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Smokey smokey

Mbeas96

Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Location
Charleston
Car specs; 90 745, 16t. sbabbs fuel chips, t5 injectors, npr IC, 20psi

I didn't want to resort to posting here, but I need/want real people opinions/answers.

I'm burning oil. 90% sure. No drops or puddles under the car ever and I was 1.5 quarts shy over the last 1k miles.

Symptoms; what I believe is oil smoke, is seen more so after startup but is there at idle in stop and go traffic. In park, if I Rev to about 1k rpm for a couple seconds and let off a cloud comes by. I have not seen smoke at high speed cruising (interstate) at any point or while WOT.

Smoke only at startup, idle, and slow speed decel.

Turbo has around 205k judging by the time I've driven and what the junkyard car said. Oil is seen in the intercooler piping.

Is this a blown turbo? I have a rebuild kit going on this weekend...

Is it blow by on the piston rings? I really hope not...engine has 60k miles. Driven not like a grandma behind a 16t.

Opinions? Like I said, turbo is getting rebuilt this weekend, and a 19t is getting put on. This smoke and oil loss has me concerned. I'll pull plugs this weekend and see if their oily...
 
Check the turbo piping, if the coldside pipes are full of oil it's the turbo, if not pull the plugs, if they are foiled it's either rings or valve stem seals, if that's dry too it's probably the turbine seal.

My turbine seal went out recently, car blows out a cloud of smoke on startup, dry plugs and clean coldside pipes. Almost as bad as the new 328i does if their check valves give out
 
With a cool engine. Take off the inlet hose to the turbo compressor and check the shaft play. It's more than likely a bad turbo with that many miles and a truly unknown history since it came from salvage.
 
I had a mazda speed 3 recently that was suspect of a "blown" turbo. It burned oil the same way this car does, except it was drastically more oil. And more smoke.

The car drank oil and started knocking before I did anything about it.
 
With a cool engine. Take off the inlet hose to the turbo compressor and check the shaft play. It's more than likely a bad turbo with that many miles and a truly unknown history since it came from salvage.

I'll definitely check it out. When I put in the 16T 60k miles ago, it had in/out play, not excessive, but there. Hardly if any side to side, back then.
 
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I think the plugs look fine, 1 on right 4 on left. 3 looks a touch darker than the rest but nothing crazy. The intercooler piping has oil in it. Hot and cold side, it did mnt come pouring out but the hoses are lined with oil.

Turbos apart, there's definitely side to side play and about a 1/16" of in and out play.
 
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Yes smoking at idle or going down a hill coasting usually means turbo seals blown letting oil out of the center section of the turbo into the exhaust tail pipe blue smoke out the pipe.
 
Really?

Too late, turbo is already apart and at the machine shop. It had some torn orings and alot of play.

Yes, really. Turbochargers do not like to see vacuum. It will pull oil right past the compressor seal. I learned that tidbit the hard way. I had a 740 Turbo that smoked at idle. It was fine under boost. I replace the Turbo and it did the same thing. I called a local turbo rebuilder about having the turbo rebuilt. He asked, "What's it doing, why do you need it rebuilt?" I told him what was going on. He said, check the air filter. If it is dirty at all that may be your problem and explained that turbochargers were never designed to see vacuum on the compressor side. He told me that usually when the filter is replaced/changed the seal will "heal itself". Those exact words. He was dead on. I pulled the filter out and the smoking subsided substantially. Within one day of driving the car it had quit smoking all together. Along the same line of thought I bought a 1993 940 that was donated to a charity. It showed up on a transport. I bought it from pictures and a description on either Copart or IAA. It smoked like crazy. I'm sure that why it was donated. It had a cone filter on it. I thought about my previous experience and yanked the cone filter off. By the time I drove the car 1/2 mile down the road out in front of my place it had quit smoking. Just getting rid of the POS cone filter fixed the problem. No turbo replacement needed. Most of those cone filters are restrictive junk. That may have been the problem with your car.
 
That's crazy. Would you say it is because it needs to be cleaned? If not, why would it start to smoke now and not before?

I'm all for changing to a more factory style airbox, but my intercooler I'm sure is in the way. I would also have to go to the jy to acquire said airbox, since it's been gone for a while now.
 
Update - No more smoke out the exhaust and there does not seem to be any more oil loss. Roughly 70 miles on the rebuilt 16t-19t conversion
 
It would smoke all the time if it had a failed turbine seal. I just replaced a 13C with that problem. It was so bad it would work as a James Bond smoke screen.
 
That what it seems. I had already acquired the rebuild kit and bigger compressor wheel, so I went for it.

I can't say the turbine was covered in oil, but there were definitely wet spots in the housing and downpipe. When taking the turbo apart I noticed alot of residual oil around the end of the turbine shaft, where that backing plate is behind the exhaust wheel.

Granted, I haven't driven the car like I normally do, but 100miles in and I haven't seen smoke in my mirrors. I also got my neighbor, yesterday, to stick his head under the car and look while I revved in park. I cleaned the cone filter I have on, maybe that was it?
 
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