can see blue smoke a fair bit when driving around now, and when pulling up to a juction and pulling away again, loads of xr2 style smoke, a big plume of the blue stuff!!
smokes a little bit white on idle, but hardly.

there is a high pitch kind of metallic chuffing noise if listening by the tailpipe.

any ideas?? exhaust valve??

idle is lumpy, but seems to drive fine apart from the smoke.


worth a compression test.?

any help appreciated
thanks.

 

rebuild time!!!!!!

Hmmm, oops indeed. Blue smoke on idle/overrun is generally a sign of valve seals. Blue smoke all the time is a serious problem, possibly piston hole, or rings.

If it's a holed piston, then it sounds very slight, and hopefully the bores are okay.

Take the spark plugs out and check for brilliant white/silver deposits (your pistons vapourised onto the plug) or melted electrodes. Crank the engine briefly without any spark and look for a plug with which is dark, possibly with a little carbon and an oily film, if you can see this on a plug, and it hasn't melted, chances are you have done the rings.

If all looks okay, run the compression test, see what you find.

Paul

 

thanks paul

just spoke to graham goode technical, and they said that without seeing the car, they would say its the turbo gone.

however, will check the plugs, what size is the plug spanner for these?....the one thing ive never done on this engine is the plugs!

cheers
ian

 

oh the other day, came onto boost in fourth and it juddered bad, so just been tootling around since, runs fine though, idle crappy.

the mettalic chuffing sound seems to be coming from the turbo....

 

Dunno, and they are a pain to get to.

Could well be the turbo, oil seals gone, and sucks oil into the air.

Should do too much damage, but I would make sure you run very low boost, preferable none. I am no expert when It comes to turbos, but all the oil that gets sucked out, can't be going to bearings, and there is a limited supply. The bigger worry though, is the seals may have gone because the bearings went, and if run with crappy bearings you could do more damage.

My advice, confirm it's not he engine, get the old turbo back on, and speak to Mark A about getting your TD05 rebuilt.

Paul

 

yeah, not going to drive it now, dont want the problem to escalate.
ive been driving off boost the past few days anyway just to be sure.
i can rebuild turbos myself, just need the bits, then get it balanced.
hopefully if it is the turbo it is salvagable, if not it will see the bin

will let you know what i find mate

 

DOn't forget that if your turbo is leaking oil into the exhaust you'll need to top your oil up!!

 

And just what sort of boost were you runnning prior to this happening???

 

er...1.8bar sir

 

Id guess the turbo is ok, i wouldnt guess that the pistons are ok...You just got greedy.

 

Would I be right in saying you set the Apex boost controller to 1.8bar? That is to say, you deliberately, boldy went, where others have feared to tread, and now know why...

oops :P

Paul

 

hi guys,

no, havent had chance to set the apexi's, all went pairshaped beforehand.
was set on a bleed valve

 

hmm, now that is ironic

Paul

 

ok, just been outside, warmed car up to temp.

before starting however, i checked the oil level, and it was on min, if not below.
my car doesnt use oil whatsoever, and is always on max, as it was the other day, so its used a bit.

after warming, still a little bit of constant smoke at idle, all white. when revving, there is more smoke, white again, sort of puffs of it, about 2ft from the tailpipe. apart from smoke, sounds fine, little rattly sound from turbo area.

took off oil filler cap, and there is a slight pulsating pressure on my hand, but nothing much, and no smoke from there.

turbo??
can swap the old one back on in a bit to try i suppose.

cheers
ian <-- still smiling

 

If it is the turbo, you must be the luckiest guy around....didnt I mention about the bleed valve not too long ago???? bin it.

 

its binned ....onto my mates MR2 turbo

no seriously, the boost was all over the gaff with that thing, and we've kept the boost to 1 bar max on his car...7psi standard! and it made 210bhp at that boost, takes the p*ss eh!!

 

thats a point, anyone got a spare metal water pipe for the standard legacy unit, its the lower one i need (feed i think), as i butchered mine to repair the header tank

thanks.

