I'm now on my 3rd Turbonetics turbo unit for my 2005 350Z. The 1st unit went 6 months before smoking, the 2nd and now the 3rd about 30 days. I do not drive my car hard. When I excelerate I get white exhaust smoke as it shifts through each gear and again when back off the gas pedal and decelerate, it's very imbarrassing. People try to stop you to tell "your cars smoking man".
The 1st and 2nd units were installed by AAM, Altered Atmosphere Motorsports, in Maryland and the last unit was done by PTuning here in Manassas, VA. All installations were done according to spec and worked fine for the time periods I mentioned above, then they started to smoke, so it's not the shops fault.
On the 1st installation I had AAM install their oil pan spacer, with oil line taps so they wouldn't have to tab into the oil pan itself. The system now has use of 6 quarts of Amzoil racing oil, instead of the normal 5 quarts.
PTuning thinks it could be just as simple as Turbonetics "oursourcing" the production of their turbo units and have gotten some bad units (but 3 in a row). Or, maybe the connectors that connect the oil lines to the turbo units are too small, causing the oil to back up in the turbo unit and blow the seal, then the oil gets blown into the cylnders and burned.
Yes, we've tried changing spark plugs, running compression test and the Z motor is fine, thank god.
Next week I'm going to call Reggie, again, get another unit and spend another $600.00 to get the old unit removed and the new one installed, but I would love to hear if other Z and G owner's have encountered this same problem.
By the way if you live in NOVA, PTuning is a great place to get H/P parts and service done. Check them out at www.ptuning.com. If you call them ask to speak to Mike or Tuan.
Help!!

 

Where I come from white smoke means head gasket or burning coolant...just my 2 cents. I wish you the best of luck!

 

Not calling you out but this is a turbo issue. You need to learn a little bit more before you throw this guy off. This is a major issue with the seals that TN has, but doesn't think it's there problem (seems like).

I really hate to hear that for it gets me paranoid about my kit. You do have an TN kit, right? You title says TT. I know you don't want to go this route but would you want to try using a different turbo before you keep spending all that money on rebuilds? Maybe they'll take a different look at this time. For only lasting 3 months then 30 days they should warrenty that work itself (the seals) Now I'm not slandering TN but I think they need to stand up to the issue at hand. For I don't think this happens a hole lot, so big companies need to help the little guys in this business.

 

There's quite a few people that have experienced this with the TN kits. Me being one of them


What kind of oil do you use and do you idle your Z for a minute or so before you shut it down?

 

Do you still have power under boost or it feels sluggish and slow? Im in the same boat as you and cant figure out the problem! Im beginning to think, its the turbo also. What signs are you having. Thanx

 

The situation with Turbontics and their turbo's smoking is appauling. I have had 4 Turbo's as well. There are many others with this problem. Turbonetics refuses to do anything or adress the issue. I returned my turbo to them and they said they inspected it and theat they found nothing wrong and stated it was another issue with my car which is BS. I wouldn't pull your turbo out unless you are going to replace it with a Garrett GT35 unit. It's a waste of money to just put another Turboentics turbo back in to have the same issue. You will have to convert it to a Garrett to solve the problem.

JET

 

You are correct I should have used TN (for Turbonetics).
Not what I'm going to do, maybe fix it and sell it, not. Thanks for the info that others have had the same experience. Will see what Reggie says this time.

 

Amzoil Synthetic 20/50 Racing.

 

Amzoil Full Synthetic 20-50 Racing Oil and yes on the idle before shut. My car is very pampered.

 

I changed the title to TN (Turbonetics) from TT which I know is (Gretty TT).
Will see what Reggie at Turbonetics tomorrow. And yea I may have to go with a change to TT. More money, more money, more money.

 

Well it doesn't seem that you are any luckier than me because I always cooled my car down and used the TN oil but for some reason still had thermal failure.

My report said.......

"Well it seems that your turbo has suffered coking ( oil residue buildup ) on the components from either hot shutdowns and or viscosity breakdown high engine temp."

 

I guessing that the Garrett GT35 is the Gretty TT kit, or is the Garrett a single turbo unit like the Turbonetics?
By the way, this is exactly why I posted this problem, because I was already thinking of an alternative to Turbonetics product.
Thanks for your input.

 

So I'm guess you are returning oil to the AAM pan spacer and not the tapped block?

 

Can't really give you any signs. The car ran about the same, except the smoke until yesterday (Saturday) when the turbo unit made sounds like it was drowning in oil, then seized up.
The car was put on a flatbed and taken to PTuning in Manassas, VA for another replacement of the Turbonetics turbo unit.
From the hits I've received on this posting I should be replacing the Turbonetics with Gretty or another brand.
This is bad. We're talking another $6,000 parts and labor.

 

Correct.

 

GReddy and APS both return oil into the lower pan without any troubles.

 

no, the greddy uses greddy-spec Mitsubishi TD05-18G turbos.

 

For what its worth, I routed back into my JWT pan spacer with no issues in my short run with the TN kit. Many others have with no issues as well. I also had a friend who had 2 bad turbos with the kit. Has TN tried a larger return line to help with this? With so many people having issues TN cant blame all the shops/self installs to be done incorrectly can they? At what point do they read all of these posts and go back and rexamine the issue? BTW-please dont take this as me TN bashing, I had a great TN experience, my car hauled **** and Reggie's support was awesome when I needed him.

 

I'm not saying some people haven't run the oil return into the lower pan successfully. But others have had it cause issues. I had an owner contact me a few months ago with the oil return going into the pan spacer. He blew two seals. I asked him to move it to the upper pan and upon doing so stopped burning oil and hasn't had an issue with a turbo seal yet. This has happened before but the last one I remember was a couple months ago. I'm just saying it might be a good idea to try it.

 

Im returning into the the AAM oil pan spacer and (knock on wood) I havent had a problem.

But the number of these threads has me a little worried.

T