Hi,

my last post was about oil clogging up my PCV valve. I since deleted it by capping off the nipple on the UIM and venting the top nipple to atmosphere on my filler neck while leaving the bottom nipple still connected to the line that goes into the primary turbos elbow.

I then tried to start my car and I was getting a lot of smoke from my turbo area. I didn’t have this issue before. Well I had a very small leak from my banjo bolt on one of my OMP lines that connect to the OMP but it never caused it to smoke like this.

attached is a picture of where the smoke comes from.

that picture is taken of the front turbo. The area I’ve circled is where I saw a lot of wetness and I’m not sure what down there could leak and cause wetness all around? The oil return line maybe? What’s down there besides the oil control line and the OMP? The OMP is up a little further ahead too.

Also is my PCV valve delete setup ok? I heard some people put a vented catch can between the metal line and the line that goes to the primary turbo elbow and then they cap off the top nipple on the oil filler neck.

what I did was leave the top nipple on the oil filler neck vented to atmosphere and left the bottom nipple in the OEM configuration where it just connects to the primary turbo elbow

 

First off it looks like the coolant hose down there is on its last leg. Also it has worm clamps which SUCKS on coolant hoses, those eat into the hose.

Are you sure it's oil smoke and not coolant?

Regardless I would get new turbo coolant hoses and new OEM spring clamps. Both should be pretty inexpensive.

I'd also pull the primary turbo inlet and look for oil and well as the Y-pipe.

BTW when you do an oil change, ALWAYS use a funnel. If you free pour it's VERY easy for oil to slosh into the PCV hose and end up in the turbos. been there, done that.

Dale

 

haha you’re right, that coolant hose isn’t looking pretty. I’ve done extensive maintenance on everything but the turbos side of my car.

im sure it’s not coolant because when it’s burning it smells like oil and definitely isn’t sweet at all

i did pull the primary turbo inlet before and it was oil free. Compressor blade spun freely too without play and blades were undamaged.

I guess I can check the y pipe.

I don’t drive the car much and I did an oil change a while ago to know for a fact that’s not the reason why my pcv gets clogged. I read online that the 95+ RX7s simply have the UIM side capped off and the top nipple capped off on the oil filler neck. I’m going to do that today and see

 

i have seen the oil feed banjo start to leak on top of the turbos, not many things in that spot that can leak oil besides the turbo feed and drains as well as the OMP lines.

 

I don’t think that oil feed line is leaking. Would’ve been pretty obvious if it was. Also that’s what I thought. I thought there was only that one oil feed line that splits to both the banjo bolts on top of the turbos, and then the 2 drain lines, and then the OMP lines. It’s gotta be my OMP lines then squirting oil at high pressure then and causing a mess everywhere around them locally. But that’s weird because they squirt at idle?

 

There are lots of joints in the oil feed lines. Also check the the nuts on such joints are tight and the gaskets are in good shape. You could also have the front cover seal leaking.

Is there a chance you have overfilled the oil (above half way on the oil dipstick?).

You could have oil migrating up and down that vent tube to the front elbow.

The banjo bolt on the oil feed line that comes off the top left (facing forward) of the block, may be leaking and oil dripping down the length of the oil pipe as it angles over to the turbos.

 

 

my oil is slightly under full. I thought that was normal no?

 

update:

so the smoke isn’t actually coming from the front. It’s actually coming from the rear somewhere which is even more confusing now because the only things that exist in the rear is the oil return line and the oil feed line that goes to the rear turbo right? I read on a different thread that a y pipe o ring can go bad and cause oil to drip onto the exhaust. Perhaps that could be it? Does anyone have the part number for that o ring or schematic? I’m having a hard time figuring out where it could be

 

Ok really weird guys,

so since I posted those last pics of the smoke, I turned my car on again and let it idle for a long time and this time, there was no smoke at all from the engine bay.


so either oil pools up overnight (I will start it again tomorrow to confirm)

or I had temporary oil being injected from when I was messing around with capping off the pcv valve nipple that was just burnt off.

if it smokes again tomorrow I will begin disassembling that whole side of the engine bay. I put some UV dye in now which will hopefully make my life easier tomorrow if I need to take it all apart

 

Back in the day when I did an oil change with no funnel (just free pour) the oil sloshed into the PCV system, pooled in the Y-pipe, and dripped out there. Quite possible you had something similar.

