Turbonetic$

So I noticed some oil around the compressor of my T-ga 5454 a few days ago, it was a small amount so I wasn't to worried but it was worth some research. last night I was banging on the B16 and a huge cloud of blue smoke shot threw the cab (open D-pipe) turns out I had to much oil because of a lying dipstick

I drained 3/4 quart and it ran a lot smoother but after cleaning the compressor and going for another spin. Oil around the compressor again!

Is this a sign of needing new seals? almost no shaft play, a little up and down play but nothing major. going to check inter cooler for oil.

Also can hear a rattling sound when first starting the car witch sounds like its coming from the exhaust side of turbo but goes away after driving for a while.

Thanks for any info in advance.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Need photos and video. could be crankcase pressure, could be actual damage. Either way, gotta send it to Turbonetics or possibly "Gpop" shop to have it inspected.

Turbonetic$

Photo hopefully works this time..

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

No Sir.

(Do me a favor and put underneath your screen name at least a region of where you're located, would ya? Might avoid some questions we don't have to ask that may be environmentally related)

Turbonetic$

Updated

Schister66

Maybe one of these will work...
https://i.imgur.com/J606niL.jpg

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

No sir.

CX-Adam

Interested in the answer.

Attached the pic.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Well. Now that I've seen a photo, This looks like a case of either

Condition 1: Worn compressor piston ring seal
Condition 2: Overfilled crankcase causing over-pressurization of the front dynamic sealing ring.

1) There could be a worn piston ring seal on the compressor side, but that's usually in the case in which you have more axial shaft play ("in & out"). Since you hadn't noticed "much" of that (outside of the norm of about 0.002"-0.004"), that means that the piston sealing ring might be ok. This could also be the sign of a worn front journal bearing, but the question you have to ask is A) Is this water & oil cooled? If not, how long have you let the car sit idle after driving to keep the oil from "coking" and wearing out the front pistons sealing ring? . IF you've been idling for about 30 sec-1.2 minutes after each good drive you've done, you should be fine (if oil-cooled only).

That only then leaves symptom 2.

2) If you had originally overfilled your oil pan with too much oil to which its causing overfilled crankcase issues, I could see this being the case a lot more. You simply stated you emptied 3/4 of a quart, but that doesn't tell me that you had overfilled the crankcase in the 1st place. . If you had, drained the oil down to normal levels, and you're still seeing this wet oil issue, that more than likely means that the turbo is ok, and you're simply burning off the rest of the oil that was inside the turbocharger that was past the piston sealing ring , and you just have to burn the rest of it off.

It also means that you might want to look at a nice catch can, that can help with crankcase over-pressurization. I don't know if this is the photo you're showing was at the 1st time you noticed the oil, or the 2nd time after you had drained the pan 3/4 of a quart.

My suggestion is:
Step 1: Make sure you change the oil completely. Ensure that it is the proper oil level in the pan as you would normally.
Step 2: Once oil has been changed, drive it normally, listening for any signs of wheel/housing contact. If you see smoke, only stop if it's increasing. If not, that means its still burning that off. If after several drives it's still there, even after you've cleaned out the compressor cover and inlet (Please do this, or you'll confuse yourself even worse)... more than likely you're at condition 2, where the front sealing ring and journal bearing need to be replaced. That meant that both the sealing ring and the journal bearing were already on their way out for other reasons, so the initial test drives to see about condition 1 would not be a cause for condition 2.

3) If there's still increasing amount of oil- smoke, check your oil restrictor (if you have one, some are confused that Turbonetic's internal regulator can't take more than 70psi of oil pressure, and you may be over that, requiring a little more restriction..but I doubt it ).
If you didn't run one, then it's time to get it inspected.

That's it... There you go.

Turbonetic$

Thanks Shodan, a wonder full explanation.

The pic is after I drained some oil, cleaned the compressor inlet and took the car for a drive. Around 500 miles ago I put 4 quarts of 5w40 and ended up buy another quart few days later because my dipstick read extremely low so I added the other quart, which then read around max. Drove it for a while like that until it blew the blue smoke cloud into the cab and found some small bubbles in the oil. After I drained it the car ran a lot smoother.

I took it for a drive today and it was idling at 2500 RPMs and wasn't accelerating great, think I have a boost leak but cant confirm because my boost gauge only reads Vacc. But seen no oil in the compressor inlet, I can hear what sounds like pinging coming from the exhaust side every now and then but it isn't consistent. Ill do a fresh fluid change and tune up, my spark plugs where carbon coated I assumed maybe from all the high idling

Thanks for the Info and Suggestions!

Turbonetic$

The oil starts to come out of the compressor only after the engine has been under heavy load, as long as I'm driving normal I see no oil making its way.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

If it's just a little residue, that's fine, that's crankcase pressure, whether it's normal driving or under heavy load.. If its more than just a little residue, no matter what the condition, then front journal bearing and thrust bearing are shot. Time for rebuild /replacement. You should not be having oil coming out of anything if crankcase ventilation is proper and the turbo is in good condition.

The more I look at this , the more I believe this is damaged. .

gutted-dx

iTrader: (1)

I'm running the same turbo with 10w40 @ 25psi when it warms up. I'm at 75psi while it's warming up. Don't know if that helps or not. I only have maybe 750miles on the turbo.

Turbonetic$

Thanks but I dont have a oil pressure gauge.

I pulled some IC piping and there was some wet oil around the coupler that connects to the tubro and around the oil drain line, also some dry oil coated to the inside walls of the piping. So my conclusion is that the turbo is for sure in need of a rebuild or a replacement. I will probably go N/a during the meantime and see what kind of all motor power I am pulling. Thanks for the help guys let me know what else you think.

