Ive had this turbo for a while and its been pimped out to manya car, but untill last fall it didnt smoke.
The motor never smoked either, now its been puffing smoke.
the manifold doesnt have any oil residue in it/nor do the head ports but this could be due to the heat.
Is there any tell tale sign of turbine seal leakage?
Im going to be getting a new snail in a week or so and just want to verify the cause prior to spending some loot.
what style oil restrictors are you higher reving turbo guys using?
I have the "filter" or screen design at the turbo feed and cant see this causing the problem.
let me know if you guys have any ideas/insight.
thanks.

 

The only way I know of to tell the difference between turbo seals and engine smoke are to remove the turbo...I'd also like to get some info on this!

 

I dont just have a header and exhaust to throw on there to check it out.
any ideas?

 

Take off charge pipe and see if oil is in there. Last time you were in it was leaking from the center section, time to get a gt30r

 

yea but im talking turbine seals not comrpessor seals, I think its residual oil we saw from when I swapped return lines.

 

if the seals are blown then there should be oil in your charge pipes. When my seals blew I could run my finger inside the pipe from the turbo and my finger would come out with oil on it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by boostedeg302 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if the seals are blown then there should be oil in your charge pipes. When my seals blew I could run my finger inside the pipe from the turbo and my finger would come out with oil on it</TD></TR></TABLE>

not if it blew on the other side & it's leaking directly into his exhaust!


disconect your down pipe & look in there to see it looks wet or not. If it's wet, make sure it's not just moisture, run your finger through it. You will be able to tell if it's oil or not.

 

If there's enough oil burning to create smoke, it will also leave oil residue.

Bad turbine seal: manifold will have normal carbon, rest of turbo-back exhaust will be somewhat slimey oily residue.

Bad comp seal: oil & residue from compressor to exhaust tip

Bad rings: clean charge pipes, oily residue from exhaust valves to exhaust tip.


Notice that this requires you to take parts off. Turbos are not like computers, you can't click a button and have the problem pop in front of your face. If you don't want to take anything off, then you're lazy and will end up with a ruined turbo and/or motor, depending on what seals are bad. There's no way to fix bad turbo seals or engine rings w/o tearing either apart.

 

Like said in the original post, the manifold/headports are clean, but was curious as to could this be due to the extream heat at these locations?
the restrictor I have is a goofy design and I think im going to try and replace it with a smaller outlet design.
Also how restricted would a returnline have to be inorer to make this big of a difference?
the 1/2inch returnline is SLIGHTLY crimped, I couldnt imagine it causing this problem and it was just replaced so there is no blockage.

 

?

 

When is it blowing smoke?

When my car had blown seals, anytime I would get over 50-60psi of oil pressure I would blow blue smoke like crazy. Also if the car sat for extended periods of time or excessively cold mornings it would smoke a lot on startup.

Do a compression/leakdown check. Rule out the engine, and you'll know it's the turbo.

 

bump, i would like to hear some more input. i'm having the same problem. my exhaust valves, ports, and spark plugs are clean from oil. i'm getting oil residue out my exhaust and smokes like crazy. not on idle, but when i get on the gas.

 

i think 1/2 inch is too small for a gravity oil drain, especially if it is kinked a bit. i run 5/8 and i wouldnt go any smaller

 

?

 

yea its smokes as oil pressure raises.
the motor has ~6000 miles on it so Its turbo related and again the head has no signs of oil leaks/burning

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDMB20TDA &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yea its smokes as oil pressure raises.
the motor has ~6000 miles on it so Its turbo related and again the head has no signs of oil leaks/burning</TD></TR></TABLE>

One thing I've learned with having a turbo Honda.

You can answer just about every question you have by actually working on the car. Hint Hint.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SovXietday &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
You can answer just about every question you have by actually working on the car. Hint Hint.</TD></TR></TABLE>
how is working on it going to give me the indepth engineering information Im looking for as far as drain size/what size restrictor Im going to need for my application?
thanks, again Ive pulled the turbo/dp/manifold to Id where oil is and isnt.
Now as far as a restrictor I did some searching and there are many companies selling different size an restrictors for BB turbos.
whats a good company selling a journal bearing turbo restrictor? atp charges 14$ and 13$ for shipping...

 

Where in the pan does the oil drain in? Is it above the oil line. I use to have mine drain into the oil, and it would build up and basicaly flood my turbo. Plus, some turbos, not sure if all, do not actually have a seal on the exhaust side. It uses air pressure variances basically. Anyways, i tried it all. What made the biggest difference was making sure the oil drain was above the line. Another thing to look at is, making sure the block can breathe, and get rid of the kink. Good luck, smoking turbos suck

 

yea the bung is welded at the highest point in the pan, I do need to run a better breather system on the car, right now its just dumping stock "catchcan" into the atmosphere.
yea cant really run a regular seal when its getting that hot so they work off a pressure differential to keep them seated.

 

i've been following this thread and i have the same problem. except, when i switched to mobil 1 syntec 5w-30, the exhaust started to smoke and oil started coming out my exhaust and leaking out my turbo. when i was running the honda genuine 10w-30, i had no problems. i don't know if i should switch back to honda genuine, or get mobil 1 10w-30 syntec, or go thicker. i don't know. now that i moved from cali to texas, i think that would make a huge difference. but i do have 92 and 93 octance available.

 

octain wouldnt effect it, dino oil compared to synthetics are thicker.
try mobile clean 5000 its a normal oil and should cure ur problem.