I'll make it short and simple.

For the past 2 weeks my car has been blowing bluish smoke on start-up. I've been checking the oil and, oddly enough, it hasn't seemed to be burning any oil.

During the same time, car has been blowing bluish smoke on decel (could be at any rpm, any gear, not necessarily in boost). I figured my turbos were going out, although they are low mileage 99 specs.

I was on my way home from x-mas shopping a few days ago when I see oil misting through my vented hood - yes - oil. I figured maybe by some freak occurrence my filler cap came off. At the same time, I noticed both my aftermarket and stock Oil Pressure gauge were reading zero. I pulled over immediately to the shoulder, popped the hood, and there was oil splatter everywhere. I can't tell where it's coming from, but seemingly the filler neck nipple that I had vented. It's almost as though something pressurized the oil system and it exploded out through there. I checked the oil, and there was enough level on the dipstick to try and start it. I tried to start the car, and after some trouble she started. Oil pressure was between 0-10 psi to 4k rpm (no load). I shut the car off, and coolant IMMEDIATELY starts boiling out of the coolant tank. The car had never overheated - EVER.

My observations/questions:
- Could something pressurize both the oil/coolant, causing the oil to splatter presumably out of the oil filler nipple, and causing the coolant to be shot out of the overflow tank?
- Would the blue smoke at start up/decel (regardless of RPM or boost) be indicative of something that would cause these symptoms? Any help appreciated.




Relevant Mods:
- Streetported engine with less than 4k miles.
- PFC tuned to 13 psi on sequential 99spec turbos
- all intake components upgraded (M2 CAI/custom SMIC/greddy elbow)
- all cooling components upgraded (ast/radiator/new hoses/caps/thermoswitch)
- 3" turbo back open exhaust
- AEM water injection system (car was seeing mid 20's in AIT's at WOT with Fast reacting sensor)
- HKS twinpower

 

no, you somehow are losing oil from the pressure lines to and from your oil cooler or up at/near the oil filter pedestal. you won't ever get that much oil spraying out of any crankcase vent that it will spray all over the engine bay and result in loss of oil pressure, only a ruptured line or loose oil filter pedestal will cause that.

in short, no oil flowing through the engine or just enough to keep the bearings semi lubricated will cause the rotors to lose their internal cooling because the oil cools the rotor face, no oil on the inside of the rotors= cooking the motor from the inside out which will drastically increase water temps also as a result after the heat is finally transferred to the cooling system.

one other possibility is a cracked iron due to an overboost(18+psi)/lean air fuel mix/advanced timing condition which can only happen if you were driving the car at its max right before you noticed the oil spraying out.

find where the oil leak is coming from and hopefully the damage is minimal.

 

Thanks, Ben. You seem to be right on the money. The problem is, I didn't notice any problems with the car until oil was misting on to my windshield, at which point i noticed the 0-10 psi oil pressure. The car felt fine and drove normally otherwise. It wasn't until I shut it off that I heard/noticed the coolant boiling out of the overflow. I'll check around for a ruptured oil line. The weird thing is, the oil is all over the top of my engine.... I'll check around the turbo feed line/oil pedastil, but I didn't see any obvious things when I had the hood up ....

 

Any chance of pictures of your oil lines/filter areas? Also are you using the OEM banjo bolt fitting for the turbo feed at the front housing? If so check it carefully. Banjo bolts can stretch/crack or simply come loose.

EDIT: I had a cracked rear iron myself, and whil it oozed oil, it was not a fine mist, more like a steady pumping, thats why I would suggest looking at the smaller lines etc. first.

 

I'll get some pictures soon, I've just been busy with school (finals the next few weeks). I am using the oem banjo bolt on the front housing/turbo feed. I'll peak around and see what's up there. I also forgot to mention, there is oil mist all over my rear bumper. Unless the mist from the engine somehow made it's way there, which might be possible since i was on the freeway (and I have no idea how aerodynamics works), then it was coming out of my exhaust...but this doesn't make sense because it should have been burnt. I don't know..