 

just been out to start swapping the turbo, and can eliminate any fuelling probs.

the chargecooler (air chamber section) has engine oil in in, as does the hose connecting the compressor outlet to the cooler, quite a bit of it really, and fresh.

also,
just taken the hose off the maf-compressor inlet, oil in there too.

there are a couple of pipes entering that section of hose, is one a block breather?

 

both pipes, just at the inlet to the turbo, are breathers.

 

cheers stevie


swapped the turbo earlier, and it is still smoking white a little. it is smoke and not condensation. however, did not have chance to warm the car up to temp due to water leak now!!!
cant find where the water is coming from either, just winding me up now.

it is not coming from the turbo feeds, however, the metal section of pipe that runs behind the rhs cylinder head, where does that go to?
hope its not that got a split in it

cheers
ian

 

but no blue smoke, which sounds good.

best to check the plugs after a while of idle.

paul

 

yeah will check the plugs mate.

need to stop the leak, then take it out quick to burn of any crap, then check if it still smokes.

ian

 

ok so fixed the water leak, then warmed up etc, still smoking so its not the turbo.

then took plugs out (cheers to subaru for putting them next to the chassis legs eh ).

three are perfect colour........one is black and oily. definately oil as it stinks of the stuff and ive just tested the plug and coilpack, and there is a good spark.

so, before i take the engine out and strip it, is there anything else it could possibly be?
im thinking its related to piston/rings/bore due to the blue smoke i was seeing the other day. also it has been shoving fresh through the breathers and into the intake etc.

idle is lumpy too, car wobbles. holed piston poss??

any comments appreciated, thanks.

ian

 

Sounds like it...Most common one I have seen go is No4 ( closest to passenger seat )
I said you would be lucky if it was the turbo, but now it gives you good reason to change the heads and pistons anyway. DO a compression test anyway, just in case. What was the turbo like that you removed?? Does it look ok? does the shaft feel solid, or wobbble about?? If the turbo did let go, then posibly some oil may have fouled the plug, but if it did, it would have fouled em all I think.
A compression test will reveal all.

 

if the turbo went, I would suspect oil in all 4 cylinders.

Do a compression test, if theres no compression, you holed the piston, otherwise it's the rings.

I've never heard of a set of rings go due to high boost, which is good for you , as hopefully it means no rebore required.

Steve is right, good excuse to get some impreza heads and Sti pistons.

Paul

 

forgot to mention, it was the front passenger side, No.2 cylinder.

yeah paul, im hoping the bores are ok as that will save a bit of messing. car is 71000miles, so should be ok to whack same size pistons in if bores are not scored...?

if the piston is damaged, then sod it, im getting forged pistons (cossie or sti....not sure), sti heads/cams, all ported, maybe steel rods, and also a different turbo (gonna make it fit).

the TD05 looks fine visually, and also the shaft turns really smooth with no play whatsoever.

as for the plugs, think its a definate fault in that cylinder rather than the turbo. it is proper black and oily, and the others are the usual light sandy colour, although the tips are white due to the heat.
apart from that, they look good which is suprising considering the stick of the high boost.

cheers

ian

 

Im sure the bore will clean up ok. Even a slight bit of damage on the bore wont really do any harm. 71000 miles... nuthin to worry about, My bores ( and any Ive stripped ) still had the original honing marks on them with 120,000 miles. Even if there is a little bit of alu stuck on the bores, either a quick hone, or rub with wet and dry to remove them, should be fine. Unless there are major scores, I wouldnt worry too much.

 

excellent. thats what i thought about scoobies and bore wear, saw an article on autospeed where they stripped a mega milage turbo engine and bores/pistons were perfect!!

tested the compression on a cold engine, good = 160psi, bad one = 25psi !!
car is up on the ramps at the moment as im gonna get the engine out by the looks of things.
whether pistons or rings, i'll replace for all four cylinders. therefore will hone all of em to bed in proper.

cheers
ian

 

engine ready to come out now, will post findings tomorrow. im probably in for a treat

 

25psi, ouch, sounds like holed piston.

For heads and pistons, give midland impreza a ring, I spoke to them at length about getting heads, pistons etc, and they were very helpeful, and pretty cheap too.

Paul