help rebuild my cadet

[z210]

current car. 74 datson b210 with ca18det.

the engine is stock except for the following mods: full three inch exhaust with ebay fart cancustom cold airfmicwalbro pump,nismo fpr

the engine smokes light blue and smells like burnt oil after it idles for a little while. it also smokes a little on start up and when it comes to a stop when i'm driving it. it will smoke for a few seconds and then go away. it does not smoke under full boost of 12 psi. i removed the intake piping to see if there is oil or a thin film of oil and there isn't any. none at all. i suspect that the valve stem seals are bad and there fore need replacing. i have not checked the compression. i suspect the condition of the turbo is good, very little shaft play and the car has a lot of power.

at this point i just want to take the engine out and rebuild it. my questions are, can i just order a head gasket kit for a non turbo nisssan pulsar se? will this gasket hold boost? do you guys have other suggestions for me? when i order rings and bearings, do i need to get turbo ones or is it ok to just use non turbo nissan pulsar se rings?

do you need to pack the oil pump full of grease upon start up? do i need to rebuild my lifters? or should i just put them in oil when i take them out? any help is appreciated.

[boost_boy]

current car. 74 datson b210 with ca18det.

the engine is stock except for the following mods: full three inch exhaust with ebay fart cancustom cold airfmicwalbro pump,nismo fpr

the engine smokes light blue and smells like burnt oil after it idles for a little while. it also smokes a little on start up and when it comes to a stop when i'm driving it. it will smoke for a few seconds and then go away. it does not smoke under full boost of 12 psi. i removed the intake piping to see if there is oil or a thin film of oil and there isn't any. none at all. i suspect that the valve stem seals are bad and there fore need replacing. i have not checked the compression. i suspect the condition of the turbo is good, very little shaft play and the car has a lot of power.

at this point i just want to take the engine out and rebuild it. my questions are, can i just order a head gasket kit for a non turbo nisssan pulsar se? will this gasket hold boost? do you guys have other suggestions for me? when i order rings and bearings, do i need to get turbo ones or is it ok to just use non turbo nissan pulsar se rings?

do you need to pack the oil pump full of grease upon start up? do i need to rebuild my lifters? or should i just put them in oil when i take them out? any help is appreciated.

You need a new turbocharger.

Dee

[z210]

well, i guess the only way to find out if it's the turbo is to remove it and see if it smokes and run the engine like that.

[float_6969]

I'm with Dee. That doesn't sound like a worn motor, it sounds like a failing turbo, or a blocked drain line. You might remove the drain line and make sure it's COMPLETELY unobstructed.

[z210]

upon further diagnosing and investigation, could it possibly be my oil return line?

in order to fit the engine into the car, i had to have a custom turbo log manifold bulit. the new manifold puts the turbo between cylinders 1 and 2. i did not move the oil drain line on the oil pan. i put some high temp 5/8 hose and from the looks of it, it seems that if has a few bends before getting to the oil pan. could this possibly be my problem?

[float_6969]

That is exactly your problem. No bends, no kinks, and it MUST only travel DOWN. You need to pull the pan, weld up the old drain opening, and put in a new one. The perfect drain line goes STRAIGHT down out of the turbo, and enters the oil pan @ a 45° angle, but ONE 90° bend right when it goes into the pan is OK.

Remember there is NOTHING draining the oil out of the turbo except gravity. If there is any restriction or obstruction of the flow of the oil out of the turbo, it will back up into the turbo, and the seals are NOT designed to have oil sitting against them.

[z210]

update

i removed the engine and took the oil pan off. i moved the turbo oil drain forward about five inches. i put it all together and guess what? i still have the smoking problem. exctacly as it was before. i think i'm going to remove the turbo and rebuild it now.

[z210]

hey guys, so i took the turbo off and rebuilt it. i ordered the kit from g-pop shop, it did show some hard oil crusting on the hot side. i drove the car around for a little while and it did not smoke after the rebuild. now it's starting to smoke again when the engine is fully warmed up. also, now it smokes all the time. before i removed the turbo, it would only smoke some times. the smoke is a burnt oil smoke. is it possible that i did not rebuild it correctly? what the hell is happening here? any help or guidence is appreciated.

[MeanGreenS13]

That is exactly your problem. No bends, no kinks, and it MUST only travel DOWN. You need to pull the pan, weld up the old drain opening, and put in a new one. The perfect drain line goes STRAIGHT down out of the turbo, and enters the oil pan @ a 45° angle, but ONE 90° bend right when it goes into the pan is OK.

Remember there is NOTHING draining the oil out of the turbo except gravity. If there is any restriction or obstruction of the flow of the oil out of the turbo, it will back up into the turbo, and the seals are NOT designed to have oil sitting against them.

I agree and disagree with this point.

My buddy mark over in the RB forums has a T67 on his RB25DET Neo. We recently put a fresh engine in there and in the process re did his drain line.

Prior, it went straight down but was very close to the manifold. Now, we ran -10 line down to a custom adapter that goes into the block where the drain goes. The new line is almost 24" line and takes a long swooping (but still downward) path to the drain. He has driven the car all the way to orlando and back (over 200 miles) and all around town for a week + now and has had NO issues what so ever.

I firmly believe that as long as the flow is downward some way, and is not obstructed by kinks, upward slopes etc, you should not have any issues.

[meminto]

The symptoms are familiar to a situation I had on a previous build..

On throttle there would be no smoke, on return throttle it would puff oil smoke..

Coming to a stop when driving or on idle it would also puff smoke, but when driving it wouldn't puff as much smoke at all..

The theory was that the ring gaps were not measured correctly thus allowing oil through to the cylinder walls on return throttle..

When I pulled it down, there were scores in bores, some deeper than others, difficult to determine the root cause as the motor was only fresh and it was built in a clean environment...

However my engineer had a theory that the previous engineer didn't finish the machining correctly and it was a combination of incorrect bore finish and ring gap that caused the failure..

Hope this helps with some diagnosis of your issue..

[boost_boy]

hey guys, so i took the turbo off and rebuilt it. i ordered the kit from g-pop shop, it did show some hard oil crusting on the hot side. i drove the car around for a little while and it did not smoke after the rebuild. now it's starting to smoke again when the engine is fully warmed up. also, now it smokes all the time. before i removed the turbo, it would only smoke some times. the smoke is a burnt oil smoke. is it possible that i did not rebuild it correctly? what the hell is happening here? any help or guidence is appreciated.

Get a new turbocharger, man. Rebuilding turbochargers are not for the novice and should not be attempted by one either.

Dee

[z210]

it turned out to be a bad turbo. i took the turbo off and sent it to g pop shop for a full rebuild. no more smoking problems and runnin good.