After noticing the old scooby was smoking on high revs with high boost acceleration, I start the car and there is a big puff of white smoke, I have since found this is due to the oil in the intertercooler pipework, but the engine sounds fine.

now it hasnt cured the problem, and its got worse.. I have oil all over the inside of my front mount, all over the engine bay especially around the dump valve. I purchased an oil catch tank and fitted as required.... in the vain attempt to see if the engine is breathin oil, and it doesnt appear to be

In addition my engine check light is flashing on high rpm high boost so I assume my apexi is warning of misfire as a result of oil ??

I took the intercooler pipework apart today and literally tipped oil out of it, with a small puddle of oil in the throttle butterfly

now the question of where and how its getting there ?????? (bear in mind oil catch tank has disconnected the oil breather return to the inlet pipe and this is blanked)


1. turbo knackered and spewing oil into intake ?

2. Evac canister, seems to be a breathing device, can this throw oil into the intake ? safe to remove without remap ?

3. worse case- piston rings.... ?

4. Oil change required ( I have read about this curing the issue) and it is due...

I am curious of your experiences before I rip the engine out and rebuild it ... so any ideas ??

I am running a 1998 uk turbo with TD05 FE turbo, apexi ecu, avcr,550cc injectors, 250lph fuel pump and mapped to 1.6 bar with full decat

 

turn engine on and take you dip stick out, if smoking (not condensation) and breathing heavy then sounds like your rings.....

 

will try tomorrow, although have seen no evidence of dipstick trying to jump out as it securly in its tube.....

 

White smoke is condensate not oil, that produces blue smoke....oil will cause det (it reduces the effective octane rating of your fuel) before a misfire, so its probably the det that is causing the apexi to flash the CEL!

Oil can only get into the intake via the breather (knackered rings would make it worse), but if both your full load breather is through a catch tank it can't be that, leaving turbo seals....that may not mean failed seals as they are a dynamic seal they rely on other things like the oil return being good etc etc.

Simon

 

Oil can cetainly produce dense white smoke if it's not burnt hot enough. Which is often the case if the oil is leaking into the exhaust and not going throught the engine and being fully combusted.

As above, restricive breather systems can often pressurise the crank case so much that it pushes oil out the turbo oil seals (the turbo oil system drains into the crankcase).

Once fixed, we've found things to return to normal in time, but there is lots of oil trapped in the intercooler, so it takes a good drive to flush it out, even if you clean out the intercooler itself.

Or it could be damaged pistons, light damage leads to blue smoke, bad damage leads to white smoke as there is so much oil, it goes through the engine unburnt.

 

When you say restrictive breather systems, are we talking the 2 black plastic take-offs on each rocker cover and the black canister to the left of the radiator (evac?) I have removed all the pipes and cleaned them out ( nothing major inside) other than that I cannot see anything else to clean / remove gunk from. but I cannot get into the evac neither have I taken the caps off to see if there is anything in there..

I stripped the heads off the engine 2 years ago and replaced valve stem oil seals with 4 valves as well as gaskets etc, there was no sign of oil sludge in the engine back then either. (I have the pics...)


Ordered some oil today as I noticed the existing oil is very black and thin like water, cannot get a reading on the dipstick because it smothers the whole stick and drips off when i pull it out....

I went for a bit of a tear about the other night with a mate Lee (Silver STI Zens just converted to 2.5) and he noticed the excessive smoke coming from the exhaust under hard acceleration ( he couldnt see..) but my Apexis knockmeter also peaked at 75 when the engine CEL light flickered.. is that any more of a clue ?

 

well its early days yet, and thanks to a quick delivery from Opie oils, I've changed the oil and the problem appears to have gone.

No puff of white smoke on startup and doesn't appear to be spew out on hard boost will continue to monitor. Hurray !!! Although my cel light is still flickering, at times its not so bad I think another post is needed

 

Knock count of 75 is too high. Usually a knock of less than 15-20 is normal, unless you bounce it off the rev limiter.

Andy

 

i think I have another issue, but need to look into fault finding on the apexi ecu, i have a sensor check screen, but am not too sure what are the ideal readings for a my98 UK turbo... any takers ?

I noticed last night that my 550 cc injectors seem to hit 100% as the cel light flickers for some strange reason. They should be within spec, yet i cannot duplicate the problem easily unless car is cold (flashing CEL easy to replicate) and then i really dont want to thrash it ..