Coupler connected to turbo

2kdrift

get a gauge and or replace the turbo, its kinda important to know your oil pressure with a turbo charged motor. Arguably the most important gauge to have, I only run AFR,BOOST,and Oil pressure myself

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Yeah. Need to see the restrictor you're using. Otherwise, yes. Bye-bye turbo.

Turbonetic$

Running no oil restrictor, herd it wasn't good to have a restrictor on a journal bearing turbo? Otherwise I might should get one to see if this could help, although it seems like a awful lot of oil being tossed around when the turbo hasn't shown any signs of oil leakage over the last few months.. I contacted the car original owner who put the turbo on, he said that the turbo should not have worn out so fast that he got it new in September, the cars had 3 new owners since then so is it possible someone wasn't letting the car idle before shut off or maybe lots of abuse since then either way is there any circumstances were this isn't a turbo related problem?

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Yeah, you were misinformed. It's not whether or not the bearing system is journal bearing or ball-bearing. It depends upon the oil pressure that the oil galleries allow. This sometimes varies by company, but in most cases, the oil galleries only allow a certain amount of oil pressure for the dynamic sealing rings to handle.

So, in your case a Garrett or Precision will need one, but it depends upon the oil pressure. For a Honda, anything over 50psi of oil pressure, yeah, you need one. But you need a restrictor fitting and not just some plate with a tiny hole in the bottom. Turbonetics's older models were like Garretts, and need one. But the newer ones have a built in regulator to work up to about 70-75psi.

You have a newer Turbonetics turbo, so typically you don't need one, but here, you may have to, but no smaller than about .060" in a 1/4NPT fitting.

That's more likely the case, because hot-shutdowns really wreak havoc on the dynamic sealing rings., So, that can explain a lot of the leakage. I'd honestly head to Turbonetics to get it inspected in repair at this point.

Turbonetic$

So instead of having the tga 5454 rebuilt I'm thinking of buying a new turbo and having it tuned, problem is my tuner is about a hour or better away.
Question is, is the car safe to drive? (Even atleast to the tune shop) or will the oily turbo cause pre mature engine failure?I have a decent amount of cash in this build already and would hate to start over.

Sorry for noob questions havent been building turbo cars long..

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

I've easily driven to my tuner with a replacement turbo and they're over 5 hours away.

The only thing you have to worry about is getting into too high of a positive pressure based upon the turbocharger size that you've gone from, to the size turbo that you're upgrading/downgrading to.. Let me explain.

So, say that you previously had a turbocharger that was making about 10psi and its capability is about 45lbs/min, and you decide to upgrade to a turbocharger that is a slight bit larger in size and higher airflow conversion capability to about, 52lbs/min, yet you're still tuned on the older turbocharger.

It's still reasonably safe to drive to the tuner, provided that you stay only slightly above vacuum. Since we all know that a 45lbs/min turbo @ 10psi has a different airflow rate than the 52lbs/min at 10psi, the last thing you want to do is drive at 10psi for that larger turbocharger. stay at 5psi or something just above vacuum. The car should perform normally.

Now, many don't want to take that kind of risk over going over the limit inadvertently, and therefore want an even easier solution: Disconnect an I/C pipe at the throttle body, and you'll be fine. And an FYI, you will not "overspeed" the turbo if the compressor is only seeing vacuum. Since the car will only be at vacuum (any part of the system that is disconnected will immediately go to vacuum, just as though it were Naturally Aspirated), there's no way to overspeed the turbo at the point. Overspeed conditions only occur when there is a sudden loss of positive pressurization, say from 25psi ---0psi due to a bust I/C coupler. It doesn't occur when it's already disconnected going into positive pressure. You'll be fine.

So, drive to the tuner, you'll probably run pretty rich with the I/C pipe disconnected, but the point is you're already tuned for the car to see the additional fuel / ignition trim tables, and the engine is already tuned for the additional cylinder pressures as well. It should be no big deal, and you can go to your tuner. You're very fortunate that he's only about an hour away.

Turbonetic$

Thanks Shodan, a lot of very useful information here.

Do you think I should conduct a compression test to check my piston rings, or is this obvious turbo failure? I have a good size catch can and seems like it was accumulating lots of oil before I quite driving the car, although it could have been from the when I overfilled the oil lever by about a quart.

Dont want to waste money on turbo and tune if crankcase pressure is at fault.

Turbonetic$

Drained the catch can and found this beige clear liquid didn't smell like gas but there was no actual oil, the black oil in the pan was there when I drained the other (what I'm guessing is water) and it seemed to separate from each other

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

I'd go through the work of a compression test first before dismissing the turbo is dying.

Seeing your catch can tells me that is a bit of the oil overflow that has condensed. Since there are hydrogen & nitrogen in the air, the oil vapor from the crank case more than likely mixed with the two compounds, and when it condensed, created that sludge. This is kinda why you still keep a PCV system like a one-way check valve in your catch can.. (That's just the way I do it, since I don't like the whole valve-cover vent treatment..)

Turbonetic$

Compression test result seem fairly low but somewhat consistent,

First test,
cylinder 1- 120
cylinder 2- 125
cylinder 3- 125
cylinder 4- 100

cylinder number 4 is quite low compared to the other. I'm running a 9.1 compression ratio so I'm sure this plays somewhat of a role.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

That's a little low, but not horrible yet. Based upon this test, I'd say that the turbo is going. If you want to keep the same turbocharger, since it is a Turbonetics 5454, you could always send it in to Turbonetics for repair, it may be free if you bought it new. Or at least contact them to see whether or not that could happen. Perhaps save you a bit of money.