Hello guys,

I have been building a car for trackdays and fun on the road, powered it with Megasquirt.

I needed a CPS in the bottomend so took a bottom end that had this already drilled but without turbo oil retour. Now i have the engine running and it smokes a lot (white) and the turbo is pushing out black oil looking stuff.

See this video

I am going to replace the turbo as i took it of a shelf without having any idea of its condition. I am thinking of a cracked housing or broken seals.

Anybody seen this before? Am i right thinking this will be a turbo issue or might it come from the engine (its new build)

 

is this engine fitted with correct pistons ??
you drilled a hole in the sump for the oil to return ??

 

Yes it has the right pistons and i have a oil return in the sump. Its above oil level. Return flows well as i took it of and started the engine for 15 sec. Let the return leak into a bucket. So return isn't blocked

 

it looks and sounds turbo related as its a new build with an old turbo
regular oil changes is the turbo friendly way forward

 

Tomorrow i will get another turbo and bolt it on! Hope everything will be solved! I also can't take the elbow off everything is rusted away to take good care of it

 

elbow should come off when the bolts snap

 

yeah but even the bolts are just round. everything is rotten. I am not gonna try to repair this, just replace with something else and see again haha

 

hacksaw nuts off sounds painfull not recommending it !!!

 

So i fitted a new turbo in the meanwhile and the engine still does the same. Today i am gonna check if i can find the problem. I really think it is burning coolant. The smoke comming out of it is quite a lot.

As i am running on megasquirt i am wondering if i might have set something wrong, but overfuelling won't look this white i guess.

Gonna go to the car today to try to figure out what is wrong. Anybody suggestions?

 

looks and sounds like a valve seat area has a crack by the water jacket
i had the same about 15+years ago
have you driven it?

 

No i haven't driven it as the car has no MOT and its running on megasquirt so that need to be calibrated. In this state starting to calibrate it is useless

i did a compression test and on all cylinders it has around 150 psi / 10 bars

what i was thinking was taking the water off the turbo, but i am pretty sure that is not gonna solve the issue as the black liquide is coming out of the exhaust to turbo flange.

Anybody an idea what to do before taking the head off?

 

That is a lot of coolant being turned to steam! Water is either finding it's way into the cylinders or the turbo is letting it into the exhaust... But, as you have tried two turbo's and the problem is present on both I would say it's getting into the cylinders.

 

So you also suggest to take off the cylinder head Karlos isn't it?

@nigelB could you see the cracks when you took off the rockercover or only when you took the head off?

 

Either that or water is coming in the inlet manifold maybe where the coolant sensor is? Check that first then head off I think mate.

 

Will be head off

 

Hopefully i can have a look tomz. But sounds pretty much like a head change. Luckly i still have two others

 

you have to take the head off to check
it was definitely around the valve seat area

 

Have you been able to see it by the naked eye or needed to have it pressure checked by the engine builder?

I can't see anything in the manifold and not on the head itself. Thinking of having it pressure checked at the engine builder now

 

Ok the problem just didn't really get better. I took the head of and took it to a engine builder. They pressure checked it and the cylinderhead has nothing wrong. Fitted everything again. New headbolts, new headgastket, new gaskets all around and still smoked. Let it run warm and smoke slowly went away. Also this was on new fuel, earlier it just had 5 liters in and now i added another 20 liter. After a while i only got some slight blue smoke and pretty sure this is turbo related. Today i fired it up again to check hot oil pressure and again it started to smoke badly. Again the white smoke and even after having the engine heated up it still did.

Too bad i am also not satisfied about the oil pressure. Cold start up it came till 4 bar and then i guess the spring lets oil through in the oilpump. Hot oil pressure on idle was about 0.8-0.9 bar and when i rev it, it just doesn't seems to be exceeding 2 bar.

I thought i had a brand new oil pump on it, but now that i saw this i am in doubt.

Anybody ideas about the smoke? What pressure should a standard oil pump oush the spring for the overpressure circuit?

Going to try to get the oil pressure fixed and then go for MOT on tuesday. Hopefully running it warm on the streets will help to cure the smoking issue. Exhaust is full of shit, maybe intercooler too. It needs to burn it through maybe

 

you did say you had fitted a new turbo, ,
I guess you can get your cooling system pressure tested
then check for water in the bores
min oil pressure at 80,c 176,f at 750rpm 1.0 bar
at 2000 rpm 2.8 bar
relief valve opens at 4.0 bar, according to my haynes

your replacement turbo might also be worn

 

My bad i ment just a different one. This one isn't superb but having 100% identical problems would be odd on two turbo's. How to check for water in the bores without taking head off? Can it be seen through the plug holes? I am afraid to get so much water in that it breaks engine with cranking, but i can start without plugs to clear that. Ok i only know the high press burton goes to 6. Clearly something is wrong on oil press

 

you pressure test the water cooling system same way your head was tested,
you get someone qualified to do it, obviously they need the car to be with them

remove spark plugs and if you get a drop in pressure,
the water may be getting into the bores,
how to tell if there is water in the bores after a pressure test,
poke something in the holes where the spark plugs go

the symptoms are not a cracked head, you tried 2 turbo`s and have identical results
both turbo`s could be shot, but without a pressure test,
its still guessing at many things,
you could also try cranking over with no turbo fitted and push a sheet of cardboard over the manifold studs and bolt up to catch any oil or water particles
and examine after,

 

Starting with injectors not connected, ignition off and inlet open so turbo isn't joining!

Why is there smoke comming out of all 4 cylinders??

 

Have you done your basics mate like compression tests etc, or a pressure test or CO header test ?

 

Are you losing coolant?

 

he has mentioned all this if you read it from the top

 

No he has not stated if he is losing coolant or not, hence me asking.

 

I dunno mate. Car only runs short all the time. Insurence got fixed today so maybe tomorrow i can run it warm on the road to see what happens. However today its filled as i did leak checks on the coolant system, so first all air needs to get out

 

Another thing what i realised today is that this problem isn't there since the start. It has ran wel a few times short before this smoking started

 

Problem seems to be solved. Took it for a spin and kept smoking. Decided to take it all into bits to see what is all fooked. Started with intercooler and a hell lot of oil came out. Bit thinner then i expect it to be so maybe with coolant. As i still had an exhaust full of oil and shit i decided to go a different road. Clearly there has been a big turbo failure else IC would be clean. Gave sb a call to borrow a exhaust manifold of a std 1.6 and exhaust. Build it all up again and ran with good oil pressure and no smoke 1dd13 probably first turbo filled IC and second (which wasn't the most beautiful one) gave oil pressure issues. Seems to be i had two bitchy turbo's. So one is being rebuild now and then i am probably fine with this car again.

Also today i heard sb that also has seen white smoke from a ic filled with oil. This case was on a truck. Maybe due to it being mixed very fine with air color changes?

Thanks all for sharing thoughts and helping me forward!