03 Cav with a home made turbo kit started burning oil a bit ago.
I figured it was the turbo seals so I pulled the oil feed line and kept the turbine from spinning and the smoke seemed to subside, so I think Bingo there's my problem!
Fast forward to today when I put another turbo on the car and much to my surprise it is still burning oil.
Tell me if I missed anything, but the only things that could cause this are: Bad seals in turbo, bad valve guide seals, bad rings, bad headgasket, coked up oil return causing oil to blow by the seals, cracked head or block.
Now this engine doesn't have many miles on the current build (less than 5,000), the head was built by a reputable shop here locally with comp stage 3 cams and supertech valves and vale springs along with supertech guide seals.
The 8.9:1 wiseco pistons set shows around 170-175 psi on the compression gauge on all 4 cylinders (I'm sure it is low due to the very large overlap on the cams)
the head gasket was new on the rebuild and it has ARP head studs.
Now I did go cheap on the turbo for the time being until I could get a quality rebuild done on my old one, so has anyone heard of an EBAY turbo blowing oil past the seals new out of the box? (not looking for speculation here just if anyone has heard anything or had any experience)
The only things that I can think to try are check head stud torque and be sure they are tight, bypass oil to the turbo again and see if the smoke subsides again, or suspect the valve guide seals and pull the head (which I really am hoping I don't have to do)
Any help is greatly appreciated guys
Thanks
Wes
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
Do you have a good oil drain? If it is not draining properly the oil could be backing up into the turbo.
FU Tuning
the same oil drain that has been on the car for about 4 years and has always worked fine. The line also looked clear when I had it off to replace the turbo. The fitting is a 1/2 NPT so it is a very large oil drain close to a 10 AN
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
Ive read that the ebay turbos cant handle high oil pressure. Even with a good drain if the pressure is too high oil could be getting pushed passed the seals.
"Oil Leak ? What oil Leak ? Oh, Thats Just The Sweat From All The HorsePower!!"
I have an oil restrictor in the inlet side of the turbo so it should be seeing significantly less pressure to the turbo.
I bypassed the turbo today and ran the oil feed into the dipstick tube. the car still smoked, so I pulled the valve cover and checked the torque on the head studs and all were at the 60 ft/lbs that I set them at.
I popped the injectors out of the head and saw oil inside the intake ports so now I'm really confused.
The only thing I can come up with is that the brand new valve guide seals installed by a performance shop that does this stuff everyday have failed?
Any one have any Ideas? the smoke comes from the tailpipe but doesn't smell overly of oil, but it does linger in the air for a good bit. Another thought I had might be water in the gas, but I would think that water vapor would dissipate rather quickly.
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
Just put everything back together and went for a test drive and it smokes worse after any kind of stand still. Seems like it is sucking in oil from the intake and not from the crankcase.
Since the valve seals are new, it has good compression, a new turbo with a restrictor, new headgasket, and proper head torque the only things that are used are the block (which I am sure is not cracked) and the valve guides them selves.
This head was on another motor before and that block split and the head suffered from a couple of bent valves and #3's Combustion chamber (CC) got scored up pretty good. I took the head to the performance shop and had a valve job done and had them install oversize valves and springs (all supertech stuff) they also coated the CC and ports and cc'd the CC's.
Would they have noticed if the guides were tore up when they performed the valve job or no? It's looking like I'm going to be tearing the engine down yet again (lost count now so I'm pretty efficient at it by now
) I just need to know what to go after and fix before I slap it back together and it smokes yet again! that would be very dissappointing
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
Wes Gardner wrote:Just put everything back together and went for a test drive and it smokes worse after any kind of stand still. Seems like it is sucking in oil from the intake and not from the crankcase.
Since the valve seals are new, it has good compression, a new turbo with a restrictor, new headgasket, and proper head torque the only things that are used are the block (which I am sure is not cracked) and the valve guides them selves.
This head was on another motor before and that block split and the head suffered from a couple of bent valves and #3's Combustion chamber (CC) got scored up pretty good. I took the head to the performance shop and had a valve job done and had them install oversize valves and springs (all supertech stuff) they also coated the CC and ports and cc'd the CC's.
Would they have noticed if the guides were tore up when they performed the valve job or no? It's looking like I'm going to be tearing the engine down yet again (lost count now so I'm pretty efficient at it by now ) I just need to know what to go after and fix before I slap it back together and it smokes yet again! that would be very dissappointing
Usually it's valve guides when it's a quick puff of blue smoke right after sitting at a light or first start up, If it's constantly pushing blue smoke, it's bad rings....That goes for all cars, i dont have much experience with turbo cars so it could be something to do with the turbo also.
wouldn't bad rings show up on the compression test?
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
i agree with 95lscoupe. if it sits and then you start it and it blows smoke then it has bad valve seals. but maybe your pcv is bad or clogged up. your cv could be stuck open. try that and it might work. its a cheap part ya know
Turbo lag is a courteous head start
Yeah it huffs smoke pretty badly, I'm starting to think even though the compression is good on all the cylinders that the oil rings are toast.
No PCV system (Ecotec 2003) so the crankcase is vented to the atmosphere.
Looks like I'm going to have to yank the motor and rering the pistons and double check everything while i'm in there
2.2 L Ecotec, P&P Head, Stage 3 Comp Cams, Supertech 76 lb Spring kit, Supertech Oversized Valves, Wiseco 8.9:1 CR Pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, Home-Built Turbo Kit T3/T4 57 Trim Intercooled, 78 lb/hr Racetronix Hi-Z injectors, Aeromotive FPR, Racetronix f body fuel pump,MEGASQUIRT MS3 + MS3X Finally street tuned on 21 lbs! Now if only I could get it to hook....
The thing is, compression can be low but still in the "good" range. Some of the motors we have will get piston slap when cold which goes away when the engine warms, expanding the rings but over time this slowly opens, stretches out(can't think of the right word) and soon warm rings wont be able to fill the gap. Did you do a wet and dry compression test? If not, i suggest you do, that's a good way to find bad rings.
