Smoking- I think my turbo is on its way out!!

[spooled240]

My car has been smoking for the past few days on and off. Sometimes it would constantly puff blue smoke at idle but it would blow a big cloud of blue smoke when I free rev it to 3500 rpm's. I check my oil level and it's perfect-not too high or not too low. The car drives perfect still, no spuddering, etc.,the turbo has very minimal shaft play(which is normal I believe) and the compressor wheel/housing is clean with no excess oil residue.

I'm starting to think that my turbo seals are going out, but it seems to smoke worse at some times and less at other times.

I think it is the exhaust seal leaking oil into the turbo outlet and I'm afraid I may have to go through the pita of removing the 5-bolt discharge pipe and check if my turbine wheel is wet. what do you guys think?

[480sx]

Have a friend follow you and tell you if its smoking when your in boost. When the aft turbo seal(ring) goes out, its going to smoke when you free rev it and when your boosting. Its really whenever you get high oil pressure. Should be very noticeable in boost when the turbine spinning.

It could also potentially be your valve seals.

Easiest way to check for a blown turbo is to take the center cartridge out by removing it via the 6 bolts that connect it to the turbine housing. When you take that off, shine a flashlight in between the CHRA and the backplate(little cylinder 'can' like thing), moving the backplate out a little bit so you can get a good view. Its not unusual to have a little oil residue there, but it will be very obvious if its blown. You do all of the above because most of the time the turbine is going to burn off the oil so it will just look like your running really rich. You wont have to disconnect your downpipe or exhaust using this method.

[spooled240]

thanks for the reply. So if it's blowing a cloud out the pipe when free revving, it should be blowing a blue trail of smoke when I'm on boost, being that the oil pressure is pretty much the same..I'll have one of my friends follow me and i'll get on boost, and i'll see what happens

[Spinn3r]

head gasket?

[spooled240]

the car idles, sounds and drives perfect...it probably has been smoking for more than just a few days, I just noticed it recently smoking when I take off, but my friend said it doesn't smoke under normal driving. But I'm going to double check later.

Maybe my rings are shot?

*I also changed the oil like a week ago from Mobile 1 10w40 to Mobile 1 0w20, I don't think thinner oil viscosity can make a car smoke though.

[shimizu_17]

Sounds like your oil seals are crappin out on the turbo to me

[spooled240]

yeah that's what I'm thinking. It's an ebay turbo and it's been DD on 10 psi for the past year and a half lol

[spooled240]

rebuilding doesn't seem too bad of a deal just from this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2CwBwrdnvA

if my turbo is leaking I'm thinking about buying this kit because it comes with free balancing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors....m245

[neverlift]

yeah its not too involved, hard part is balancing imho...

if you suspect it to be just the piston seal, you could always temp fix it with a stagger gap

[spooled240]

man this is kinda weird. Now when I free rev it and drive it there's just very little smoke. I have a catless exhaust and I know it's normal to have a little smoke coming out when free reving. I even had my little brother drive my car up and down the street, very little smoke and no big puffs coming out at WOT or boost.

So I don't think it's the turbo seal..or at least a seal that's leaking like a siv.

I'm gonna just keep an eye on it for a while, maybe this seal is causing an intermittent leak somehow.

[neverlift]

man did you not see my turbo , it teh eff bomb!!!1!!!eleven!!in ate a size adapter for my intake filter, spat the melted pieces all over my maf(may or may not have caused a blown number 4,need to investigate). I still run it, and it boosts fine, everyone told me it would explode and kill my motor ...

[nelson8708]

i would switch it back to 10w-40 and see if it stops. My buddies car smoked when he ran 10w-30 but stoped when he switched to 10w-40

[spooled240]

yeah i was maybe thinking that the thicker oil would create a better seal for the pistons but i don't think going from 10w to 0w would make much of a difference once the car is warmed up all the way. Plus I use mobile 1 oil so I don't wanna buy another 4 quarts of oil :/

[nelson8708]

Yeah, the 10w and the 0w dont make a difference once the oil is warmed up but, you said you went from a 40 weight to a 20 weight. That would make a difference. I understand that you dont want to spend the money to do another oil change. I would do that over a rebuild though.

