I was driving on the high way suddently I smelled something burned. I stopped the car and popped up the hood. WTF, oil was all over the intake manifold area. I think the oil and smoke came out of the valve cover's breather and some white smoke came out of the oil cap. Thing gets even worse, white smoke was coming out of the exhaust. The engine is still running but it keeps spitting oil when crusing at high way speed, and it still has a good idle around 800 - 900.
Here's the setup in my 5G hatch: 95 LS with Drag Gen III .... everything is stock, with 8 psi of boost, no oil catch can. The turbo kit is pretty new about 4k miles total.
I did the compression test and the result:

1 2 3 4
90 110 170 75

Spark plug on piston #4 has some oil.
smoke's coming out of piston #3 when I removed the spark plug. I've checked all the turbo oil lines, they all look fine.

Here's my theory, white smoke with some oil vapor come out from valvecover breather, when it hits the hood, the oil vapor becomes liquid then it drips down all over the intake manifold area. There's no check engine light.

I took off the head this afternoon, Intake/exhaust cams look fine, piston cylinder walls are OK. How can we tell if the valve train (valve stem seals) or piston rings are bad? How can we tell if it had a blown headgasket? There's no oil in the coolant. What things do I have to look for?

I'm gonna do compression test again with a new headgasket. Should I get a thicker headgasket to lower the compression ratio?
If it's a case where to buy and how thick should it be?

TIA.

 

What do you think the problem is? You do not have any compression in three of your cylinders.

Check your ring lands.

Dustin

 

smoke coming out of the breather and white smoke out the exhaust......you blew a ringland my friend......new pistons are necassary if so and you'll probabbly have to hone the sleeves unless you got extremely lucky.........

 

isn't that oil blowby? I think you're fucked

 

just dont tell me your engine had like 100k miles...

BUT regardless, you seem to be screwed.

 

1 2 3 4
90 110 170 75

 

sorry to hear the bad news. tear it down and look into it though.
wanna sell some turbo parts ? i need turbo piping to fit in my 5g with LS.


i basicly have the same setup turbo wise. what were yours 1/4 times ? (before the bad news)

 

those are some fucked up #'s. . .I think your ringlands are screwed. . .

 

Thanks for all replies. Bad piston rings that's my only guess. All the sleeves look just fine. The motor has about 55k miles.
I just wonder why my piston rings screwed up? The motor has only 8 psi of boost and I didn't drive the **** out of it.

 

LS Motor has low compression. Dont need a headgasket. Not sure what went wrong. you said you were "cruising" and it just died out? Hmm...thats strange.
I mean, if you said you were boosting at 8 PSI and BAM it happend, then I would understand.

 

Well, I don't really know exactly when it happened. Let say, it happended when I was boosting at 8 PSI. Stock motor only has 55k miles, so it could handle 8 PSI of boost. Why it happened? I just need to figure it out before it would happend again.

 

I agree, time for those upgrades.. and more boost.

 

8psi or 1 psi...if you don't have the necessary fuel, things are going to blow. Tuning is the only way to run a turbo setup, reliably.

Sorry to hear about your troubles...looks like it's time for a bottom end rebuild. Might as well throw in some pistons/rods while you're down there.

 

I just pulled out the bottom end. All pistons have several crackes where the rings are. Time for a new bottom end. Any suggestions? Eagle rods & JE pistons?