Hello all, I have a V5 type R, Just had the engine rebuilt and have done 3 tanks of fuel in the car running it in (staying under 4500). yesterday, the car was taken for an oil change and to be re-mapped. it was 306 HP and the tuner said everything was great.

I couldn't drive the car due to being at work, however when I came to drive it today it chucked out a cloud of smoke on start up.

It has been doing this every time I start it, although I don't want to drive it now in case anything is wrong.

Any suggestions?

 

The symptoms seem very similar to ringland failure. Double check your oil level and have a look at your oil filler with the cap off and engine running - if there is smoke here then you have problems. A leakdown test would confirm.

 

Took the oil cap off, no smoke at all out of there! Just compression. The engine has literally just been fully rebuilt! Sounds sweet enough!

What should I do?

 

Owning a hatch, I probably know more than I need to about broken pistons (from what I understand clouds of smoke at startup can be due to oil leaking past the rings when you switch off and building up on top of your piston). I would definitely keep an eye on your oil level but ultimately your tuner would be your best bet for an answer.

 

Was there any work done on the head when it was rebuilt or was it just the bottom end?

 

Was a complete engine rebuild, everything out cleaned polished, race bearings, omega pistons, new gaskets throughout, steel rods, the valves would have been re-done as far as I know, but the head hasn`t been ported or anything just cleaned up and checked over as far as I`m aware.

 

Was it smoke or steam?

 

its smoke and smells like oil, it happens every time I start it, comes out for about 10 seconds, sounds fine, don't want to use it though just in case its something un toward.
Can`t really tell what colour it is, just looks like smoke to me, grey smoke tbh

 

get it checked by the tuner, ring them now and explain the issue and see what the advise otherwise your warranty will not be valid

 

I`ve rang them the company that rebuilt it (who also changed the oil) and I`ve also rang the guy that re-mapped the car (which was done at the company that rebuilt the engine) the tuner is coming round tomorrow morning to check it out.

What is the stance with warranty ect?

 

Sounds to me like it could be poor piston to bore clearances, which is allowing oil to get past the pistons which is then burned off on start up.

Some forged pistons have larger clearances than others so it can be more pronounced depending upon the piston type used.

The quantity of oil consumed is going to be your main concern, some forged builds use as much as a litre per 1000 miles, and others use very little.

As above speak to your engine builder and see what they say.

 

My one is forged and does it every now and then, was slightly worried until I saw Alan jefferies wrote that his p1 did it and was totally fine!
I tend to find if I drive my car out if the garage to clean it and put it back it sometimes does it the following outing, leading me to believe the oil is getting past a little as pistons aren't up to temperature. Hope all is well with yours

 

calm down calm down, before you start worrying about blown rings and engine blown etc etc need to identify where the oil is coming from. It could be something as simple as its been slightly over filled then when its warm and thinned out a abit its going back into the manifold via a breather, not enough to see when its running, but will have pooled a bit on none running. Let them check it out before panicking

 

Just taken it for a drive to give it a bit of a run, it drives absolutely fine. going to leave it for a while and see if it smokes again when I start it..

Buy the way thanks everyone for the advice so far, have been ready for hulk smashing everything up... you guys have calmed me down..

 

It could be water in the exhaust that doesn't dry and evaporates on the next startup.

 

Went to start the car after leaving it for a while and still a big cloud of stinking smoke.

 

Do you leave the car to idle before shutting off? I find if I'm in a rush and have to shut it off quicker it's more like to do it could be my imagination lol. Saying that mine only does it once or twice a month not everytime

 

I rebuilt the shortblock in my wrx a few years ago, i used cp pistons .5 oversize, had the block bored and honed to the size on the sheet but did a really short run in period and used semi synthetic oil instead of mineral
3Months and 1k miles later it did this, but it also smoked intermittently at idle, engine ran sweet as a nut but stunk of burning oil, i stripped it all down checked the ring tolerances, all fine.
Put all back together and refitted, still smoking
i hit it with a hammer and bought another.
I hope yours is not the same

 

I ran mine in for 3 tank full of fuel, so should have been long enough I would have thought. I didn`t rev above 4500, Its very strange fingers crossed its nothing to serious.

 

If it's as bad as you say, there has to be something amiss.
Were the heads stripped? let's hope they remembered to put in the valve stem seals!

