car smokes- oil in intercooler! what wrong?
 

car smokes- oil in intercooler! what wrong?
ok, scenerio listen in title... what is most likely gone bad.. the turbo? a seal in the turbo?

thanks!

scott

turbo is bad. How many miles on it?

You can get a rebuild kit for the turbo with new bearings and seals for about $100.00. You might want to try turbocity.com (I think that was the site).

Todd

this is the problem with a car im lookin at acquiring.. said it is a jsped with 30k miles on it..:)?

id assume bad turbo.. good reasons for upgrades..hehe

scott

i also vote for the turbo is hashed

does your shaft wiggle?????? oh not that,,,, your durty,,,,,,, no seriusly does the turbo shaft wiggle. I would vote on turbo also but hows your power and do a leak down or compression test it could be blow by.

What color is the smoke and is the car hard to start? I'm curious as I have a similiar problem.

Hm, I used to have this turbo that had oil in the compresser housing....but there was no shaft play whatsoever. I also had this weird smoke coming from around the turbo area, I swear it smelled like burning coolant.

My car only smokes when i shift it above or at redline. When the exhaust is hot though it just shoots a big ass flame.

Did you take care of the problem by replacing the turbo? Also curious if your car smoked at idle. What's going on with my car sounds a lot like what went wrong with yours. Thanks.

That coolant smell around the turbo can come from leaking intake manifold O rings. Yes...there is coolant running through the manifold and if the O rings leak the coolant may pool on top of the manifold and then trickle onto the turbo. I had that problem last summer....replaced the gaskets and O rings and no coolant smell since then. You might look for a white residue in the turbo area....it's a sure sign of evaporating coolant. As for the oil inside the compressor...a light film is normal...if it's pretty heavy i'd bet on bad seals inside the turbo. The seals can go bad without there being any shaft play (bearings).

Todd

Just like you said, you've got oil in your intercooler... that's the problem.

But seriously.. seeing as the turbo is the only thing with oil that is upstream of the intercooler, probably a bad seal would be my guess.

I replaced those o-rings in my manifold, and replaced the turbo (had a spare)...and it still smokes...