Oil leak after track event - a little help diagnosing please
 

Hi all-

I took the car out this weekend for a HPDE and ran into some oil leak problems. Flag workers reported some white smoke from my exhaust after a high RPM pull on straights (I think this may be normal), but what is definitely abnormal is the large amount of white smoke and oil on the engine after a session.

I've attached pics to show where the oil was pooling. It seemed to be coming from somewhere under the UIM or maybe under the IC piping in pic 3. A small drop of oil would appear on the top of the IC piping joint after each session.

If the car isn't running, oil does not leak. The leak also seemed to get worse with each run (progressively more smoke).

I'd cooldown until I was at 90C or 95C before shutting off, and after I'd kill it white smoke would come from around the rear of the engine bay. It looked to be smoke from oil that had dripped or spilled onto the hot engine, but I could be wrong I'm sure.

I felt around under the filler neck thinking maybe the plastic cracked but it was dry. I lost very little oil during each session, but on the 3 hour drive home I lost probably 3/4 quart, which was not happening before the event.

The main cat would also smoke like hell sometimes, but that may be unrelated. I probably need a high flow for these types of things.

Does anyone have any obvious places I should check or common points of failure I should look at before I just start taking things apart? This wouldn't be coming from the turbos would it?

I'm mostly stock in the engine bay - only a downpipe, cat back, fluidyne radiator, and aluminum AST. I boost at 11-7-11 pretty consistently (or 12 on cool days).

A view of where the oil is pooling
Another angle
The IC Piping leak

Thanks in advance.

Disconnect one of your IC pipes and look inside. If you see a significant amount of oil, it could be your turbos... :(

This might sound odd, but it happened to me. The filler neck has an O ring and is grooved to fit and seal right. I found a crack in mine and was getting oil there too. I but Honda bound on it and have had no problems.. Just a thought. Good luck.

get a catch can

pooling under the UIM? check your OMP lines?

This happened to me as well. If you missed it from previous discussions, at the track under hard cornering, oil will creep up into the filler neck. From there it can leak out if your o-ring there is bad and cause pooling/smoking from under the hood during/after a hard session.

It also gets sucked through the breather system through the turbo, into the I/C piping, etc. I've drained quite a bit of oil out of my Intercooler after a track event because of this. If you're running a BOV vented to the atmosphere, oil will also spray out of that all over your engine bay at the track if you suffer from the above. If you search you will find people have developed a few solutions to this problem by putting baffles or turkey basters in their fill necks or installing new fittings that run deeper into the fill neck so the creeping oil can't easily get sucked out. Or ya, get a catch can.

Another option is the Respeed Oil Filler Neck. It has a baffle built in to help reduce the oil problem on track driven cars. I think your problem is most likely the seal around the oil filler neck (o-ring), but if you are going to remove it to check it, you can add the Respeed product at the same time.

I'm sure the o-ring probably contributed, but that wouldn't explain the oil lost on the way home, would it? I took it pretty easy driving home. Any other likely places I should look that would burn oil or leak oil under normal driving as a result of being on track?

Your throttle body o-ring may not be sealing either from mis-alignment, lack of torque on the bolts, or a flatten o-ring (or even lack of o-ring). Then, the blow-by creeps out of that elbow/throttle body area and leaks on your engine and such. Do you hear a whistling when you idle?

Of course, that might be only one of your possibly many areas.

anyone thinking of getting a baffled oil pan, or a sump?...seems like the oil problems are because they're not in the right place.....just a thought...not to offend anyone.

Could be the o-ring on the filler, could also be a bit blowing out the dipstick tube. There's also a o-ring where the elbow meets the TB, and if you're getting oil in the intake track (very likely without a catch can), you can get some seapage there too.

All three are fairly common on tracked FD's.

You can see some history on the subject:
https://www.rx7club.com/race-car-tech-103/suggestions-fixing-oil-catch-can-problem-226214/

Looks like it was the oil filler neck o-ring (there wasn't one, just some old sealant), plus the filler neck was a little loose. I'm still watching for any other dripping but so far so good. Thanks for the help.