JohnD

 

It was fine previous to it being mapped tho, there was no smoke what so ever. It came back after the re map and now its like this

 

Are you running the std OE return to inlet breather system ? or a catch can of some type ?

What oil has now been put in, after the run in & map ?

 

You say you're still running it in and staying below 4.5k but the mapper would have done a number of full throttle runs approaching the redline. Whilst you would hope it would take this no problem, it is a factor in the equation?

JohnD

 

Its on the standard breathing system, to be honest I`m not sure what they have put in it, the mapper collected the car from my house.

 

This may well be some if not all of the problem, I would consider changing to a catch tank, a 3 port baffled as a minimum.
Are you getting more smoke when the car has had a good blast, compared to just running about at low rpm / loads ?

 

To be honest the car only smokes when I start it up, but it does it pretty much every time I start it. It seems to smoke more the longer it is left tho. I have only driven it a short distances and not really given it full throttle. spose it just a guessing game at the minute

I`m going to see what he says in the morning, and I`ll let everyone know.

 

Mine does it the odd time also
Here you go chap


Forged Pistons, smoke on startup?
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23 August 2009, 10:32 #1
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Forged Pistons, smoke on startup?
My car randomly gives out a puff of blue smoke on startup, the engine has done approx 1500 miles since run in and is running on Millers CFS 10W40, the turbo is also new, could this be down to the forged pistons, anyone else have a similar experiance using wiseco pistons?

23 August 2009, 12:12 #2
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Could well be, for sure.

Forged pistons cold are slightly undersized (hence their associated piston slap). So chances are small amounts of oil/oil vapour is getting past the rings... up until they have reached normal operating temp., when they'll have expanded to the correct spec.

This would also explain why forged pistons are linked with higher oil consumption too.
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Last edited by joz8968; 23 August 2009 at 12:15.

23 August 2009, 13:12 #3
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yeh, mine was same since forged, till i blew up again

23 August 2009, 13:35 #4
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The strange thing is that there is no slap on cold startup and it hasn't used a drop of oil since the last oil change, catch can is bone dry as well.....

23 August 2009, 14:15 #5
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Turbo seals or thrust bearing failing?
Valve stem seals?
Piston rings?

Condensation?
Imagination?
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23 August 2009, 14:17 #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mje_wrx
yeh, mine was same since forged, till i blew up again
Do you know why it let go?
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24 August 2009, 07:57 #7
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None of the above everything is new

24 August 2009, 08:01 #8
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Sure it wouldnt be down to the pistons. Mine has never smoked because of them.

More likely turbo seals or engine build itself.

Who built the engine? What turbo?
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24 August 2009, 10:51 #9
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Engine built by engine tuner and the turbo is an 18G iirc

Banny

24 August 2009, 10:58 #10
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Oh ok - Seals sound like the most likely culprit.
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24 August 2009, 11:48 #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joz8968
Do you know why it let go?
yeah, dont panic, i over fueled it, set up adjustable fuel reg wrong

im going bk standard

24 August 2009, 12:48 #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mje_wrx
yeah, dont panic, i over fueled it, set up adjustable fuel reg wrong

im going bk standard
Can you elaborate what you actually did?

Did you set to 4 bar and overwhelm an old knackered fuel pump causing it to run way lean, or something...?
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24 August 2009, 21:02 #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dynamix
Oh ok - Seals sound like the most likely culprit.
Every seal and gasket is brand new, heads have also been overhauled, the turbo has also been overhauled by turbo technics

24 August 2009, 21:05 #14
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Why not ask enginetuner?
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24 August 2009, 21:14 #15
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I have done, I've been told that some do it and some don't, something to with oil draining back down the bore when stood up, so was just wondering if there any others on here using wisecos with the same prob, everything else is spot on as it should be

24 August 2009, 21:48 #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joz8968
Can you elaborate what you actually did?