[spooled240]

i noticed the car smokes a lot right after it's been idling for a while, like the oil puddles up on the pistons or something. I'm really contemplating switching back to 10w40, I never had this problem when i ran that weight.

I'm just wondering if thinner oil would make a car smoke?

[Charlie240sxt]

I'd even go as far as to use there 20/50 to see if that stops it. and yea some cars dont like thin oil had a accord back in the day ran 50w and it didnt use near as much oil as it did if i stuck 30w in

[silverkaturbo]

What your describing sounds like my EXACT same problem too. I just finished putting a turbo on mine a month ago and it ran perfectly fine for like a week or two, but then it started smoking. Usually it only smokes when i let it idle for a few minutes then rev it (huge cloude), when i take off from a stand still, or every now and then when i first start it theres a little puff. But sometimes like you said, its a constant stream. Im assuming its worn seals on my 196,000 mi stock motor so i put in some fresh mobile 1 10w40 and a quart of that thick snotty lucas oil stabilizer and my smoke was gone, almost completely. That is until a week ago. Its back just the same and my oil looks really dirty after like 1500 miles. I put more lucas in hoping for a temp fix even though my oil level is a little high now, and a few miles later smoke seems to have cut down, but definately still there.

[GEO]

If the engine isn't rebuilt and the orignal engine. WHy are you even using syn oil? Why not use regular Vavoline 10W-30 oil? High performance oil isn't always the better oil for old engines ( assuming your car isn't rebuilt ). As long as you let the car warm up and cool down properly, regular 10w-30 will work wonders for your car and probably stop your smoking problem. Seems to me the thinner oil is getting in cracks that didn;t exist with the regular oil.

[silverkaturbo]

If the smoking is being caused by oil burning, how is running an oil less resistant to heat and burnoff going to fix or help the smoke problem? What kind of wonders will a weaker, easier broken down, petroleum based Valvoline filth work for any motor, rebuilt or not? Why NOT run a higher performance synthetic in a motor dealing wih the stress of a turbocharger?

[spooled240]

If the engine isn't rebuilt and the orignal engine. WHy are you even using syn oil? Why not use regular Vavoline 10W-30 oil? High performance oil isn't always the better oil for old engines ( assuming your car isn't rebuilt ). As long as you let the car warm up and cool down properly, regular 10w-30 will work wonders for your car and probably stop your smoking problem. Seems to me the thinner oil is getting in cracks that didn;t exist with the regular oil.

synthetic oil doesn't break down which will only help me with my air and oil cooled turbo

I changed my oil to 10w40 last night and it still smoked on take off. Then later i was at the gas station and i free revved it after idling a bit and there was no visible smoke whatsoever

driving around after that my friends said my car wasn't smoking so i don't know what's the deal..guess i'll just keep checkin it. thanks for the input so far

[GEO]

Whatever you say dude. Some of the people on here running 350+ HP setups run dino oil. I doubt the newer oil breaks down as easily as you are saying. You guys don't remember, but there was a guy on here that went by structure240sx, had a 500rwhp KA-T. He ran 10w-30 PENNSOIL oil in his car. Never had an oil problem. He beat the hell out of the car too.

[spooled240]

I never said that conventional oil was bad and didn't do the job. I ran regular 10w40 castrol gtx oil in my ka-t for a good 6 months with no problems whatsoever, daily driven and daily beaten. I can vouch that it does the job.

I just switched just to stay on the safe side, because really synthetic oil is only like 25 more dollars every 5,000 miles and this oil will only help me..just my .02

I think my car finally stopped smoking, i let it idle for 5 minutes then free revved it and i couldn't smell the faintest hint of burnt oil

[ppctx]

Bet you two gallons of gas it’s the valve seals in the head. Mine smoked like a *****, especially after idle, only slightly noticeable while driving behind the car at cruise. I can rent the tool to do it for $30 if interested and you can find new seals for cheap. Pull valve cover, cams, replace seals, replace cams/ VC, done.

[spooled240]

i would probably do it myself but thanks anyway. My car doesn't smoke much at all, i think the 10w40 solved the problem but it does puff a visible cloud of blue after idling a bit. My valve seals may be leaking a little.