Hi everyone,
I was on track yesterday and experienced sudden loss of power and oil smoking out of the back end (RA powered vw beetle).
I was able to drive OK gently but the engine was not creating any boost and oil pressure was a bit variable (better at low revs).
On inspection there is a big hole in the turbo to intercooler pipe (plastic pipe as I'm running a Legacy chargecooler) there's also a reasonable amount of oil in the engine bay and the dipstick is showing low oil level. Oil pressure never got below a couple of bar so I'm guessing low oil level was reducing the amount available to the pickup.
Bearing in mind I was doing about 130mph, would the breather system have dumped oil into the intake and then blown out of the hole in the pipe? The hole is about the size of a 5p coin...


At this point I just want to rule out turbo failure... Other than the oil I don't have any reason to suspect turbo problems...

Cheers,
Rich

 

OK, I've changed the pipe for a silicone one now and also swapped for another turbo I had spare.

The car will start up but then blew the oil filter seal with obvious consequences! I tried another filter and the same thing happened with extremely high oil pressure registered before the seal went (sender is T'd off the stock oil pressure sender).

I'm guessing there's a problem somewhere in the oil system... blockage somewhere? problem with the pump valve? The amount of oil in the intake suggests some sort of connection with oil being foced into the crank breather system too if that helps..

Am I looking at a rebuild/new bottom end?

Ideas welcome!!

Cheers, Rich

 

Nice conversion for the Beetle Rich

It does sound like the PRV in the oil pump has jammed.
You can get to it without taking the oil pump off - use a ball ended 10mm allen key to remove the cap and spring and see if the PRV will come out using a magnet.

Hopefully it hasnt damaged the bottom end of the engine

 

If I remember correctly one of the cambelt pulleys has to come off to get the PRV out anyway so not sure if there much to gain in not taking it off. TBH if it's sticking then I wouldn't trust it and would fit a new one anyway.. I did fit a shim under the spring when I fitted the engine hoping to avoid this!
If it isn't the PRV I'm a bit lost and in all likelihood the engine will be coming out anyway

 

Well I could just get the PRV bolt out with the spring but the piston is jammed solid, I've now stripped the belt and pulleys off and even from inside can't move the piston at all so that must be the issue. I'll strip a pump of my spare engine and see if that's any good, otherwise I'll have to nip over to API tomorrow and get one of their uprated/polished pumps..