My car has been giving little puffs of blue smoke when under boost. Compression is good and I don't think I have blown a seal....I did a search on some other sites and found people who had the same issue, and are now using oil restrictors on the feed lines. They claim that the turbonetrics oil seals are prone to failure under high oil pressure and a restrictor should be used.


Anyone using one? If so, where can I get one and what do they look like??

 

Hey there!
I think I have this one figured out. If you recall, my first turbo blew apart. I had it sent back to turbonetics cause it was blowing oil through it. I come to find out later that I had a tiny metal filing plugging my oil feed line. I am using the -3AN line from FMAX running off a T at the oil sending unit at the back of the block. Well, once I found the plug (thank god I didn't blow the rebuilt turbo since I was only running like 4PSI at most through it), I hooked up my Greddy oil pressure gauge so it was T'd off the line right before entering the turbo.

I can tell you, with a -3AN feed line, pressures at the turbocharger never go above 35psi at any rpm. at idle I have about 15psi. All is great but I was still getting some oil burning smells at times. What fixed the problem was to lower my oil pan level so that I was close to the bottom of the dipstick fill lines rather than near the top. I think the return fittings at the tops of the pan will have oil spilling back into them especially on decelleration causing oil to backup and not flow back through the return line. I checked by taking my return line off and sure enough oil came out of the fitting on the pan.

In any case, take off your air intake to your turbo and check the freeplay. You may indeed have a turbo piston ring leaking like I did.

Just a suggestion based on some facts I found out. Hope it helps!!

Torin

 

hey fool(MiraiZ).. go buy the restrictor in the pic below! Get my number from Dave or just IM/email me later! I'll try to find you a part number and if I have an extra one I'll send it to ya! If the center housing overfills you will eventually kill the oil piston ring because the oil flowing pass the ring will bake and clog up the ring!

I have said this on H-T before and I just said it again on RX-7club. The restrictor reduces volume more than flow. The center housing overfills because it can not drain the excess VOLUME. One way to combat the excessive volume problem is to use a larger drain line but sometimes even this solution doesn't work!

Check this out: If you reduced a firehose to a garden hose while trying to quench an inferno would you get less volume or less pressure? If you say "less pressure" you need to do some re-thinking!

If you have side to side play then your shaft bearings are bad and if you have front to rear play your thrust collar and/or thrust bearing is having some issues.

Make sure there are no LOW spots in the return line. Make sure you didn't overfill your oil. If the oil level is above the drain inlet on the pan oil will backup in the center housing, become pressurized, and then flow past the seals/rings.

 

Yeah...I check for play tomorrow...actually...I just changed the oil last week..I left it 1/2L short just for the reason you mentioned above...so instead of 4.5L I have 4L of oil... I hope I didn't blow any seals 'cause I'm taking a trip on Wed...