blown turbo? or something else? please help

[four]

okay, so i just got back from the beaver run dirft event. i live in NJ, and the event was out in western PA which is about 7 hours from me.

here goes:

2pm, leave jersey, drive to hotel...everything is flawless...no problems with new t28.

9pm arrive hotel, hang out....shut off car.

10:30, start car back up to drive to pick up some smokes.

---party, sleep---

8:30AM (next day)

Start engine to warm up....more than usual smoke is comming out of exhuast (white smoke)

After car was warm, i took it for a drive, to see if the smoke goes away.smoke goes away, i say to myself 'ok cool, no problems right?'well i was wrong.

i arrive the drift event, hang out the whole day there, start car back up at around 7:00pm. More and more white smoke out of exhaust....a lot more this time..

so i say to myself..hmm, maybe ill drive it again, and it will go away.

so i do that...then after driving for a while, it didnt go away. i pull over...have some friends with me..we checked out engine bay....looks good, unitl i see my BOV had oil around it. i open the hotpipe right by the turbo, and i see oil in there...

i start the car right back up...no more smoke...i drive to the hotel w/o boosting...car seems to have been running fine...no more smoke.

since i lived 7 hours away, i didnt bother trying to drive it back,...so i got it u-hauled back to NJ...thanks to a friend of mine...

we get to uhaul in my town, drop of the trailer...then i drive home (10 minutes away) and OMG,,,a ****load of smoke..

now im thinking...is it really the turbo that is bad? or maybe the SS turbo oil lines were put in wrong? maybe something in my motor is going wrong.

what do you guys think. i thank you in advance for all your help

[four]

okay UPDATE:

I checked the dipstick...oil levels are perfect, except it does look a little dirty..considering i changed the oil only 2 weeks ago...

i checked the coolant resevoir as well as under tha radiator cap, no oil in there...

i check the hotpipe, no more oil...(at least not as much as before)

After 2 minutes of idle, the smoke problems come back.

i also forgot to mention that my A/F gauge reads lean when it is idleing.

[C-Kwik]

Remove the intake pipe to the turbo and check the turbine/compressor shaft play. If it is excessive, your turbo bearings may be bad. Make sure the drain line is not bad. I doubt the supply is a problem or you'ld probably have no smoke.

The other possibility might be that your valve stem seals are leaking. White smoke leads me to believe oil is leaking into the exhaust somewhere. Oil typically burns blue. It can vaporize from heat like water and from my experience evaporated oil is white.

[four]

Remove the intake pipe to the turbo and check the turbine/compressor shaft play. If it is excessive, your turbo bearings may be bad. Make sure the drain line is not bad. I doubt the supply is a problem or you'ld probably have no smoke.

The other possibility might be that your valve stem seals are leaking. White smoke leads me to believe oil is leaking into the exhaust somewhere. Oil typically burns blue. It can vaporize from heat like water and from my experience evaporated oil is white.

well, i thought it was the turbo, and still think its a bad turbo. remember, i had oil in my hotpipe, and in areas around my BOV. however, i checked it two days later, and all the oil was gone...thats why now im thinking it could be something else.

[four]

update2:

i checked the compression

1 - 1512 - 152 3 - 1514 - 151

nearly perfect right?

well anyway...now that thers a good chance that its NOT the headgasket. what else should i check?

the guy that did my swap said im probably running very very rich...also, the smoke doesnt really smell sweet, but rather smells like fuel....what do you guys think i should do next? i would really hate to buy a new turbo, and it ends up not being the problem.

also,. forgot to mention...i reved the engine to boost...BOV went off, and WOW..smoke smoke smoke. ...

im really thinking its the turbo...

[four]

replaced turbo, still smoking,,im thinking now it could be the HG

i give up

[EZcheese15]

What are you using for fuel management? I am thinking that the car may be running too rich. If you are running way too much fuel, then you could have unburnt fuel going into the exhaust system and vaporizing, just like Ckwik said with the oil. This could cause white smoke as well as explain the gas smell.

