Hey guys, I ran my turbo for the first time today. The car started up fine, a little rough for about a second or two at first idle (with the 44lb injectors - tuned injector constant in HPT). My big problem right now is smoke coming out of the turbo area. I'm having a hard time diagnosing whether it is an exhaust leak, or something worse? The smoke seems to be coming out of the inlet and outlet of the turbine side of the compressor, mainly on the downpipe side. I don't have my oil pressure gauge in yet, so I can't find out what pressure is going into the turbo, but there is definitely oil going into it. The stuff I used came mostly off of Acer's car, so he had selected the correct restrictors he told me for the line so I don't think that is the problem.

The thing is, I'll start the car, it will run fine for 45 seconds to 1 minute, then it starts smoking. At which point it smokes (not like BILLOWING, but its definitely coming out - can only see it with a flashlight if that helps?). We let the car idle for a few minutes to see if something was just burning off, it doesnt get worse per se, but I'm a bit afraid of letting it idle incase something is wrong with the turbo. The reason why I don't think it's an exhaust leak is because when I turn the car off, it continues to smoke for a good 1-2minutes after the car is off.

There are no fluid leaks, and maybe just MINIMAL amount of oil on the outside of the turbo. The gas coming out is a hazy/dusty looking stuff, maybe a bit of a burning smell.

I know it's hard to diagnose, but whatever you guys want to know so that you can figure it out, please ask me because I have no idea what you need to know. Is it a good idea to just let the car run if I know the turbo is getting oil?



Also, here are some codes I'm throwing... (SOME hahahahaha...)... should I be concerned right now? The IAT is not plugged in, there's no cat. I moved the coolant reservoir, extended that wire, but it should be okay. Are any of these really serious problems?











" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "

If your throwing that many codes i would be concerned...





2004 Turbo cavalier 11PSI and blown!

I think it might be the exhaust wrap... the main portion of the smoke is coming from the downpipe it seems, a little bit from the turbine.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~djdnz/mycar/MVI_0370.avi



" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "

You might want to review how to tune before you do anything with HPT, I can already see you are using it wrong.

That screen shows the codes that your car is allowed to throw. Those are all the diagnostic trouble codes that the car scans for.

THOSE ARE NOT THE CODES THAT YOU ARE THROWING. The editor DOES NOT DISPLAY your DTC's. You do that through the scanner.





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Also the downpipe and turbo will smoke for a while in intial startup.

What size is your turbo and are you running an oil restrictor? We had problems with my turbo smoking because I didn't have the oil restrictor on. Through the restrictor on and I've been fine ever since... This was on a t3/t4 hybrid turbonectics

Shifted wrote:You might want to review how to tune before you do anything with HPT, I can already see you are using it wrong.

That screen shows the codes that your car is allowed to throw. Those are all the diagnostic trouble codes that the car scans for.

THOSE ARE NOT THE CODES THAT YOU ARE THROWING. The editor DOES NOT DISPLAY your DTC's. You do that through the scanner.

LOL I feel like an idiot, I didn't remember there was the scanner executable... I hadn't actually been into it yet, but I had noticed it initially when I went into the start menu folder for the first time. Thanks dude. Yeah I'm reading up as much as I can, I haven't changed anything yet other than the injector constant as per your FAQ.

Wrench Monkey wrote:Also the downpipe and turbo will smoke for a while in intial startup.

Yeah I've heard that about new turbos, but this is used, I would just assume it shouldn't smoke too much. At this point I'm thinking it's mainly the header wrap, but you might be right... thanks.

Derk Eliso wrote:What size is your turbo and are you running an oil restrictor? We had problems with my turbo smoking because I didn't have the oil restrictor on. Through the restrictor on and I've been fine ever since... This was on a t3/t4 hybrid turbonectics

The turbo is a Garrett T3/T4 60 Trim
http://www.atpturbo.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=GRT-TBO-034&Category_Code=TBN

The restrictor is already inline and I've been told it's properly done - I didn't do it myself so I'm going to look into it further. Thanks.



" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "

The first time you start up a turbo engine the turbo side is goin to smoke... for a few reasons.... if your hands were greasy when you touched/installed the turbo - that will all smoke off. Any brake cleaner you may have used, cleaning agents, lubricants, loctite, grease, oil, ANYTHING that will burn at that kind of heat - is going to burn off.

It smokes like nobodys business for a good 10-20 minutes and finally stops when it's all burned off. When I started my engine 2 weeks ago it smoked for about 16 minutes out of the turbo side.... just keep at it with a trouble light and monitor things as coolant temps come up and the car reaches operating temperature.

Good luck man.

-Chris-



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-Turbocharged-
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