You are probably good. Long term if you need that O-ring -

https://www.atkinsrotary.com/93-95-R...4-20-5005.html

Dale

 

I haven’t poured oil into my fill neck in months now. I also capped off the PCV nipple and the nipple that goes to the UIM from the oil fill neck. Before I had left the top oil fill neck nipple vent to atmosphere and the UIM nipple capped so maybe that caused some oil to go into the second nipple and to the turbos and resulted in the smoke since I did these mods all since the first post of this thread. Guess we’ll see tomorrow if she still smokes.

thank you for the o ring link I’ll look into that

 

Oil should not be filled more than half way up the cross-hatching. of the drip stick.

Your rear main seal could be leaking and oil spraying around the inside of the bell housing.

There is no bell housing seal so oil in there will seep out.

You can go under the car and remove the inspection plate and peer in at the main seal and see if there is oil leaking.

If you have remnant* oil from your ecv valve delete actions, that is dripping down to the front intake elbow, the oil could pool in your front turbo and get blown into the y-pipe. It can migrate across the y-pipe to your rear turbo. Oil in your cross-over pipe will indicate oil is getting into the system ahead of the inter-cooler.

If it was just a small amount of oil, it may have burned itself off.

(* in the original set up one of the venting pipes that runs off the oil filler neck 'T" nipples connects to a nipple on the intake elbow immediately in front of the front turbo. If you had an oil overflill event and oil was into those pipes, when you disconnected such pipe, some oil may have remained in the pipes and migrated to your front turbo. If it was a small amount, it would burn off in short order.)

 

When I got my car, the vent nipples on the oil filler neck were open to the air. I capped them and the engine stalled fairly quickly. I assume from the build up of fumes in the oil pan.

So the filler neck needs to vent. Many people install a catchcan for his purpose.

 

I honestly don’t know where the leak is coming from. It started smoking yesterday again and I took it out for a short drive down a hill and it got pretty bad smoke while driving but when I came back and parked it, it started smoking less.

I tried to look where the smoke is coming from but can’t make it out so I’m probably going to start dismantling it today

 

Yeah I think you need to get in there, pull the rear intake and Y-pipe off, and have a good look around.

Dale

 

Plan to replace any gaskets while you are in there. Also don't break any studs or bolts.

 

I once used UV dye to help locate an oil leak. Consider it. Maybe hose the engine down first to get rid of any remnant coolant and oil that might be hanging around.

 

one step ahead of ya. Already got that in and ran the car but didn’t hose it down. When I get into removing and redoing I do end up spending a lot of money and just replacing everything so even if I don’t find the leak it’ll get fixed

 

I think I found the leak guys—rear oil return line on the turbo.

Going to attach two images and in one of them, you can tell the gasket looks kind of deformed. Before I became a mechanic I had someone work on the turbos and install this newer set and I guess he didn’t make sure the gasket sat well. That’s what I get for not working on it myself.

so my question now is, how the hell do I take off this rear oil return line?? I can’t slip a socket or a regular wrench to get 2 bolts on the return line. The other 2 I can. Just wondering if anyone has a heads up on how to remove this return line with the turbos still in the car because I’ll go crazy if I have to pull the turbos out just to change this and put new gaskets on

 

We put the turbo back in but forgot to tighten those bolts/nuts. I was able to get at them from the underside, 1/16 turn at a time*.

That was 8 years ago. They seem to have held.

Good luck!

(* after that I got a set of ratcheting heads crescent wrenches)

 

its a bitch and a half to install that gasket and reach those bolts. i deformed 2 gaskets trying. Got it on the 3rd try.

 

Make sure the leak is not coming from above that. There is the oil feed on the top that could not have been tightened properly as well but you have to pull off the charge pipes to get to it. I had the oil return leaking on my car. I used some hylomar with the new gasket to help seal it. Its really not bad if you have the right extensions and universal sockets. I have a nice set of 1/4" universal sockets that made it a breeze. One thing to note, I was not getting any smoke from this leak, only spots on the floor so this may not be your culprit unless the leak is from above and running down to the Turbo Manifold.

https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread...on-oem-1160421

 

The Hylomar also helps keep the gasket in place which is nice.

 

good idea. I reckon a dab of black rtv will do similar.