My car (S4 TII motor) has been intermittently smoking, but most often when in boost for more than ~10 - 15 seconds, and then continuing to smoke on overrun afterwards for a bit, as well as a few other times that I havent really pinned a pattern down to. Well, doing some poking around today, I found a bit of old oil in the intake, pre-turbo. If there was a leak in the turbo on the compressor side, could it possibly throw the oil backwards into the intake?

I suspect that it may be due to running the crank-case vent straight from the oil fill neck, T'ed with the charcoal canister, to the intake, pre-turbo. The inside of these lines seemed to be wet with oil too. Is it plausible that the intake pre-turbo could suck oil up the fill tube and through about 3 feet of tubing to dump in the intake?

I had rebuilt the turbo before (do NOT get the gpopshop rebuild kit, there are really only about 3 pieces in it that actually fit our turbos) and made sure to mark how the compressor wheel lined up to the shaft. However, the nut (that was supplied in the kit, supposedly a lock-nut and a pain in the *** to get on there, tightened down enough to hold the wheel in place, yet not lock the assembly together too tightly) worked its way loose and proceeded to bounce around the intake and turbine, destroying stuff in its path. So there goes the T04B wheel and housing... Basically this thread is half asking for help and half ranting.

 

man that sucks dude. : (

 

damn, that's some carnage. There is a guy on the other forum selling a T04B Compressor housing, wheel, and backplate right for $150.

 

thats funny, back when i had a T4 i bought a rebuild kit from gpopshop and the same thing happened. I torqued the nut and everything...

I wouldnt think there would be any way it could be their fault but it makes you wonder.

 

looks like it ate something?

 

well, tried to eat something... that something being the nut you see on the end of the shaft. (i just partially threaded it back on there for the picture, it was actually running loose in the TID... a nice smooth bit of aluminum that would keep feeding it back into the turbo

 

if it makes you feel any better, i had a chrysler conquest and the blow off valve was stuck shut under boost for one hard run and wouldnt allow the unused pressure to escape. the nut backed off, lodged itself in the compressor wheel, the wheel came loose, destroyed the cold side housing and spat the nut into my intercooler and the compressor wheel was loose as a goose and was chunked up bad. bad times at ridgemont high.

 

Wow, now THAT sucks. I ususally save the useless comments but that is remarkable.

 

Sad thing about it is that what you don't see left on the compressor wheel is now deposited in your intercooler, some of it is clinging to the walls of the connecting tubing, and possibly (but not hopefully) there is some in the UIM, LIM, and the combustion chambers. You will have one hell of a time trying to get it all out of your intercooler. This really sucks. Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

yea, well i should be getting a corksport IC in the next couple of days, so hopefully most of the crap has been caught in the TMIC. Im still going to inspect the TB and plenum, but if any of it got farther than the plenum, then Im pretty sure its already made its way through the engine... "its all downhill from there"

 

I doubt that it made any damge to the engine...even if there was shrapnel that went threw there, The odds of a piece of metal jamming between the apex and the housing is pretty small...even, almost non existant.

 

yea, when I parked it i had no idea about this damage, all that I could tell was that there was what sounded like a little belt whine but more shrill... well, now i know what that sound means. Plus the aforementioned oil smoking problem. The engine still ran fine, so I dont think it ate too much of the turbine.

 

Plumbing the oil vent in that way should not be a problem if the purge system is operating. If you check the Haynes/FSM you will find that the stock system is very similar.

 

i dont have the purge system hooked up though... I didnt wire the megasquirt to control it (i didnt want to research how it was controlled in stock configuration, and didnt think that the intake would generate enough vacuum to suck the oil up the fill tube). There was no valve in the line... so this could be the problem then?

 

You get a combination of intake vacuum & combustion blow-by through that line.
More boost plus more miles = more blow-by.
An oil trap or catch can will clean it up.

 

if those are your pics your engine ate a lot of metal its probably f..ed
I once had a race car that ate the ceramic off the tip of one of the stock (mistake) spark plugs and ate the rotor, no smoke tho you blew the turbo?

 

rotor seal i mean

 

The engine only has about 1500 miles on a fresh rebuild w/ new housings and everything, and was still working fine when i parked it yesterday. Im pretty confident that everything was either turned into a very fine dust (which was all collected in the oil that was blowing by... making a relatively thick aluminum pudding... or got trapped in the TMIC, which is coming off tomorrow to make way for the corksport FMIC. The whole intake manifold is coming apart too, since one of the bolts that holds the coolant feed line on broke off in the manifold (the other one did the same half a year ago), so its getting drilled out and tapped, and the runners will be thoroughly cleaned at that time. In this case I think the engine itself is fine, it just sucks about the turbine wheel. The housing and backplate survived with minimal damage though, and are definately reusable if i find a new wheel and get the new assembly balanced. And use a different nut to hold it on... thats a big one.

 

Perhaps a dab of Locktite on the shaft threads before torquing the nut? It's like Liquid Insurance.

 

damn that's fawked up. I'd try and get an idea of how many people this has happened to and maybe get a class action going.

 

It is fucked up, but they can always say that since I rebuilt it myself, i torqued it wrong or mis-threaded it or w/e, and then its their word against mine. Maybe if there was a manufacturing defect, or if it happened to some large portion of the people they sold kits to, but I only see patman and myself, which i doubt makes up a significant bit of their sales.

It sucks that almost nothing in the gpopshop kit actually fits, but thats a different issue. Only the shaft bushings, turbine oil seal, thrust bearing and that nut... fortunately I had a good carbon seal from a different turbo, and the other assorted pieces from the original and another junk turbo laying around. Even the bolts that they supply to attach the exhaust housing to the CHRA were crap. They threaded, but in less than 2000 miles of use, 2 of them were weakened enough to snap off on disassembly (using a simple box wrench, not even power tools, and im not that strong of a guy!), and the clamps were coated with something or other that completely burned off and left a wierd whitish stain on the turbine housing. The bolts & clamps for the compressor housing just outright did not fit. None of the soft seals fit either. Basically, most of the kit was unusable (and i still have it sitting in the basement), so dont buy from them if you want stuff that will work.

(I'm not blaming the compressor damage on them, just to be clear, but their kit is crap)

 

that turbo will probably still work assuming the rest of the wheel isn't magled.

You're lucky your engine survived. Eating all those metal bits and such.