[four]

What are you using for fuel management? I am thinking that the car may be running too rich. If you are running way too much fuel, then you could have unburnt fuel going into the exhaust system and vaporizing, just like Ckwik said with the oil. This could cause white smoke as well as explain the gas smell.

im using S-AFC but its not even tuned...its just running as stock basically..and im using the decleration feature.

[EZcheese15]

Are you running stock injectors as well?

[four]

yes i am

[C-Kwik]

Check your plug tip for signs of oil.

[NeedCAforS13]

first off, quit revving it. revving the motor without any load (ie. when not driving it) is horrible for it. especially if you don't know whats wrong with it. it would suck to break something else trying to fix your current problem.

how was the shaft play on that turbo you removed? what about the one you installed? where is the smoke coming from? exhaust only, or does oil still spray out when your BOV opens?

does your coolant still look green and clean? if the HG is blown the coolant will most likely be chocolate milky colored. did you check your oil return line on the turbo to make sure it wasn't clogged?

the main thing we need to determine is what you're burning. If its not sweet smelling I don't think its coolant. If you aren't loosing oil, its probably not the turbo or the valve stem seals. I would say check your injector O rings, you could be leaking gas into the motor through them and causing an excessively rich conditions as well (causing a white smoke)...

thats tough man:( I wish I could take a look at it in person, I might be able to help a little bit more! I really suck at this online mechanic stuff:pface

Sean

[four]

first off, quit revving it. revving the motor without any load (ie. when not driving it) is horrible for it. especially if you don't know whats wrong with it. it would suck to break something else trying to fix your current problem.

how was the shaft play on that turbo you removed? what about the one you installed? where is the smoke coming from? exhaust only, or does oil still spray out when your BOV opens?

does your coolant still look green and clean? if the HG is blown the coolant will most likely be chocolate milky colored. did you check your oil return line on the turbo to make sure it wasn't clogged?

the main thing we need to determine is what you're burning. If its not sweet smelling I don't think its coolant. If you aren't loosing oil, its probably not the turbo or the valve stem seals. I would say check your injector O rings, you could be leaking gas into the motor through them and causing an excessively rich conditions as well (causing a white smoke)...

thats tough man:( I wish I could take a look at it in person, I might be able to help a little bit more! I really suck at this online mechanic stuff:pface

Sean

My coolant is clean, the shaft play on the old turbo was minimal, and i installed the new s15 turbo (BRAND NEW) and I still have the same problem. It went away for a while, but then came back this morning. Yesterday, I was driving it and under regular driving, it was fine. However, I boosted at 7psi and it started to smoke again (not as bad as before) Then I started it up this morning, and it got bad again. I didnt even drive it yet. When the old turbo was there, there was oil out of the hot pipe and BOV,. Now that I got the new turbo in there, there is no more oil out of the hotpipe nor BOV

Again, my compression is perfect...Even when the engine is hot, I get teh same compression readings.

BTW, I see that you're rocking the DGTrials sig. Which one are you on the boards on DG? Im four on the boards. If you know carluch (aka fake adam) he told me that he really thinks its the head gasket as well. It might be an early sign of the Head Gasket going.

I already oredered a new headgasket. Got the apex-i on off ebay brand new. Im also going to try swapping out ECUs with a friend of mine (couldnt hurt) to see if theres an ECU failure or something. I reseted my S-AFC settings to the factory spec. (i adjusted the car type settings accordingly) but there is no tuning on the SAFC. I am probably going to have carluch look at it in a few weeks, since he's doing the HG job. He has no space for the job right now, so while I'm waiting, Im just going to keep trying different things and hopefully it'll end up being something less major than the HG. Im really hoping its bad injectors or something,. since i Need new 550ccs anyway

THanks for everyone's help

[NeedCAforS13]

Yeah, their Drift Day event in Tampa rocked! I had sooo much fun:) I post under the same name as here (NeedCAforS13) but I think I only posted 2 or 3 times to talk about the Tampa event. Hopefully there will be another one, but we lost the driving lot we were holding it on before... we'll see, but its looking like most of the Florida Drifting is going to take place in Miami from now on:( Tampa's much closer, so that kinda sucks... oh well back on topic!

