Hello, I have a 87 turbo and it's smoking like a fog machine when I first start the car. While at idle, the car will smoke a bunch, but when driving there is no sign of smoke. When I come to a stop when the car is fully warmed up, it doesn't smoke as bad and is alot less than when the engine is cold.

My dad and I rebuilt the motor about 3,000 miles from now. I removed the emissions vacume routing and replaced the cats with a downpipe presilencer when I was reinstalling the motor. The smoke is white, doesn't dissapate fast and just lingers around, and smells nasty. It's definetaly not the coolant seals since the coolant level has been constant and the smoke smells more like oil.

My compression numbers are pretty good and I made sure the PCV system was routed correctly. I changed spark plugs and they were kind of dark. Pictures of them are below. I tried reving up to 4000 rpms for 20 seconds and no smoke came out. So I checked the front of the turbo and there was a small pool of oil. But when I checked the intercooler piping there wasn't any oil pooled up. So I'm not sure wether it really was my turbo or oil seals and would like to know if anyone has any suggestions?

 

That isn't bad for a spark plug..
Did you ever think it might be a rotor oil seal?
And do you mean there was oil coming OUT of the turbo? I don't think that would be related.. but I'd get the turbo oil lines connected securely so they don't leak..
And lastly.. are you sure it's not just condensation from the warm exhaust pipe with humid air in it cooling off? That tends to happen.. especially if oyu have a free flowing exhaust

 

I did consider the rotor oil seals and I meant the small pool of oil at the front of the turbo intake. Yeah I got the oil lines connected securely after I saw the oil around it. I'm really sure it's not just condensation because the smoke is thick, just hangs around, and smells nasty. Thanks.

 

sounds like the turbo is going bad, bad engine oil seals will ussually cause high rpm smokeing, or when you let off the gas,

bad turbo oil seals will ussually cause smoking at idle, and a pool of oil in the turbo sounds like thats hte culpret

 

PUll the turbo inlet duct off and look for oil in the inlet duct. Not good. See if it's pooling in the intercooler also.