i'm trying to figure out whether it's my engine smoking, or if it's my turbos.

here's the history:
i bought this car from a forum member/shop in september with a fresh rebuild and have done a lot of work to it, fixing a lot of small things that i wasn't aware were issues when i purchased the car...
things i have already fixed on the car: engine harness/resistors, leaking oil lines (both), 6 bad pillowball bushings, bad/leaking oil injectors and lines, nails in 3 of the 4 tires, blown stock shocks, incorrect/backward battery with no tie down, bad CPU#2, bad stock headunit, bad battery ground, and several other things i can't remember at the moment.

background on the EMS/boost:
i bought the car with a PFC and ended up going back to a good ol' pettit ECU which i wasn't quire happy with, so i'm now running a haltech PS1000 with a nice ludwig harness, running very well on a lightly tuned base map. i'm not able to boost because the clutch slips (it started slipping as soon as it got cold outside when i was the pettit ECU) so i've just been driving around in vacuum for about a month now.

background on the smoke:
the issue is that about 2 weeks ago when the weather outside was in the 60s i had a LOT of oil smoke a few seconds after starting the engine cold, consistently, for a few days. it would also smoke pretty badly on hot start, then go away after the engine ran for about 30 seconds. it would also smoke lightly after i went for a drive and came back home and let it idle for a few minutes (stinking badly like oil smoke)
so i drove the car for the week and the smoke just kinda "went away" for the week when it was colder outside, and it didnt smoke on cold start, and also didn't smoke on hot start.

background on the engine:
the engine was rebuilt by the shop i bought the car from, with RA classic apex seals, new soft seal kit, good condition used housings, stock corner seals, (not sure if new or used side seals), etc. i havent compression tested it, but it has always started quickly and gotten good gas mileage, so i figured it is good.
it has been running fine for about 4 months (until the smoke started a couple weeks ago).


so i thought "ok, it's the unknown stock twins the came with this engine. the engine HAS to be good, as it's recently rebuilt."

so i purchased a used turbo kit (former SR motorsports kit [xs cast manifold, kkk turbo, hks wastegate] that a guy was selling in the Race Parts Only section) that will arrive in the mail tuesday, HOPING the source of this smoke is the stock turbos, which have unknown mileage.

in preparation for installing the single turbo i decided to go ahead and pull the twins off tonight. here are the pictures:




front rotor


rear rotor










front turbo is definitely in bad shape and has front:back play and top:bottom play


rear turbo is in very good shape --well, much better than the front turbo, anyway.




while trying to figure out if the source of the smoke is the ENGINE or TURBOS i find most interesting what i have circled in red (front rotor exhaust port and front turbo).
also, when running my finger around in the inside of the exhaust ports, there is an obvious oil residue (although still not much oil at all) in the front rotor compared to the rear rotor (rear housing feels almost DRY, compared to a very light film inside the front housing)


so is it the engine or the turbos causing the smoke? after pulling these turbos, seeing/feeling the difference in the front and rear exhaust ports, and seeing the discoloration of the front turbo inlet (much darker/carbon-coated) i'm almost convinced it's the front rotor leaking some oil out of the control ring, but only when the engine is hot... anyone else have any input on this?

 

Take a picture of the exhaust side of the turbos. That will tell us a lot. Im willing to bet its your turbos.. My car smoked off boost and on startup when my twins leaked a bit of oil. The exhaust side of the turbos were pretty black also, but only on the primary turbo side. Pretty sure my exhaust ports looked identical to yours also, i just had my manifold off but my memory isnt 100%

You should consider buying the banzai 44mm wastegate adapter for the xs/hks manifold. Running a tial 44mm will make the setup creep free and quite bulletproof. I have a feeling thats what ur going for

 

Rear runner looks a little lean. Easiest thing now is to rule out that it may be the motor. Loop the turbo coolant lines and run the oil feed back into the oil neck. Run the car open rotor housing and see if the oil smoke goes away. Wear ear plugs and have a fire extinguisher ready. Nothing should happen but its better to be safe. I actually have a modified na header that I bolt up at the shop so I can drive the car around. If you want to cover shipping you can borrow it.

 

This "shop" sounds like they took you for a ride. There is a lot of old oil and crud everywhere

 

Lots of old oil and crud everywhere?

sounds like a 20 year old FD to me.


The only thing that would reflect bad on the shop is if they used oil control rings that probably should have been replaced.

I guess oil in the charge pipes would mean oil seals on the compressor side.

I kinda 2nd the NA header idea.... Simple enough, wont take much time...

maybe even see if anyone local has a header flange you can stick that cheezy steel flex tubing from the auto parts store on just to see.

 

double post.

 

I've got a similar thing going on, I also assume that its a turbo thing. New (to me) turbos are on the way so hopefully that will rectify the problem.

 

I've got the same thing going on. Doesn't smoke when the weather is cooler and it won't smoke when the car is idling slightly higher than normal due to higher electronic load. But if after driving I let the car idle with no electronics I get a some smoke.

 

update: i got a new single turbo setup, so we'll see what happens.
should be running this weekend.

 

What single setup did you decide to go with?

 

chinese manifold/wastegate and a borg warner S360 .91 turbo.

 

So it ended up being the engine.

Replaced the turbos with a single and it smokes on hot start.

Not ideal.