scartail

I was poking around my turbo the other day and took off one a section of the charge pipe near the turbo... I noticed some oil residue (enough to damp a paper towel) in it, and with a finger I can get enough of a film. However, further up the charge pipe there is no signs of oil. I've had a turbo totally loose it's seal before and had oil all the way up by the TB.

How much is acceptable?

thank in advance.

beepy

Any oil in the charge pipes is pointing to a problem. Either you have a boost leak that is allowing oil to come through the seals, or the seals are about to go.

scartail

how bad of a boost leak would cause something like this? I check my piping and lines.. there is some leak thru my bov... How much of a leak am I looking at... Currently I'm running small boost (~4 psi). and this is a relatively new turbo (bought it new, now has a couple thousand miles on it)...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beepy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any oil in the charge pipes is pointing to a problem. Either you have a boost leak that is allowing oil to come through the seals, or the seals are about to go.</TD></TR></TABLE>

beepy

The seals in Garrett turbos are designed so that a small amount of excess pressure is needed to keep the oil in the turbo. It shouldn't be a problem at idle unless you are overfeeding or underdraining the oil to the turbo, but it will be a problem as oil pressures rise.

For example, my high-mileage T3 doesn't leak a drop of oil usually. I have a good drain and a restrictor in my feed line. However one day a charge pipe blew off the TB and I drove the car the 2 miles to home. When I went to look at the pipes, I saw that oil had coated the first foot or so of the charge pipe. After cleaning it up and fixing the pipe, though, not a drop has leaked since.

scartail

I believe I've got the typical set-up for oil feed and drain (1/8th ID feee, and a 5/8th drain).

Regarding oil pressure, my gauge reads ~25 psi at a warm idle, and about 70 psi at &gt;3KRPM... which I've read is typical.

I'm using a Frame oil filter... Someone once told me that the Honda filters have some type of pressure relief in them... Could that be the case?

scartail

I've been reading somewhere that using too light of motor oil can cause issues... I'm using 10w30. Mobile 1... could that be the problem

Furthermore, the tubro doesn't smoke... when i first threw it in.. there was smoke from the turbo itself.. however, i concluded that it was b/c of getting grease on the turbo/manifold etc....

oh.. any my inlet flange leaks.. could this make its way back into the charge pipe? i can't imagine it dripping into it.. but it could be possible.

hatchinprogress

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by scartail &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've been reading somewhere that using too light of motor oil can cause issues... I'm using 10w30. Mobile 1... could that be the problem

.</TD></TR></TABLE> bump, cuz i would like to know also

Si Shane

i started with 5w-30, and them moved to 10w-30. Since teh first day i've been leaking a tiny bit of oil from near the turbo. I've noticed the leak got smaller and smaller, it seems as the 5w-30 left the system, now since an oil change the leak is gone. IT seems the heavier oil doesn't leak, yet the lighter oil does.

Only thing i can say is i dont use 5w anymore

Deluzional

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beepy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">However one day a charge pipe blew off the TB and I drove the car the 2 miles to home. When I went to look at the pipes, I saw that oil had coated the first foot or so of the charge pipe. After cleaning it up and fixing the pipe, though, not a drop has leaked since.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Same thing happened to me, good to know, I thought my seals were going

FRANK_WHITE

are you running a b series motor i would suggest using a oem filter for a s2000 they are bigger and were regular pil filters for b series honda's but honda got cheap and sells the smaller versions which also ups the oil pressure with the smallers one's

just my .02

hatchinprogress

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FRANK_WHITE &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">are you running a b series motor i would suggest using a oem filter for a s2000 they are bigger and were regular pil filters for b series honda's but honda got cheap and sells the smaller versions which also ups the oil pressure with the smallers one's

just my .02</TD></TR></TABLE> what would you recomend for a dohc zc with a t-25?? i dont drive the car to often (it sits for weeks at a time) and when i start it up i notice white smoke comes out the exhaust at idle (but not when i drive) so i dont know if its a turbo issue or if it does that because the car sits too long (without a start up)????

nonvtecD

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beepy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any oil in the charge pipes is pointing to a problem. Either you have a boost leak that is allowing oil to come through the seals, or the seals are about to go.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not necessarily, I rebuilt my turbo after the seals blew and still had a little bit of oil in the charge pipes. Caused no problems whatsoever and seemed normal. No oil loss showed up on the dipstick.

scartail

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nonvtecD &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Not necessarily, I rebuilt my turbo after the seals blew and still had a little bit of oil in the charge pipes. Caused no problems whatsoever and seemed normal. No oil loss showed up on the dipstick.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, I figure no seal is perfect. So there should be some... For my case, I think I have an excessive amount of it.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FRANK_WHITE &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">are you running a b series motor i would suggest using a oem filter for a s2000 they are bigger and were regular pil filters for b series honda's but honda got cheap and sells the smaller versions which also ups the oil pressure with the smallers one's

just my .02</TD></TR></TABLE>

Speaking of pressure. I've been reading about restrictors inline of the feed. If I'm using an AN-3... The ID would be larger than the typical size for these restrictors (some stating 0.050-0.060")... Could this be the source of my problem??? I'm at 75 psi of oil pressure at about 3Krpm.

scartail

Update...

I happened to run into a Garrett engineer today out at Moroso. I described to him my situation and he didn't have any recommendations. He stated that if the turbo saw over 35 or 40 psi (at WOT), it would be happy. Other than the suggestion for the cartridge being oriented properly, and the drain line being uncongested and free to flow, he had no other ideas. He did say if I put a restrictor in and cut the WOT oil pressure down, it would be ok, just as long as it had over 35 psi. But these are only suggestions.

I made a quick test to see if the oil was flowing freely enough. I disconnect the return line and routed it to a can. At cold idle (oil pressure at 70 psi), I get approximated 20 oz/min of flow through the turbo. Can anyone confirm if this is okay? I'm using a AN-3 feed line. Through the course of this little test, I had collected about 36 oz of oil in few minutes that I had my engine running. I think that's alot, but I have nothing to compare it with.

Any comments?

CRXdan

I just made a restrictor for my 14b turbo today. I welded the banjo fitting shut then drilled a .060 hole through it. The turbo spools much nicer and it solved 90% of my smoking problems.

scartail

I think that's going to the option i have to take. I'm going to run some calculations to see how much of a change would an 0.06" will make.

Hopefully my seals are still ok.

Update: This is an approximation...
Here the equations for flow restriction...
Qin(Dout/Din)^2=Qout
where... Qin/out: inlet/outlet flow rate, Dout is orifice diameter, Din is inlet diameter...
For my particular situation... 20 oz/min*(.060/.125)^2=4.6 oz/min...

Damn, what was I thinking...

It was my pcv system... not the flow rate..

Modified by scartail at 11:50 PM 4/4/2005


Modified by scartail at 12:00 AM 4/9/2005