lunareg

Ive done alot of searching, ive found alot of info, but nothing that really is the same situation I have.

I have a d16zc soch vtec, turbo'd

Im getting a real good amount of gray smoke from my valve cover, like I can see if coming out of the hood a little when i stop even. when i open the oil cap smoke is coming out. I am also getting smoke out the exhaust when i go into 0 on the boost gauge..

My turbo blew the seals acouple days ago so i was thinking the exhaust smoke might just be residual oil burning off, or still in the charge pipes I missed?

ran a compression test and one of the cyclinders was off by 7psi, but they where all basically within exceptable levels. I havent done a leakdown test, I need to take it somewhere. but im not getting smoke on decel which is valves from what i have read.

just curious if anyone has any ideas what it could be and also how safe is it to baby the car back and forth from work for acouple days?

cevax

I am having the same problem on my brand new z6 build. I also found that my turbo blew oil past the seals upon inspection. My comp test was also fine

lunareg

yeah my car -was- smoking at all times during accell. the turbo was blowing oil out the inlet and down the ic pipes. since i bought a new one it has not let any oil by and the smoke is only happening when i let it get to 0 .. im not boosting because its not tuned yet, just on a basemap.

AlexDphoto

you sure you didnt get any oil on anything hot? look around, it could just be burning off some oil that splashed on the block/exhaust/dp/dt etc

dpetro1

how much is a "real good amount"? can you take a pic/vid of the smoke. also does it immediately dissipate or does it linger? do you have a catch can? if so, how is it set-up.

i think the exhaust smoke is from the turbo seal so it may be unrelated

lunareg

i dont have a catch can yet because im broke from fixing this mess, but its next on the list. right now I just have some vac hose hooked up to the VC with the hose pointing under the car. when the hose wasnt there smoke was coming into the cabin. it def smells like oil

its a steady thick stream of smoke coming out of the hose. It doesnt seem to go away once the car is warmed up, I can see it coming out of the hood at stop lights.

I double checked the turbo this morning and it hasnt been leaking anything past its seals that i can tell, the ic pipes are dry and the inlet looks fine. the smoke from the exhaust stay in the air, im sure the people behind me appreciate it lol.. but if I shift at 2 grand theres no noticable smoke from my mirrors even though there could be light smoke that i cant see.

unrelated problems right now is a cel for code 8 I jsut put in a new dizzy, but it must be faulty. and once i get up to temp my car dies everytime i put the clutch in to make a turn or come up to a light..

lunareg

there is oil all over the place in the thing from when the turbo seal blew, I only have mesh right now so the turbine was throwing oil all over the place.. I cleaned up the best i could, but the smoke out of the VC couldnt be related to that.

lunareg

so im kinda confused..
the guy had this thing with a hose running from the VC to the charge pipe like most cars do.. I read that is bad so I unhooked it and tried capping the hole in the charge pipe.

for the hell of it I hooked it back up, and wtf, the smoke in positive boost stopped, no smoke under the hood (obviously) and the car is running better than it was.. is it possible my cap job wasnt doing the trick and i had a boost leak going on? but why would that produce smoke?

lunareg

well nevermind that plan.. turns out once the car warmed up it was smoking like a train out of the back. seems having that breather hose into the charge certainly isnt helping anything, making it worse. it was still dying once i put the clutch in, but it wouldnt start unless i floored the gas while i was cranking it over. this thing is such a pos

CTR_B

iTrader: (1)

Ring lands are broke... time for a rebuild or new block. GL

dpetro1

you should absolutely NOT have a line running from the VC to charge pipe. under boost you are pressurizing the crankcase

cevax

@ Dpetro1 arent those valve's one way? I have mine going to the intake manifold just like stock with a valve

How many miles does your motor have?......Did it get worse overtime or smoke right away?

I am going crazy too trying to figure out the same thing. If you pull you spark plugs out when the car is hot, is there anything on them/ does smoke come out the hole? Mine does it on all four.

lunareg

i have no clue how many miles are on that motor, or even the car for that matter lol.. the cluster has been replaced, he claimed the motor had 70,000 on it, but I doubt it.

