Okay now the car is still hot so I will pull the housing apart and check but today when I started my car to head home white smoke came out of the exhaust. Now it came out for a good period of time and it was white. And I looked under the hood and there was a little bit of oil around the heat shield cover on the turbo housing. My concern is this normal or do I have myself a problem in the making?? The car drove fine but when it hits boost it kinda drags a bit. Not driving it for now but want to gather some info before I plunge into this tonight....

 

how much smoke?? you should prolly get that leak checked out.. maybe a gasket?

 

Hmm I did take the oil cap off and the was some white smoke coming out of the there...

 

Good amount... seems like a head gasket but I have no check engine light at all

 

If it was a blown head gasket you would of been blowing blue smoke and your coolant would of had bubbles.

My BEST guess (mind you guess) is either your intake valve seals are going bad or your oil rings are going bad

Check your oil feed line as well to ur turbo make sure its not leaking out there, check the oil tap on the side of the block

BTW when you got your oil pan tapped how high did you have it tapped? Normal Oil PSI for a turbo is 30-35 psi if I believe

And you say there was white smoke coming out of your oil filler hole on the valve head...

I'm guessing... GUESSING valve seals are going bad on the intake side when I see that

Now my question to you.

Is the smoke coming out when you FIRST start the car, or is there a crap load of smoke coming out when the engine is hot and your on the throttle?

 

Compression Test ASAP...

 

Compression Test and a Cylinder Leak Down Test as well

 

Maybe the 13psi on the stock Turbonetics Unichip tune was too much for it.. I hope thats not the case..

 

That doesn't sound good man, hope you get it worked out. Good Luck

 

It depends on where you blew the head gasket. if it were on the water jacket you would blow white steam. It will smell sweet, like buring coolant (which is what it would be).

But dont panic just yet. Check everything out well.

 

I had the same problem on my eclipse about a year ago. When i got it checked...it was 2 seperate things. One was a leak in the intake valve seal, and two, there was an oil leak inside the turbine housing. It wasn't pretty nor was it cheap. I also never threw a CEL either. I recommend u get it checked immediately before something even worse happens.

 

It could just be a leaking turbine seal. If you pull the turbo off the car and look on the turbine side (hot side) and see oil then its a blown turbine seal. If that is the case contact Reggie at Turbonetics and he will send you a new turbo ASAP.

 

Something tells me his oil pressure is too high to begin with

 

It shouldn't be if he installed the system with the inline filter/restrictor. At least at the turbo anyways..

 

Oil pressure is good actually and it is not the head gasket being I checked the coolant and no bubbles. It only smokes at start up and I checked around the turbo and it seems to be a bad seal. I will take it off tonight and see being I got busy last night and today I'm at work till 5. I will keep you guys post but to tell you the truth all signs point to a leaking turbine seal. We'll see.... what is the number for Reggie at Turbonetics

 

Hope you find the problem soon! Please let us know asap when you find out as well. Are you still running the 10psi daily?

 

I doubt it is your head gasket, but just fyi, checking for bubbles in the coolant is by far not a good test for a blown head gasket. As I said before, where they gasket is blown and the severity makes all the difference in "how" you will notice it. Run a compression/leakdown test, that is a lot better way to tell.

 

I couldnt agree more. There are multiple ways and symptoms of a blown head gasket. Depending on where it is blown, you could not even know.

When I took my engine apart and found the broken ring lands I was amazed because the car ran and drove perfectly. Idled well and wasnt doing anything out of the ordinary. Im sure I would have noticed had I done a compression/leakdown test before I took it apart though.

I would say its more then likely the turbo. The likelyhood of it being a headgasket is slim in my opinion as these cars come with a steel gasket stock and I have not seen or heard of anyone blowing the head gasket yet. Especially at those boost levels.

Charles

 

The number to Turbonetics is 805-581-0333 Ask for Reggie Wynn.

 

i talked to turbonetics about this problem and I know a bunch of turboed cars that have this issue at idle. Most likely you just have a minor seal leak and some oil is getting into the turbo, but once it warms up and ur driving it the smoke should disappear. Now chris (widebody tC from ohio) actually had some "shaft play" with his and his, i guess, was bellowing out white smoke like a chainsmoker.

I have this issue every now and then but it hasnt presented any serious concerns (cept for the wildlife) and just keep an eye on it and see if it gets any worse.