Setup:

JDM B20b - stock
Aem ems w/ wideband
50 trim t3/t4 running 5 lbs of boost 11 afr.

I was driving and went WOT. Car felt great but my girlfriend noticed smoke smell. About 10 seconds after that my cabin filled with smoke About 5 seconds after that i could barely see anything behind me lol. I pull over and smoke is pouring out of my valve cover breather and exhaust. So i limp the car home. Pull the turbo and head off expecting to see a hole in my piston. To my amazement everything looks great. Pistons # 3 & 4 look like they are sitting againsed the left of the cylinder wall, and you can see the rings on the right side.... kind of hard to see in my pictures. there is also no abnormal scoring on any of the cylinder walls. Sleeves are perfect. The head and pistons all have matching heathy color. No burned oil. No oil in my exhaust runners or manifold but the outlet of my turbo is caked with burned tar like oil. Turbine wheel looks great. Oil looks and smells great. Coolant looks perfectly normal. The car ran relativly ok but when i had to restart it a couple times it sounded like it was on 3 cylinders. Imense smoke at idle or driving, doesn't matter. Here are some pics, please help me figure out what happened!!!!!!!

My turbine outlet



Cylinders



Cylinder #4







Cylinder #3



Head

 

Similar thing happened to me. I didn't notice anyhting wrong, but the car was smoking like crazy. I cracked all my ringlands. Pull out a piston and see what the ringlands look like.

 

Looks to me like the tubo seals are fucked. There is A LOT of crap in there.

 

I forgot to ask, did you do a compression check before ripping it all apart?

 

I say Ringlands.
Ive done it Many times before.
Car runs Decently Ok, Lots of v.cover breather smoke.
Compression was fine, NO Cylinder scoring, headgasket was fine, no detonation specs, nothing....
If you dont see anything wrong With it So far Its about the only thing left

 

RINGLANDS.

Exact same simptoms my car had last summer. EXACT. Flip the block over, unbolt the rods, and pull out the pistons. Guaranteed one of the piston ring lands is smashed.

100%

 

1 more vote for ringlands.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ComputerJLT &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">1 more vote for ringlands.</TD></TR></TABLE>
and another. that sucks man didn't you just get it running ?

 

1. Ringlands and
2. Also Look at the rods in cylinders 2&3

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Liltrix &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">1. Ringlands and
2. Also Look at the rods in cylinders 2&3</TD></TR></TABLE>

Why 2&3?? are they more prone to bend or under high stress blow through the block?

 

I say it's just a seal in the turbo, but hey, everyone is saying ringlands

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by KingDsi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I say it's just a seal in the turbo, but hey, everyone is saying ringlands </TD></TR></TABLE>

The quick onset makes me think clogged PCV system. I've busted some ringlands before, and while that does smoke, nothing gives the spyhunter smokescreen like clogged PCV. Ringlands also don't burst into thick smoke suddenly out of the blue, but PCV can clog within seconds.

BTW, easiest way to diagnose whether ring lands or leaky turbo is rev the engine when cold... if within the first two minutes she doesn't smoke when you rev, that means turbo - the downpipe/turbine hasn't heated up enough to burn off the leaking oil yet. Broken ringlands will always blow oil smoke when the engine is revved, even when the engine is cold.

 

I think you blew the welds on the intake manifold

seriously though, I'm leaning mainly to the turbine seal on the turbo.

wish you would have done a few things before ripping it all apart like you did...such as:

1. compression check.

2. pull the turbo off all together and re-install stock exhaust to see if the smoke went away.

but yea, could be ring lands too

 

did the car run? if the ringlands were destroyed it wouldnt even start. we blew the ringlands on a b16 we swapped in a 92 4 door after we boosted it...the WG spring was too heavy, 25 psi killed it. I think the turbo seals are just shot. if the ringlands went, there wouldnt be that much oil all through the echaust housing.

 

ya i def vouch for cracked ringlands

 

I say turbo seals because thats way too much oil to be caused by ring lands. I cracked the ring lands on every piston in at least 3 places on each piston and it did not smoke at all but it burned a small amount of oil.

But of course the smoke out of the valve cover breather doesnt add up so it must be ring lands

 

i say ringslands on 1 cylinder only

thats why he was flodding it with oil and ran like on 3 cyl's... like a WRX


btw why is it that the #4 piston looks smaller than the others???

whats those 4 notches on it close to the valve notches???

 

Ya i really doubt it is the turbo just because of the smoke pouring out of my catch can breather off my valve cover. Unfortunatly I could not do a comp test as one of my friends took mine and hasnt brought it back. I'm going to take the turbo back and have them look it over anyways since it probably needs some work now. I figured ringlands too but i just wanted to be sure before i rip it apart. As you can all imagine i'm not very happy. I only had my car running for 3 days lol. One thing i will ask is to have a look at my n/a dyno chart. We all figure there was something wrong with this motor when i got it. It made peak tq at 3400 rpm as you can see from the graph. Air/fuel and timing would not change it at all. (like not even a little bit) Last time i tuned n/a (not pictured here) i was having some weird things happen up top. Motor started to break up above 6500 prm. Do you think this has something to do with this mess?

Here are a couple of my first n/a dyno tunes

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by USDM 4G VTEC &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">whats those 4 notches on it close to the valve notches???</TD></TR></TABLE>

I was wondering this also.. They are on cylinder #4..

 

Man this sucks. Stock bottom end right? This is making me hella nervous about boosting mine.

 

man that sucks, I was just reading ur other thread. sorry to hear that

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tgreaves &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I was wondering this also.. They are on cylinder #4..</TD></TR></TABLE>

If you look closely at pic #2 you'll see that it is a reflection in the mirror-surface cylinder walls of the valve cutouts.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by legendboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Y Unfortunatly I could not do a comp test as one of my friends took mine and hasnt brought it back.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

**** man, I have it right here!!! I'll bring that by your shop asap! I totally forgot I had that thing, it's been sitting in bob's garage, but either way, I'll get it to you quick. Sorry to hear about this **** man, it was looking like a killer setup!

As for the smoke, yah, if it's coming out the breather, there's something more there than a turbo seal. Something else concerns me though, on a new turbo, how many km's are you suposed to break it in before you go WOT? Does it even matter?

 

for all of the people wondering what was up with the #4cyl, it looks like its just down lower in the cyl wall giving a reflection of the valve reliefs .........

 

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

If you look closely at pic #2 you'll see that it is a reflection in the mirror-surface cylinder walls of the valve cutouts. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Ahh yes... I see it now.. Thanks