Just bought a '88 last week. It's in great shape, it's lived a babied life, and only 72K miles. I took it for my first real drive tonight, man, what a fun car! Handles very well and power is very nice. I had a '86 NA back in '90, enjoyed that car a lot, so it's like an old friend, but one who's been on steroids.

It's all stock for now but I plan to do "things" to it. Definitely will do suspension but the car handles pretty good as it is. Transitions are a little mushy but not bad at all. Tires too, the PO put all-season M+S tires on it, they stick pretty well but the car sounds like a Jeep rolling down the road.

On the subject of tires, I am considering going 225/50 on the rears and stay with 205/55 on the front, but am not sure that the car will benefit. I think it will, as even with a 50/50 (or whatever it is, if not 50/50 it must be close) distribution, the rears being driven wheels should benefit, right? I don't want to make the car balance towards understeer, though. I didn't do any hard acceleration out of corners so the car seemed pretty well-balanced with the same-sized tires front and rear. Maybe I can post this particular sub-question in the perf/track section.

I can see where there is oil seeping from a tube (circled area in first pic) that leads to the intercooler, any ideas?

Thanks in advance, this has been a very helpful site already.

- Troy

 

very nice car u lucky turbo owner

 

looks like your turbo is leaking oil.. might need a turbo soon

 

interesting, my car accumulates the same thing in the same spot....

 

Any other symptoms of a turbo going bad? It whistles more loudly than I expected but I don't have experience with other turbos, so not sure.

Thanks!

How many miles on your car?

 

I'd like to know the source of that oil seepage myself... I test drove an '88 TII with 80K miles a few months ago and it had a more advanced case of what you're showing.

 

I just bought a used Jspec engine.

And I'm freakin glad I dont have that oil leakage.

 

That oil seepage seems to happen quite a bit on these cars. Do you notice any smoke on boost? If it were me I would clean the turbo up pretty good and check the play on the shaft. This could be the culprit of lack of use. Your car has very low miles for it's age, and if the owners were not changing the oil every 3-5 months even though the car wasn't used very much the oil can begin to "sludge a bit" If the oil sludged in the oil return line the oil that lubricates the turbo may not be draining in an orderly fashion causing oil to pool. This could possibly lead to the overage. I would change the oil and clean the turbo up, see how much oil returns and how long it takes.

Don't let them scare you with "it's gonna need a turbo rebuild" already stuff... Just clean it, see how long it takes to return and then plan from there..

Also very nice car, remove the pinstriping and make sure the huge doors don't ding your porsche 911.....

 

Thanks for the info. The previous owner supposedly did regular oil changes, but did store the car over the winters, including this (still going!) winter so it sounds like this could be what's happening. The thing is so clean, and the 2 previous owners were a mother-in-law and then the daughter-in-law, that I don't feel that they were abusing the turbo. I'm waiting for some workshop manuals and I'll be tuning, cleaning, and checking out the turbo.

Yup, the pinstriping is very 80's! RE: the 911, the pic is kind of an optical illusion, there's actually about 8 feet between them, big garage.

 

Very nice car. Mine leaks oil in a completely different spot *omp* but hey, welcome to the Rotary, right? :p

*Personally, I <3 that pinstripe...don't know why, though!.*

 

well, thats the thing, the whole engine AND turbo were rebuilt just a few thousand miles ago, so, i dont really know what thats all about. its never eaten that much oil (anymore than its supposed to) and the car pulls VERY well, so i dont think its much of a big deal. maybe just replace that silicone hose (though i dont actually think they are silicone???) thats what im going to do, and well see what happens then.

oh, and, 8 ft. between the 2??????? you lucky bastard...