Hey,

So today I came to a stop light and noticed a bit of smoke coming out of the hood scoop. "Not good." I immediately thought, and pulled over. I'm glad it wasn't coolant, but there's smoke coming from the turbocharger.

As far as I know, there's no smoke out of the exhaust. However, there is oil on the CHRA right where it meets the exhaust housing (which has a bunch of cracks in it from age). The smoke is coming from the spot of oil, and it seems as though some of it is coming from somewhere under the CHRA. There are a couple of lines in the area, and the gasket on the line on top of the CHRA looks clean, as do the washers on the banjo bolt on the side.

The car is still warm so I can't check for oil in the charge pipe or shaft play just yet.

Has anybody experienced something like this? Is oil just leaking through the exhaust housing onto the CHRA and burning?

I like fire, but not in my engine bay D:

 

It's not certain that smoke isn't coming out of the tail pipe. It certainly isn't blowing a smoke screen but I don't really want to boost to find out given the circumstances.

If the oil seal on the hot side were to fail, would it be possible that oil is seeping through the cracks in the housing out to the CHRA?

 

the turbo is leaking through the rear seal and likely caused by the 270 bearing being just about wiped flat one the bearing area and the movement back and forth allows the rear to leak

if handy you may be able to repair this with as little as a garret t3/t04 rebuild kit ( with carbon front seal )
or as little as a new 270 bearing and a rear piston ring seal ( less than $30 )

 

I had this problem when I upgraded to a BNR stage 4 turbo. The Issue was that the oil pressure going into the turbo was too high because BNR removes the internal oil pressure regulator and you need to put your own "restrictor pill" into the oil feed line. doing this cleared the whole issue up for me and was $5.

If your turbo is stock then I'm inclined to agree with bumpstart. Just make sure you check for an oil leak that drips onto the turbo before you go rebuilding the thing!

 

Haha I feel like I always leave out important information.

It is a stock Kouki S5 turbo. I couldn't even port the wastegate because of the cracks in the housing but I grinded out the backplate to let the flapper open some more.

Thank you bumpstart!

I'll get to searching on how to do that!

It'd sure be lucky if it ended up being a cheap fix.

 

How to rebuild your turbo: https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-specific-1986-1992-17/how-rebuild-stock-ht-18-turbo-build-hybrid-959045/

 

I've been meaning to reply for a couple days but kept forgetting.

You are the man!

Thanks, haha

 

when i had my turboll, i myself had smoke coming from the engine/manifold area. come to find out it was a shot down pipe gasket. it was replaced and everything was fine. good luck.

 

Just pulled the turbo off my 91 Tii for somewhat of the same reason. We got to removing the oil feed line and the bolts where very lose and the gasket was in pieces. The oil was running down onto the heat shield below the turbo causing the smoke and covering the turbo in oil for the most part. So I decided now was the time to upgrade the turbo lol

Good luck!