifreeze hasnt gone down and the oil level still looks good. Any idea what it could be? Also had the manifold gaskets replaced 2,000miles ago but doubt that has anything to do with it. Im hoping its not the head gasket. If it is how hard are they do do cause im pretty mechanically inclined since i can tear apart my race quad quad motors easy. And what would the cost of parts if its the head gasket? Any special tools needed? The only reason i dont think it is the head gasket is cause it doesnt have any sweet smell to it like anitfreeze should Seems almost just like water but no idea where that would come.

 

Head gasket would be my first thought. Run a compression test on it and see how that turns out.

 

its a longshot, but do you have any place in your exhaust where the condensation can get out? should have a small pinhole at the lowest point in your exhaust

 

I would start with plugs and wires get the thing running right again. then as far as the smoke, it sounds more like rings to me, letting a lil oil drip in to the chamber during cool down, and it burns off at start up. It is minimal and would take several thousand miles to show up on dipstick, at first.

 

In my past experience, blue = fuel, white = water, and black = oil.
If you are not firing all cyl, then too much fuel is a definite possibility.

 

I might be wrong, but here in the south oil leaks make a white/blue smoke, and a fuel/rich condition burns black, and water is steam/white

 

If it smokes on startup only, it's usually valve guides.

 

The thing is that its all white smoke and doesn't have any blue tint in it that oil burning would have. And it doesn't have the sweet smell that anitfreeze should have and I don't think my antifreeze has gone down cause I had to add alittle the other day but I think that was just cause I put in a new radiator in a week ago. If it is the headgasket how hard would it be to change? Could my heads be warped possibly? And ill do a compression test tomorrow. Should I take all the spark plugs out to do it or just take out the plug for the cylinder I'm doing? And what should the compression be?

Thanks!

 

^+1, pulling the plugs will be an easy way to see how's she running. Find a spark plug chart and learn to read em. Reading the plugs is a good start and can point you in the right direction instead of randomly guessing the solution.

 

Going to be pulling the plugs tomorrow and doing a compression check on all cylinders. Anyone have info on how to replace the head gaskets? Any one have access to alldata? i'd really like to know what im getting my self into before i think about doing it my self. Only thing im worried about is the timing. Anyone in Orange County, NY that could help? And what parts will i need? Head Gaskets and new head studs? And should i copper gasket the studs? Im pretty sure my head will also need to be decked cause i think what caused this problem is when i blew my radiator and my truck overheated. My email is bauman43@me.com if anyone can send me some info on how to change the head gaskets. Hoping for this to not cost over $200.