My car started smoking pretty bad a few days ago but is on and off. At idle the smoke seems thicker than usual. Starts smoking pretty heavy cruising at low speeds. No smoke under boost.

The oil looks fine, coolant/water looks fine. No power loss.

My assumptions are:
PCV issue, but catch can has no sign of anything in it. Will re route it soon.

Head gasket, but oil and coolant seem fine.

Rings, sure hope not.

Turbo seal, since it doesn't smoke under boost I am less to believe they aren't blown but a seal could be bad.

I'm pulling the down pipes off as soon as I can to see if oil is sitting in there if the oil is trying to escape through the seals due to poor ventilation.

Ideas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUp3lfh0d7w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Hate to say it but that looks like head gasket issue to me. What does the smoke smell like? Any condensation on the tips of the exhaust?

 

Smells like oil and yes there was condensation.

 

If it was the head gasket wouldn't it smoke at a cold start?

 

My car has smoked like that on 2 occasions. Both easy fixes.

* too much oil, when at Full oil capacity my car smokes like that at idle, decel and slightly more at WOT

* when one of my catch can lines had collapsed shut, it smoked like a freight train just after WOT initial decel and more than normal at idle

If it was a head gasket it would be losing boost at WOT and spewing coolant on the windshield, overheating, etc. Good luck.

 

Thank you Alberto! I was hoping for you to chime in. Was going to PM you lol.

 

Let us know how it goes later when you get to the car. NP

 

Not a drop in the catch can.


It's routed to the front of the VC via:

and


The smoking has actually died down A LOT. Still smokes, but not as often as it did before.
I checked the oil, and it's good, still high though. Oil feed lines to the turbos are not kinked, however one of the return lines is questionable but I couldn't adjust it without getting oil everywhere so I'll be doing that when I do my oil change and install the oil pressure sensor.

 

Might wanna do the oil change and hopefully its something simple. easy to tell if coolant is being burned the exhaust tastes sweet. You don't have to try and taste it if your standing by it and there's coolant being burned you will taste it. done enough coolant flush and fills and head gasket diagnosis to know. =/ hate coolant flush and fills its a lot worse with those. could be oil control ring, and under wot and boost it is pushing any oil coming in out of the combustion chamber. Highly, highly unlikely but its only thing i can think of off the top of my head atm.

Brains a little fried after the tech thread i started though. I would think a turbo seal would be much more likely, but i don't have enough experience with them to tell you for sure. Like Alberto said maybe just too much oil, he would know a lot better then me with a turbo car. =/ I would definitely change the oil sooner then planed to see if maybe a oil line is plugged by something crazy or something else that's easier to check.

 

Made a little more vacuum to the catch can, hooking it up to one of the turbo intakes later.

Adjusted both of the return lines.

Changed the oil. No signs at all of water or coolant mixed in the oil. Drove around last night before changing the oil doing some WOT pulls and lost zero power across the board under full load.

No more smoke, that I saw driving around anyway.. I saw smoke in third gear after the wastegates opened, but that was just smoke from the tires