Powelly

Hey guys,

Been running my B16 Turbo for a good few months now after a full rebuild, runs fine except when i come to a set of lights i get a cloud of white smoke which smells like i'm burning oil.

I thought it might be my ching chow meow turbo seals or oil return not draining properly but carried on to do a leakdown test. After pulling 2 of the plugs (far right side of the engine) i noticed the tips were covered in oil. The compression test showed equal across the board so i booked it in to my tuners for a leakdown which showed nothing wrong apparently.

It's still running strong, doesn't overheat, oil not mixing with coolant, holds boost well etc just everytime i stop at lights i get this cloud of burning oil! Since people say it's the tube seals if you have oil at the top of the plug and i'm getting oil on the bottom could this be the valve stem seals already?

I replaced every gasket etc when we rebuilt the block, i'm kinda hoping it's anything except the piston rings!

Any ideas?

Thanks

racerxh00

valve lash?valve seals.

DTA-Zombie

tube seals - replace your valve cover gasket - get the kit - it's like 30 bucks...your done

sageuvagony

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DTA-Zombie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">tube seals - replace your valve cover gasket - get the kit - it's like 30 bucks...your done</TD></TR></TABLE>

WRONG

Bad tube seals will NOT cause oil on the spark plug tips. It's impossible for oil to get passed the threads unless the spark plug was loose or was completely screwed out. Bad tube seals WILL cause oil to seap into the spark plug tube which will then cause the upper half of the spark plug to become drenched and possibly shorted out..

gsrhatch2356

if you want to know if it is the valve seals then the best way to find out is downshift while coming to a stop. when you do this the vacuum as anybody with a boost\vacuum gauge would know that it there is alot of vacuum and this is when it is most likely to pull in oil through the valve seals. not a 100% test but makes good for verification of something you already suspect. did you get the head rebuilt too?

Powelly

I will have a look at the vacuum gauge later and see what it's saying when i downshift coming to a stop, think you might be right there.

I am using a Golden Eagle Vac manifold and on idle it's reading 25 so will see if it shoots up on a downshift.

Like sageuvagony says theres no way it can be the tube seals, wrong half of the plug that has the oil on.

I only got the head skimmed and pressure tested and slapped in Skunk lifters & springs on the standard valves which we lashed in etc. Car still runs like a champ, made 275whp @ 12psi on 97ron (UK)

sageuvagony

I really hope you find out the problem to this because my friend has the EXACT same problem on his 240sx with sr20det. When he mentioned this problem to me he mentioned white smoke, so I thought coolant. After school I went and took a look at his car and smelled the white smoke, and it didn't smell like coolant at ALL. It smelled more like oil. Someone told him it could be related to valve seals but he isn't too sure yet. His smoking has gotten worse. He will get the smoke when at a red light or idling.

He too has turbo. Your problem symptoms are EXACTLY the same. If you figure anything else out please keep us updated Thanks! I will tell him to look at his guage as well when he downshifts.

So on his guage, what should he look for when he downshifts? The way I read it is that if his seals are bad, the number/vacuum will shoot up high when downshifting when coming to a stop?


Modified by sageuvagony at 2:32 PM 9/4/2008

sageuvagony

ok after re-reading the test method AGAIN, it seems that if I tell him to downshift when coming to a stop, the strong vacuum should suck oil into the cylinders if the seals are bad, therefore shooting nice amounts of smoke. I know he's said that the problem has gotten worse but I'll have him try downshifting and looking for smoke.

GotRiceYo

possibly fried rings??? oil seeping past the rings?

sageuvagony

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GotRiceYo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">possibly fried rings??? oil seeping past the rings?</TD></TR></TABLE>

He has good compression.

Powelly

Hey guys, a little update.

On closer inspection of the plugs the oil is just around the threads of the plugs not on the tips. Think this could be seals.

As for the white smoke i can only assume its the oil seals in the turbo.

I did the downchange test and my vac gauge went from 25 to 27 so a slight increase but not enough to cause problems i don't think.

Thanks for all your input, will confirm all this when i rip the snail off and check it's seals.

JoeDel

im not sure if this applies or will help, im a little new to boost so when my buddy just finished building his i tagged along when he got it dyno tuned, anyway we were noticing a bit of smoke when the tuner guy was getting through the gears. we asked if it was normal cause he is running methanol and we thought it was that smoking, but one of the other tuners in the shop took a look and said it was probably because of the oil return line was at to sharp of an angle causing back pressure? and he should reroute the the line. im not sure if this is true or even relevant to your prob but i figured it might be another avenue to look into, g/l

Powelly

Thanks JoeDel, I thought this could be the cause of the smoke as the oil return is at a bit of an angle. Will upload a pic shortly.

Whatever is it is driving me mad, people think i'm driving an old nail thats been thrashed!