I have a 2020 dodge charger hellcat widebody with 17k miles, i started realizing the vehicle blows out blue smoke here and there. Just wondering if that is normal for thess engines?
Techs see this all the time with new and used cars on the lot. They tell me if the smoking is short lived, the CEL remains dark, and the engine otherwise manifests no signs of any trouble they pay the smoking no mind.
I would add that as long as the engine doesn't smoke upon hot start or on the road the smoking is normal.
The smoking arises from the separation of oil vapor from the crankcase fumes that pass from the engine to the intake is not perfect. Some oil vapor makes it through and upon entering the intake can't make that sharp turn. The heavier oil vapor particles strike the opposite side of the intake and reform into liquid oil. If the engine is warm and continues to run this liquid oil gets burned with no drama.
However if the engine is cold/cool or not run long enough when the engine is shut off the intake is heat soaked which warms the oil and of course gravity will have it flow down. A bit of oil can collect on top of a closed intake valve or even flow into the cylinder if the valve is open.
Upon cold start the oil is ingested by the engine but its combustion is not complete and smoking is the result.
With my cars including my Hellcat and my 2020 Scat Pack what try to do whenever possible is ot avoid short engine run time. Starting the engine to back the car out of the garage to move the car to the driveway then some time later starting the engine to pull the car back in the garage again is the worst.
But short trips that do not have the engine and its oil reach full operating temperature are nearly as bad.
What I found was even though I avoided the short trips that as the oil accumulated miles occasionally I'd see a bit of oil smoke upon cold start. In my usage this was as the oil approached 5K miles. As the oil accumulates miles it gets more contaminated. This increases the oil's propensity to create oil vapor from the violence it is subjected to inside the engine. Thus more oil vapor for the not very efficient oil vapor recovery system to allow to pass through to the intake.
And last but not least needless to say avoid overfilling the engine with oil. I have no qualms running the engine with the oil level at the max level -- when running the oil level in the pan drops as several quarts as this oil can be in the various oil passages/oil lines and under the valve covers and running down the various crankcase surfaces back to the pan -- but when changing the oil I put only the required amount of oil in the engine. If necessary to add oil between oil changes I"m careful to only add enough oil to bring the level up to the full/max line but no higher.
As an aside, with my 2018 Hellcat and with my 2020 Scat Pack it appears that with the right amount of oil in the engine the oil level on the dipstick is above the full line by a small fraction of an inch. For the Hellcat I learned of a dipstick upgrade which required a new dipstick and dipstick tube which would with the correct amount of oil in the engine have the oil level at the max/full line on the dipstick. I ordered the dipstick -- and got it -- but the dipstick tube was on back order. However, I never got a chance to have the dipstick tube installed before I traded in the car.
With my Scat Pack I'm not going to worry about seeking out a dipstick/dipstick tube to address this issue. When I get the Scat Pack back from an oil/filter service I check the oil level and note where it is on the stick and use that as the "full" or max level. So far with around 5K miles on the car I have not seen it smoke upon startup even once.