 

it can range from gushing to spraying under high pressure, from past experience with ruptured FC oil lines and cracked irons it can take a bit of cleaning and inspecting to find where the root of the problem is. the cracked irons usually are pretty noticable though with a flashlight under the filter pedestal and around the front iron dowel pin areas.. some of mine were missing chunks and you could see the dowel pin in the motor exposed! but if you weren't boosting hard before it happened then i wouldn't worry about that as a cause, check the oil lines up high and work your way down.

on the upside, it only takes as low as 10 psi of oil pressure to keep the bearings lubricated.

 

Sounds like bad news either way .... I'm having the car towed to a rotary shop next week. Guess we'll see what the rotary gods have in store for me.

 

hopefully it's nothing major, i have had many irons crack and oil lines break down in the FC and never had it toast the motor, knock on wood. catching it quickly is the key. this motor has seen 0 oil pressure on about 3-4 occasions and has had about 3 irons bandaided onto it yet still going after 70k miles.

 

Sounds like that motor has some brute strength lol. Ben, any ideas on the bluish smoke at decel/start-up? This only started a couple weeks ago. The PCV was eliminated and the nipple vented, so that should rule out the pcv system.

 

I removed my oil cap and found this white stuff. Ideas?

 

^ is it yellow/whiteish or just white ? couldn't tell from the photos

 

seems more white-ish..the yellow tint seems to be from the oil

 

that stuff in the filler cap is normal...its just from condensation...etc

 

when i blew the head gasket on my miata my oil was yellow/white-ish colored from it mixing.

 

bluish smoke on startup and decel is an indicator that the rotor oil seals are leaking some.

a little yellow cream under the filler cap is normal for cold weather running.

 

For those unfortunate souls that ever encounter a similar problem, here's an update: Engine had a cracked front iron. Entire engine setup is now being parted out as I can't afford to be dumping money into this car indefinitely. If I keep the car, she'll eventually receive an LS2 transplant. I know, flame away, but before you do please understand that I did try - 3 engines later ( 6 years of ownership), I've come to the conclusion that the rotary just isn't for me.

 

In all my years of being around rotaries (and FDs), I've never heard of such a thing. What went wrong to lead to this problem? Severe detonation? I do know some of the older engines have had issues, but the REW is a stout block.

 

It could have been severe detonation, but I was only running 12-13 lbs of boost. Not to mention, the car was tuned fairly conservatively at 10.7-10.8 AFRs under wot. Also, I was injecting 315cc's of water from a progressive AEM system from 5psi on up, so that should have been an extra defense against detonation. I really have no idea. Maybe it was just the iron's time to go.

 

Ah jeez your in luck. I'm going 20B & will soon be selling my complete setup if you decide to stay rotary. heres a link to the build: http://www.banzai-racing.com/schauss_rebuild.htm
car currently has 5,817 miles since rebuild. Hope everything works out for you.

Idel

 

Most of us who've been around long enough can feel your pain so I doubt you'll see any flames and LSX FDs certainly have more positives on paper so in my opinion anyone shooting flames should consider their argument further before attaching the LSX converters.

I'm betting you received a bad iron with the build. Economically it's smarter to just part the whole car, sell it as a roller and then find a nice LSX car.

Good luck with the part out

 

that sucks.

could have been something internal that caused it, the rough idle was definitely something that bothered me since i couldn't tune it out. possibly a gouge in an iron or rotor housing or chipped apex seal that caused pre-ignition on the upcoming rotor face. just guessing though.

 

sorry to hear that man, I might take the twin power and a fuel pump depending on which one you have off your hands

 

Sorry to hear, and wish you the best.

A couple questions, who built the car for you and who tuned it if you dont mind me asking.

Also, where you autocrossing or racing your car any time prior to the led up to your engine going and how many miles had you put on your new/rebuilt engine?

 

I'd rather not mention the builder or tuner to save the assumption that I'm throwing anyone under the bus for the damage... I'd imagine the iron was a ticking time-bomb to have sustained this type of damage at ~13 psi. The MBC I was using was rock-solid, even in cold weather, so I'm fairly certain there were no boost spikes.

I had auto-crossed the car twice on this engine, both times after break-in and after being tuned -- the last time probably being 3 weeks before the incident.

 

do compression test.