danec020

Well first off I would like to thank anyone who took a look at this post. It has been a very long time since I actually posted something and this may be one of the first times posting in the 3rd gen forum. I have experience mainly with FCs but I have owned a 3rd gen before this one and quite a few FBs .

Anyhow, I bought this car from an older gentleman and it ran great, probably the best I've seen when looking at FDs. It has the normal things like the 5th gear syncro grind when speed shifting but other than that it started cold perfectly, idled solid and road like a dream. I didn't see any smoke when test driving the car and talking to the guy about it's history.

Well I had to take the car an hour and a half drive home and when done I let it cool down before shutting her off. I left the hood up as well but the more and more I drove it, I noticed a little smoke coming from the turbo side of the engine bay when idling. I figured it was the turbos since they aren't rebuilt but the car doesn't sound odd or run poorly. Well now its gotten to the point where oil is really starting to burn badly from that area of the engine bay, but there isn't any smoke coming out of the tail-pipe which makes me a little confused.

I am going to get under her this week and see what I can find, but is there something common to look for? If it was the turbo was bad, I would expect to see smoke out of the tail-pipe. I am thinking maybe one of the oil lines to the turbo could be loose?

Anyhow thanks for any feedback, it is more for piece of mind while I sit here worrying about things . Maybe the car has been driven for a total of 200 miles since I bought it? I don't drive it too often, maybe once every 2 months or so.

-Dane

MoePwr

iTrader: (2)

Hey Dane. I just had the same exact problem. My turbos seemed fine and no smoke coming from the tailpipe but I had smoke coming from the turbo area. Ill get back to you ASAP on this because my buddy fixed the problem for me. I think it was the oil lines. It sounds like your turbos are fine so I'm willing to bet you are having the same exact problem. I'll get back to you tonight and let you know what my buddy did to fix it. Good luck

-Jon

danec020

Thanks so much for the help! I am going to crawl under there today and remove the heat shields and that pre-cat. I need to replace it with a wrapped down-pipe anyhow to hopefully prevent any further/future damage to the engine/turbos . Hopefully the problem is something simple and easy to fix!

-Dane

BeachCat

iTrader: (1)

Did anyone figure out this problem yet? cause im experiencing the same problem with my rx7 and im confused to what it might be.

danec020

Unfortunately I haven't found the issue yet but I finally just had some time to work on it. I removed all the heat shields today so I could get a better look at the turbos and the actuators. The turbos actually looked surprisingly clean and I couldn't see any signs of leaks.

The actuators on the turbo looked like it had some corrosion/flaking going on around the area it meets the turbo manifold but nothing I wouldn't expect with the old turbos. So I decided to remove all the intake piping to see what was going on there...

After removing the intake and checking the piping/hoses for any oil residue, I was surprised to find nothing... Completely dry and no oil inside anywhere in the intakes.... The turbos almost have 100k on them and I would have expected them before anything else!

Jon(MoePwr) had mentioned it could be an issue with the check valve coming from the UIM to the oil filler neck? When this goes bad it can pull oil into the engine, so I guess this is what I should check next. (I probably should have checked it first but I wouldn’t have slept easy without checking the turbos since I plan on selling the car.)

Anyone have other suggestions; please let me know as I will be working on her all week/weekend. I got to get it done so she can go to a new home.

Thanks for any/all the help guys,
Dane

danec020

Well... I think the issue was me being too paranoid. After putting her back together today I decided that I would give her another run today. I started thinking about the symptoms and realized that it could have been oil from the Oil Injectors being burnt off since the car had sat for 3 months without being ran. When I started it for the first time in months and seen the smoke coming from the turbo area, I parked it to inspect it further to prevent any possible damage.

So when I took it out today, I took it out for a 40 minute ride around town to check it out. For about the first 10 minutes it would smoke a little while at lights, but nothing like it did before. Over time it became less and less, not it doesn't smoke at all.

Damn my paranoid self but at least I checked it out thoroughly and won't feel worried when she goes to her new home. Thanks for all the help and sorry for the wasted time, now to post her up with the videos of her running for proof.

-Dane