I turbo'd my ls and the thing is pouring out white smoke out the exhaust and doesn't boost, and a lot of blow by going out of the valve cover (breather). what's going on? Changed to a thick headgasket, thinking it maybe just a blown turbo (but its new)

 

Make sure that your oil inlet on the turbo is at the very top and the drain is pointing straight down!!

 

water cannot get into the engine through the turbocharger, the water pathway is in it's own casting section of the center housing.

sounds like a blown headgasket.


Modified by lazerus at 8:02 PM 5/7/2003

 

I helped put his kit on.

My buddy who did the oil return line into the oil pan had it cocked upwards alittle bit.

sooooo kinda like this:

[ ]
[____________ ]\

HAHA bad diagram, but the oil return lines comes down, then goes upward alittle bit. I have been saying this alot about this damn line. But nobody i have talked to said it is that....................

 

BTW, We drove it for about 10 mins at 8psi on stock headgasket and thought we blew the headgasket. Thats when the smoke started. Changed the headgasket twice (F-max sent the wrong one first time) and it leaked

We swapped the correct one on, with arp studs, waterpump and timing belt. And this bitch STILL smokes crazy white. But the smell IS NOT SWEET AT ALL, as coolant is when it burns. Please help us out

 

Done a compression test? What do the numbers look like?

Also, is it a ball bearing turbo by any chance?
What size inlet, what size outlet?

 

Im pretty sure im having that same problem..Lots of white smoke with a horrible smell..

 

its a t3-t4b i beleive----NON ball bearing

BTW i think its the rings still..........compression is 70-80-180-90

Stock LS with F-Max THICK headgasket.

But could the crazy white smoke be the oil return line?

I DO NOT BELEIVE THE WHITE SMOKE IS COOLANT IN THE CYLINDERS. It smells like ***. and NOT SWEET LIKE COOLANT. Beleive me I know what coolant smells like.

 

Maybe you have a hairline crack in the sleeve. This happened to me. Or most likely your rings.

 

yea i def. looked over the sleeves good. i couldnt see anything wrong or ill looking. nor was any cooling seaping in.

BUT the white smoke does not smell like coolant.

 

Pull your head off. Buy a precision straight edge and 45 degree angled feeler gauges. Check to make sure its not warped.

Also on the ARP studs, make sure its is torqued to 72lbs. No more, no less.

 

my ARPS' are at 90 foot lbs! (not a honda though)

hope you get it fixed man.

 

your compression is not good

 

head was checked at a machine shop

its fine

 

time for a leak down test!!

 

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BTW i think its the rings still..........compression is 70-80-180-90

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Oh holy hell, ur compression is horrible. You either have a bad headgasket, warped head, or 3 bad sets of rings. I've never seen 3 sets of rings go bad at the same time so i doubt that's it. If you've put the headgasket on correctly and torqued it correctly, you probably have a warped head. I also have another question for ya. What size hoses are you using for oil feed and return, my buddy had the same problem because he used the same size feed and return line. Basically it forced oil past the seals and o-rings, he was also getting no boost and TONS of white smoke. Your feed should be -3 an and your return should be -10 an.

 

f-max came with 5/8th's oil return line. the feed line was unspecified. But looked normally what the size is for feed lines.

Also we have put on 3 headgaskets with all the same compression readings.

BUT i just found out the head was never checked for warpness

If the head was warped, would we be pushing cracking positive crankcase pressure out the breather filter on the valve cover and oil dipstick??

 

I wanna say that your headisn't torqued down all the way, or you've blown the HG

 

we already changed the headgasket and torqued the head studs down to 72, that's what we thought it was all along but its not the headgasket.

 

looks like your rings are bad

 

Do waht I said earlier. Get the straight edge and check your head for warp.

 

yup...compression check time

 

Did you do a rebuild on the block and use the same rings you took out or did you put new rings on? Did you make sure you honed the cylinders and also what kind of rings did you put in if you replaced them? Did you resleeve the block and if so what kind of sleeves did you get?

Only reason I ask is because you sadi you checked with a machine shop to see if your head was not warped. If you did a rebuild and used the same rings you wil definitely have a lot of blow by the rings wont seal at all. Also if you did the rebuild did you give the engine the proper time to wear in? All these things could be a reason for such bad compression. That is if the head is not warped.

Also I thought it was more likely if you blew your head gasket that you would definitely be burning coolant. Ive never seen a blown head gasket in which it only burned only oil and no coolant. Being that if the gasket were blow the first thing that would be drawn into the cylinders would be coolant because its right there. The oil has to go past the coolant in order to get in, very unlikely.

 

oh yea, go check under your oil cap. Look for milky substances. I went through this whole same dilemma.

 

wow im in the same boat as this guy, my b16a smokes(white) really bad, and i saw a brown, milky "peanut buttery" build up under the oil cap. could it be just a gasket.