Did you set to 4 bar and overwhelm an old knackered fuel pump causing it to run way lean, or something...?
yeh, i set the fuel pressure to 3bar but connected vacum pipe and it went to rich, over fueled and washed oil from bore, then the rings siezed and scored bore, damage so bad i had 2 buy another block and 2 new pistons, also changed all rings, i set up a parallel fuel mod that went wrong, so back to standard fuel rails and pipes and reg.

currently rebuilding

but adding more mods such as uppipe gems ecu to control fuel, gonna get mapper to set run in map in straight away before it leaves garage.

i rushed and got stung

25 August 2009, 11:16 #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mje_wrx
yeh, i set the fuel pressure to 3bar but connected vacum pipe and it went to rich, over fueled and washed oil from bore, then the rings siezed and scored bore, damage so bad i had 2 buy another block and 2 new pistons, also changed all rings, i set up a parallel fuel mod that went wrong, so back to standard fuel rails and pipes and reg.

currently rebuilding

but adding more mods such as uppipe gems ecu to control fuel, gonna get mapper to set run in map in straight away before it leaves garage.

i rushed and got stung
Thank goodness you mentioned in bold - at least that's the reason
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25 August 2009, 19:09 #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by K18LLR
My car randomly gives out a puff of blue smoke on startup, the engine has done approx 1500 miles since run in and is running on Millers CFS 10W40, the turbo is also new, could this be down to the forged pistons, anyone else have a similar experiance using wiseco pistons?
Did Slow-boy Racing build the engine?

25 August 2009, 20:36 #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by STi Singh
Did Slow-boy Racing build the engine?
No they did not it was built by enginetuner and internals supplied by Lateral Performance, there is nothing wrong with the build in any way whatsover and Im a happy customer just like all the other enginetuner customers, the above issue (no that it bothers me) is just one of the issues you may come across with a built forged boxer engine - just like some people experience slappy pistons when cold or heavy oil consumption on built engines, the reason for the post was to see if anyone else using wiseco pistons had a similar issue, above all one can't expect a heavily modified impreza to run or drive like a Rolls
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25 August 2009, 20:54 #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by K18LLR
No they did not it was built by enginetuner and internals supplied by Lateral Performance, there is nothing wrong with the build in any way whatsover and Im a happy customer just like all the other enginetuner customers, the above issue (no that it bothers me) is just one of the issues you may come across with a built forged boxer engine - just like some people experience slappy pistons when cold or heavy oil consumption on built engines, the reason for the post was to see if anyone else using wiseco pistons had a similar issue, above all one can't expect a heavily modified impreza to run or drive like a Rolls
Royce
Great post. Finally some sense in the middle of all the madness that is the pointing of fingers towards tuning companies.
As an aside, I googled subaru online shops and actually paused with the mouse pointer over Area 52. Why? They have done me no harm at all, and still have great testimonials, but those few dissenting words have obviously done some damage. Apologies to Area 52, and I did browse your site after.

Back on topic.

25 August 2009, 22:20 #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by K18LLR
No they did not it was built by enginetuner and internals supplied by Lateral Performance, there is nothing wrong with the build in any way whatsover and Im a happy customer just like all the other enginetuner customers, the above issue (no that it bothers me) is just one of the issues you may come across with a built forged boxer engine - just like some people experience slappy pistons when cold or heavy oil consumption on built engines, the reason for the post was to see if anyone else using wiseco pistons had a similar issue, above all one can't expect a heavily modified impreza to run or drive like a Rolls
Royce
Well said there mate.
We see this one occasionally, TBH it surprises me you don't see more of it when you consider how a Scooby engine is put together. Lying on its side like it does, you're always going to get oil pool in the low spot when it's parked. I'd say it could well be worse on a new engine that hasn't fully lapped its bores in to a smooth finish. You can get oil trapped in the tiny grooves left from honing. It's a small amount, and doesn't always give off smoke, but they can if it's left for a while, or if you get condensation in the exhaust diluting the mix, and making it seem worse than it is. It's noticeably worse with large exhausts! On a cold morning it kind of hangs around. We get chance to notice these things when we have ten of them lying around..
My 8000 mile babied and mint P1 used to do it, and I didn't like it one bit when I first spotted it. When I realised it didn't use any oil at all, I stopped worrying about it.

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the reason is most likely because the longer throw on the crank (on the 2.1, 2.35 and 2.5 engines) pushes the oil control ring past the gudgeon pin inspection hole.. if the engine happens to stop at that point when you switch it off which is highly likely, it will allow a small amount of oil to drain past the compression rings into the cylinder.. you start the engine and you get a puff of smoke.. if it lasts for more than an initial cloud then I would consider it more than just that and would need investigating why.
The fact it is not using oil or blowing out the breathers would say it is nothing to be concerned about.

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The tuner has just been, there was a breather pipe hanging off which I hadn`t noticed,. he said just to give it a decent run and see if it still does it.

Is it possible that could have been causing it all along?

 

Which pipe was it?

 

yes