I started noticing it lightly behind me if i got into a little bit, and through-out that day it got worse. I swapped out the new turbo and now its only smoke when the vac goes to 0

the hose from the breather is smoking non-stop.. I checked once the car was warmed up and its still pouring out of there. my dipstick has prolly gone down like from 100 to 85 in the last week and my coolant has dropped from max to low on the bottle.

I find it curious to get a compression test that comes back normal, but still getting blowby, if that really is the case.

I just dont want to tear down the motor to find that the rings are infact fine.

cevax

Your losing coolant? any idea where its going? pull your plugs and see what they look like

lunareg

im not sure where my coolant is going to be honest. I noticed the top of my exhaust manifold looks a little damp right at the block, but i dont notice anything actually leaking out of there, its dry under the head.

last time i pulled my plugs while this was happening, 3 of em looked meh, and 1 of them had alot more black on it than the others.

90blackcrx

Oil control rings, or ring lands like mentioned are bad. A leak down is more accurate but even then those numbers could be misleading.

90blackcrx

Yep this is bad, you're basically boosting the inside of the head/engine. Also make sure the PCV system is not hooked up.

lunareg

cool thanks for the info, Ill do the leakdown test just for the hell of it, but it appears a tear down is in my future. Im not positive where the pcv valve is located, ive seen the photos, but it was still confusing, do you need to get at it from under the car?

would having it hooked up make the car smoke like this if it was bad or malfunctioning in some way? from my understanding you would run a line from the block where the pcv valve connects into the catch can along with the vc hose correct?

90blackcrx

The PCV valve is located on the intake manifold, and has a line running to it , to the ... wait I found a pic



I doubt it would cause the smoking, but its not good to be boosting into your crankcase, you putting added pressure inside, causing pressure on ring lands. Quick way to block up a motor.

lunareg

gotcha thanks alot, i kinda thought it was there, i must have been looking at pictures of something else, thats where it was on my eclipse. so its ok to just disable the valve and run the line into a catch can im assuming?

lunareg

well upon checking it out it appears the shining star that put the turbo on this car before i bought it T'd that line for the pcv valve for the bov vac source... that doesnt seem to smart

Nichelson_Performance

yeah definetely get rid of the line going into the charge pipe.....people don't put them in the charge pipes, some, that run an intake on the inlet of the turbo will put the VC breather hose in there which would pull vacuum and not make boost there....this helps pull out the pressurized gasses in the engine, but at the same time is also reinjecting the nasty gasses/oil mixture back into the cycle of the engine which is also not good

install a breather filter on the VC for now, they usually work until you get into high boost levels, but anyhow this should calm the smoking down significantly but not get rid of it totally as forced induction cars produce blowby which is what you are seeing. if it's still terribly bad, then you have internal engine problems dealing with the piston,rings, or sleeves

I run a custom breather setup on my car using two 10an bungs on the valve cover with 10an lines going to a catch can and though I'm not filling up the catch can, I still see smoke when I hit 20psi.

As far as the exhaust smoke, it could still be filled with oil from the turbo going out. What color is the smoke? If it's gray or white, that's oil burning in the exhaust. If it's blue, that's oil burning in the engine

lunareg

hey thanks for the tip. the exhaust smoke is def not blue, its more white to gray, def smells like oil burnin bbq. I keep wondering if maybe there a bunch of oil in the intercooler or something that gets sucked out when it goes into boost, or just a large collection in the pipes. I dont drive much like 10 miles a day, so it might take awhile to burn it all off.

Im also wondering if my idle problems might have something to do with my plugs, we put in denso iridums that where 6 plugs like the timing belt cover called for, and im not sure what the gap is on them either.

as for the VC smoke, its coming out at all times even at idle, I will try to snap a camera phone pic of it so you can see what im talking about.

lunareg

heres some crappy c-phone pics of the smoke coming out at idle. the 2nd one is a wierd angle (sorry) the hose the smoke is coming out is at the bottom right corner.
and for what its worth, when I bought the car there was nothing on the nipple coming off the VC and there was no smoke coming out of it.

CTR_B

iTrader: (1)

rings/ringlands are shot.. time for rebuild or short block replacement