1,000 miles on my setup and today I noticed there's some oil leaking from where the exhaust housing and center cartridge meet, not enough to drip but it's wet with oil. Also found a thin film of oil in my intercooler piping. I smoke blue going downhill in gear as well as accelerating.

I am running an OBX 0.065" restrictor. My setup is a rebuilt Garrett T3 60 trim on a stock d16y8. My feed line is bigger than other people's setups but I have the restrictor at the turbo.

My drain line is good, no kinks and slopes down nicely. Any ideas?

The turbo was bought off JDM B20 EH2, who owns a shop said he installed new bearings, seals and thrust washer. He seems like a legit guy and the turbo had assembly grease in the center cartridge when I got it.

I hooked up the coolant lines at about 700 miles, but they were mostly freeway going 65mph on the way to the tuner, and I made sure to let the car idle for ~30 seconds before shutting it off every time.

 

I noticed I was almost a quart low today, I've put 500 miles since I last checked the oil level. Definitely a lot more oil loss than before

 

Compression tested my motor and the numbers were great so I'm pretty sure my seal is bad. Is it possible to drip/burn oil directly into the downpipe from the turbo? It would match up with the oil leaking between the CHRA and the exhaust housing

 

this isn't a problem i've personally dealt with but i'll help you think this out.

1. pressure line goes into housing, no leak at line but there is oil in the exhaust and charge tube

well. it stands to reason your lost oil is obviously moving past the seals inside the turbo or it would not be in the charge tube or exhaust.

there is no other scenario that i can think of that can cause both situations at the same time. if your engine was burning a ton of oil you would have a black soot film and it would be all over the inside of the manifold. if you have actual wet oil that means it has not combusted and is from a leak

 

put some picture of your return oil line
50% of time the return line are not install correctly

look my set-up I dont have problem

 

^^^What size hose is that ? I always thought 90° fittings were a no no in the oil return.

 

Sounds like oil going past the seal on cold side with oil being in the charge pipe

 

the hose is 5/8 inside coolant heater hose for truck service
8 jic fitting and 3/8 pipe in the block
in the block I drill in two angle different so inside the block the oil going down
and the crank rotation dont affect the oil return

 

I have a much more vertical oil drain than the one posted. I'll get a pic of it tomorrow. changed the oil with 10w-40 today and I'm still smoking a lot

 

I took a look at my downpipe, it had a thick covering of black soot, wasn't wet though. Didn't have the time to look inside my manifold, I'll take a look tomorrow. I'm losing a tiny bit from my vented valve cover and gutted PCV valve but it's minimal

I noticed the 4 bolts in the CHRA are very loose, I tried tightening them and they seemed to get even looser. This a problem? I remember they tightened fine when I was clocking the turbo, even though I didn't need to loosen those 4 but I tightened them somewhat before the turbo was put on. Now it's like the threads are stripped or something.

These 4 bolts:


I also got more oil than before leaking between the exhaust housing and CHRA, looks like it dripped a little already

 

EEEK!!! But if you think its workin' I'll say nothing.

 

Here is a pic of my drain, I just snapped a pic and used flashlight for light. It's not touching downpipe and is pretty good in my opinion

 

^^ This is a good drain.

 

Well now we know my drain is good, I'm running a .065" restrictor on this journal bearing turbo, running 10w-40 oil doesn't help, and my motor compression test is good. Sounds like the turbo seal is the thing that's bad right?

Tomorrow I'm going to make sure the oil drains fine by running my motor for a little bit with the drain line disconnected just to make sure it's not clogged in there or anything. If it drains fine looks like I need to find someone to rebuild this "freshly rebuilt" turbo again.

 

certainly one of the worst returns I've seen yet on here

 

If i was in your shoe's i'd start stripping the turbo to see whats going on and to see if it has actually been rebuilt. Theres nothing else you can really do at this stage, it need a rebuild by the sound of things. You'll need to do something about those bolts what feel loose to. Let us know how you get on. Good luck

 

I am sure your oil pan level is higher than your fitting
I have smoking problem with the fitting on the pan that why I plugged my return on the block and my restrictor is .030
you run .060 restrictor you have more oil flow than me
but like somebody said this is the worst return he never seen
good luck

 

They was on about your return not his lol. His looks really good.

 

So anyone know if the 4 bolts in the pic I posted are essential to sealing the turbo? They are loose and don't tighten any more, just spin freely.

I tapped the oil pan at the very top, where the pan is shallow. I'm pretty sure it's a good spot, the guy is talking about your drain being bad not mine.

 

Did you use a .03 restrictor on a journal bearing or ball bearing turbo?

 

These 4 bolts are spinning freely, also I noticed one was MISSING!

This coincides with my oil leak getting much larger.

 

.060 is fine on a journal bearing turbo, and your drain is pretty much about as perfect as you can get.

Those bolts just spinning is not at all good! Regardless you need to fix the seals before you do anything else.

 

Well I mean you think one of those bolts falling out has to do with my oil leak spreading way bigger? I know they were tight when the turbo went in but I didn't use thread lock or anything, they could have loosened up in the past 1000 miles and caused the small leak, then when one fell out it leaks a lot more now. So now I have 3 bolts instead of 4

 

I took the old bolts out, put in some longer ones and I haven't noticed any leaks yet. But my seals are still bad, new bolts didn't fix the problem

 

What about the restrictor ? have you tried that yet.