[Mk2] [Turbo] Rev3 turbo smoking

[adam3442]

Need help with a friends car if possible.

He's just bought it and its started smoking. It doesn't smoke on start up or when the car is driven on boost.

It smokes when the car is up to temperature and when you park up and let the car run for a while on idle after about 30 seconds white smoke starts to pour from the exhaust, a couple of blips from the throttle clears it again.

I completed a compression test for him and it showed 12 bar across all cylinders when dry.

Does anyone know what it could be?

My thinking is rings, head gasket or valve stem oil seals? Am I heading in the right direction?

Cheers,

Adam

[foxy-stoat]

White smoke is water.

If you can get a garage to do a sniffer test, it will show if the HG is on the way out.

[adam3442]

Cheers bud, I want to get a sniffer test done but a few garages I've rung haven't got the equipment.

Was going to use it as an excuse to get myself a tester

[Ryan S]

sounds like turbo oil seals, had the exact same problems on a 200sx with broken turbo seals,

[adam3442]

Should have mentioned that I have changed the turbo for him replacing it with my own CT20 whilst I'm building my engine as that was initially where we thought the fault was.

My turbo was fine but has been shelved for three months, could the seals have gone in this time and caused the issue?

[Ryan S]

Should have mentioned that I have changed the turbo for him replacing it with my own CT20 whilst I'm building my engine as that was initially where we thought the fault was.

My turbo was fine but has been shelved for three months, could the seals have gone in this time and caused the issue?

can't say it's impossible, how many miles where on the ct20 etc????

just made me think of my 200sx, the way you said the smoke was pouring out, the smoke i had was awful, i had to turn the car off whilst stationary in traffic, it was like a smoke machine!!!


also, the smoke was really think it reeked!!! it absolutley stank of oil!!!

[Slarty]

sounds like turbo oil seals, had the exact same problems on a 200sx with broken turbo seals,

Yup. White smoke isn't neccesarily water. If oil is entered into the exhaust post combustion, it gets heated up and not burnt, hence the white smoke.

Turbo oil seals are failing.

[adam3442]

Ah see this doesn't smell at all and is very white with a tiny hint of blue if at all.

The CT20 on the car has covered 193,000 KMS running standard boost and no rebuilds or replacements that I am aware of. I bought my car/turbo at 52,000KMS and has always been serviced regularly with good parts.

This turbo now resides on my friends rev3 turbo and his car has covered roughly 70,000 miles. Since my turbo has been fitted to his car it has done less than 100 miles.

[Ryan S]

hmmmm, might not be the oil seals then, just to point out, the smoke i had was pure white, and was so thick it was embarrassing

[adam3442]

This is white thick and embarrassing.

Luckily its not my car

So you think I'm barking up the wrong tree with piston rings or valve stem oil seals?

I'll need to get some more testing done on it. Thanks for your inputs people.

[jimGTS]

my ct20b did the same on my old rev2.....
boost and driving ok, well first boost it would smoke a little.

sat in traffic, quite a bit of smoke

i believed it to be oil seals...
something to do with low oil pressure at idle, so seals are more relaxed and can weap oil.
i replaced with another ct20b, problems gone.

[adam3442]

Cheers Jim, what's the odds aye, two knackered turbo's. Mine was fine when it came off

[Slarty]

If your turbo sat on the shelf for thrre months, there's a chance that the oil seals went hard.

As Jim said, when you're at idle the oil pressure is lower and the seals don't "pump" up so to speak, hence letting oil seep through.

A good test is to let it idle when it's hot and start smoking. Then raise the revs to something around the 2k rpm mark and see if the smoke clears after a few seconds. If it does, it's likely to be the turbo oil seals.

[adam3442]

Cheers Bud I'll do that tonight.

With that in mind, is there a way to store a turbo without the oil seals going hard?

[adam3442]

Can I just top the oil feed up with oil to keep the seals wet?

[marcdtr]

i can see why people are saying turbo seals mate but 2 knackered turbos would be very bad luck and the oil seals imo would take longer than 2 months to dry out. Get all your tests done first sniff test and an old skool colour tune kit so you can see the spark colours across the bores when it starts to smoke.

Goodluck!!!

[adam3442]

Hmmm not sure then.

Will let you know when I go and run it for a while and then blip the throttle.