OK so I've had my Greddy TT's on for about 5 months or so and ever since we put them on, my g's been running real strong but under WOT past 5,500 rpms or so I could see a little bit of smoke (bluish in color ---> oil) pufing out of my exhausts.

It never really bothered me and I was noticing I was about a 1/2 a quart down on every 1000 mile oil change. Yes I know, I change my oil all the time.

Now the other day I went to the track and I was running 7.2 psi and NX intercooler sprayer and after I ran a 12.9 my car started smoking ALOT.

THe smoke only puffs out when I punch it still but now instead of puffing out at 5,500 rpm or so, it smokes at 3k-4k when I'm goin through the revs quich and boosting...

Some ppl told me it could be a blown piston ring but I checked my spark plugs and they are clean as a whistle. There was no sludge on them at ALL.

For a while I've had a suspicion that it could be a bad turbo seal. What do you guys think of this?

Should I do a compression test?

Oh yeah and I changed my oil after that track day and I was 1 and 1/2 quarts down.

 

is there a way to check if there is a blown seal on one of the turbos?

 

not that I knew of... I mean, I was thinking of taking off the y-pipe and see which side of the engine its coming from. But that wouldn't really tell me if its the engine or turbo. I guess if I found oil after the turbo then its coming from a blown turbo seal, if not, then it would be the engine...

 

r u leaking any oil? if not than i would say try a compression test.

 

I just replaced my turbo due to a bad seal. But my symptoms were different. I would get a big cloud of white smoke when comming off the throttle. Not on throttle. I narrowed it down to a blown seal by inspecting the plugs for oil, and doing a compression check.

Respect
JET

 

ok so I have a better diagnosis of the problem.

I took the upper and lower plenum off and noticed an excessive amount of oil in the center section of the lower plenum.

This is oil that is sucked up from the passenger side valve cover and dumped into the Collector.

Here is a pic of what the collector looks like:

http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=o0dq1i


I tried to hook up a greddy oil catch tank going from the valve cover to the lower plenum but the suction from the lower plenum made the greddy hoses collapse and interrupt the flow of air.

So what's really happening is a jet of oil shooting into the collector and mixing with the air/fuel mixture causing the cloud of blue smoke.

a) WHat should I do? Forget the catch tank and deal with the smoke? (skip to option b or c LOL)
b)Cap the male fitting on the lower intake plenum and put a breather filter on the valve cover?
c) get non collapsabe lines and still use the greddy catch tank to stop the oil from reaching the lower intake plenum?

 

That is called the lower plenum. Does the lower part of the upper plenum or throttel body have any oil? I don't have a catch can and my upper plenum is spotless.

Respect
JET

 

ok my bad so lower plenum is oily because the lower part of the upper plenum is receiving too much oil from the passenger side valve cover.

I spoke to a reputable speed shop and they said that the only reason why the extra oil from the valve cover is shot into the plenum for combustion is for emission purposes and that I could very easily just put a tiny K&N filter on the valve cover and cap the lower part of the upper plenum.

 

good call.

 

no problems with my catch can.

 

^ amaziing.......what are the new numbers jorge??

 

boost controller off 5.5psi 380whp. low boost 8psi 480whp. high boost 10psi 519whp. Dynopack dyno. My motor is good for more, but SGP knows how I beat my car and said that this is the highest I should take it with the EU if I don't want to worry about anything. I might upgrade to the UTEC or a full standalone like AEM if it ever comes out. For now I'm pretty happy. It feels a lot faster then when I was pushing 543whp. I am hitting full boost at 2800 rpms vs. 3700 rpms before. I have RC 750's so there is room to upgrade later on if I get crazy.

 

Misdiagnosis!

OK so I thought it was that line from the valvecover to the lower/upper plenum but it turned out not being it...

Now I have isolated the oil leak to the passenger side of the motor. More specifically a turbo seal leak.

I have a greddy evo2 and since its not a true dual, I had to remove the Y-pipe to be able to tell which side the smoke was coming from.

Definitely the turbo went bad and now I'm not sure if I should buy another one or rebuild...

Any thoughts?

 

Just rebuild it. PM 350zDCalb. He rebuilt his Greddy Turbos when he thought the seals went bad.

 

Also check the oil return line. Make sure all is good with that. If the line is kinked where it becomes rubber it will cause the exact same problems you are having. I forgot to tell you that when we talked.

 

today I checked all my intercooler piping and found an alarming amount of oil. I checked the return lines on the turbos and they seemed to be OK. What could be causing this??? Does this mean my seals are blown on the turbos?

 

it sounds like the turbo seals are leaking. is there ne thing else that would send oil into the intercooler piping before the intake? im not entirely familiar with the greddy set up.

 

At least in my experience everytime the turbo has gone the way his has ie no shaft play etc it is the rear seal. If it is the rear seal the it won't have all that oil in the intercooler piping. However the return line being kinked would cause all the above symptoms.

 

ok so I rerouted all the lines and made sure none of them were kinked... THe only one that was lookin a little flat, I replaced. I cleaned out all the oil from the intercooler and pipes. I had drained out the old oil and put 5 quarts of Mobil 1 10w30 and went out for a tes drive.

THis time I left the bumper off so I could easily check the blow off valve for oil squirting out of it. And after drving it for a little while I noticed the car kept smoking especially when I let off the throttle and I pulled over at a gas station and checked the blow off valve and found what I feared... Oil, clean as a whistle... Meaning that oil came from the new batch I had just put in.

So in conclusion, the turbos are still leaking.
Is there ANYTHING else I should check for??? I'm only a few days away from ripping my motor to start the build process. So I guess by then I'll be able to diagnose everything more toroughly but I wish there was a simple solution to this. Id hate to have to rebuild those damn turbos!

 

Well I took the motor out, ripped the turbos out and went back to N/A while I rebuild them. Got the rebuild kit off of ebay for $120.00 and took the turbos apart myself, replaced the seals and cleaned all the coaked oil on the exhaust side of the turbo.
The turbos are off now getting balanced.
BTW there was nothing wrong with the motor... it doesn't smoke after taking the TT out.