I don't know what to tell you man! I'll ask around at our Orlando Wednesday meet to see if any of the SR guys know anything that might be causing this, because quite frankly I'm stumped... If the fuel rail is easy to pull, try changing the o-rings(My CA18 one took me about an hour to pull and re-install) but other than that, let your friend have a look at it. Good luck man!

Sean

[four]

yea, im going to have a look see at the injectors..it looks like its a ***** to take off though...hopefully its something minor liek that, but with my luck, its probably the HG.

thanks for your help

[minutericesentra]

PCV valve maybe?

[C-Kwik]

What does the smoke smell like. Excess fuel will smell like fuel.

I doubt it's the injector o-rings or even just one. A bad o-ring will cause fuel to leak past as soon as you turn the key to the on position and activate the fuel pump. You'ld have a hard time starting. And excess fuel would also make the car run fairly rough and you'ld hear some fairly loud popping noises from your exhaust as the hot fuel hits the air.

I'd check your spark plugs to make sure there is no oil residue on them. If not, you may have either an exhaust valve stem seal problem or oil may be leaking past the seal at the turbine. If there is oil on them, oil is entering the combustion chamber from somewhere. Probably not past the rings or the headgasket since your compression seems fine.

You didn't answer NeedCAforS13's question about the oil return line from the turbo. This can cause a leak at the turbo seals without affecting shaft play.

[four]

What does the smoke smell like. Excess fuel will smell like fuel.

I doubt it's the injector o-rings or even just one. A bad o-ring will cause fuel to leak past as soon as you turn the key to the on position and activate the fuel pump. You'ld have a hard time starting. And excess fuel would also make the car run fairly rough and you'ld hear some fairly loud popping noises from your exhaust as the hot fuel hits the air.

I'd check your spark plugs to make sure there is no oil residue on them. If not, you may have either an exhaust valve stem seal problem or oil may be leaking past the seal at the turbine. If there is oil on them, oil is entering the combustion chamber from somewhere. Probably not past the rings or the headgasket since your compression seems fine.

You didn't answer NeedCAforS13's question about the oil return line from the turbo. This can cause a leak at the turbo seals without affecting shaft play.

my oil return hose is clean...i checked my plugs again, and there is some black residue on the end of the threads for the plugs, however, the tips of the plugs are residue free (clean)

what would that mean?

[C-Kwik]

clean plug means oils is not burning in the combstion chamber. So the leak is likely occuring after the combustion chamber.

[four]

thanks, so what else could it be? any ideas?

[four]

i was thinking, could it be possible that there is massive oil still stuck in my intercooler since the older turbo was blown?

i didnt check my intercooler et for oil, and maybe the car is smoking because of oil in the intercooler.

[four]

okay guys, i actually went out and checked the oil return line,and it was in fact bent. I guess oil isnt draining properly. I just bought a whole new oil return kit from ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...=WDVW

[NeedCAforS13]

good stuff:) hopefully that will fix your problems!

Sean

[four]

man i hope so too..it'll save me so much money for getting the HG installed (about $400 saved) plus i can re-sell the apex-i HG since it is still brand new in the original packaging. I think ill keep the rocker arm stoppers since they're easy to install.

now i gave to figure out how im going to reach the screw that holds the damn drain flange in place (one is accessable, the other looks very hard to reach)

[four]

Okay, fixed the oil return line...still no luck...so i guess its really aiming at the HG then huh

[Sircnay]

I'm having this exact same problem. I'm letting my car cool down as I type this. I'm hoping that its just a bad turbo. Bad turbos would cause smoke yes? If it is the turbo anybody got a T28 lying around somewhere?

My smoke is white with a bluish tint. It smells like burning rubber/leaves. I'm not sure what that means though, it only smokes at idle though and nowhere else. My coolant levels are fine and there's no oil in the coolant and no coolant in the oil. So now I'm stumped. Looks like its time for an RB swap from my SR.