The Succubus Strikes AGAIN.

[ScrappyJack]

Let me start out by saying, to everyone who has told me, "Oh, you can't sell the car now, Jack - you've replaced everything; what else could go wrong..."

A hearty, "FOCK YOU."

Get everything wrapped up tonight and go to fire it up. Belts squeal like a mofo and car smokes a bit from under the hood - thought it was the belt burning for a second. "Hrmm... belt deflections are spot on with the manual specs." Car doesn't want to idle either - but I blame that on the random base timing. [Forgot to scribe the CAS and didn't have a timing gun handy to set it yet.]

Fastforward: Chad to the rescue. He tightens the F out of the belts, takes care of the squealing. Smoke is coming from near the alternator... like it was the day the car went down. I keep it running with some throttle and he catches a huge leak from the TB - some dumbass put the TB -> I. mani on backwards. :rolleyes: [We won't mention any names, but his initials are J(ack) T(horsen).]

Winds change direction and a gust of smoke comes floating past the car window while I'm inside... coming from behind the car. I.E. the tailpipe. F*cking motherf*ck-f*ck. :frust:

We let it run for a bit, thinking maybe the under-hood smoke is just anti-seize and grease burning off the downpipe and whatnot. The tailpipe doesn't clear up, nor does the engine bay. We are both thinking it, but neither wants to say it...

Then we see the oil puddling at the O2 housing -> downpipe intersection. That's where the smoke was coming from. "F*ck, the rings are toast." I begin to laugh, realizing the head will have to come off again. I laugh to avoid putting holes in things. :dist:

Chad tries to distract me from sharp instruments by remembering he had heard a metallic sound from the neighborhood of the turbo. Thinking the rings and turbo were shot wasn't cheering me up, so I wasn't sure about his tactics at first. I pop the intake snorkel off and touch the turbo wheel.

Ting, ting, ting goes the wee 16G. The turbo has suffered a fatal failure. This turbo was rebuilt less than 15,000 miles ago in Tampa. I've had it over 20psi for less than three 1/4 mile runs, always turbo timed, I only run 15psi on the street, and while I do drive hard, I tune conservatively. I don't know what the heck happened there.

So, it looks like I'll be downgrading to a (properly rebuilt) 14B and sending the wee 16G off as a core, hopefully offsetting the cost a bit. Everyone, please say a prayer that my bottom end is good, or keep me in your prayers. Maybe sacrifice a quart of Mobil 1 to the Automotive Gods...

[Geovannie]

I'm sure somebody has a 14b laying around that you can use until you get another turbo.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. We have all been there. I would love to say that it will get better but you know that is not true :confused: Love/hate relationship.

[highoctane]

You might want to do a compression check before going all gung ho and pulling the head off again, it may just be the turbo seals.

Just out of curiosity did you get the engine hot, blow a head gasket before or something?

[SPEED]

damn man, you told me at the meet.... that sucks.. im sure someone has another turbo around......

[ScrappyJack]

[Preface for those not following along from the beginning: The car has been puffing like the valve stem seals were shot since last November. Driving home about 3 weeks ago, the car began pouring white smoke from the tailpipe - heavily. Everyone I showed video of it to thought what I did: head gasket. So off came the head. The HG on the car was discolored and a little rough looking, but was a copper gasket so it wasn't blown out. Cylinders were smooth and showed no obvious signs of scoring so I didn't suspect the rings.]

I have had the car overheat on me once before - enough to gurgle and spit coolant out the overflow tube on the reservoir. I also ran it low on coolant one time before I tracked down the leak. When I took the t-stat housing and waterneck apart to replace some gaskets and put in a new thermostat, there wasn't one to replace.

The turbo has the most shaft play I've ever seen (not that I've seen many with play). You can literally tap the wheel against the sides of the housing. It's also got (what I would consider) excess longitudinal play. It's definitely focked; Mr. Meissner can vouch for that.

I am not sure why I had the major failure that day. The car didn't appear to be overheating, or running lean, or detonating, etc. I was just driving home from the dentist and was surrounded by white smoke from the tailpipe.

Upon further reflection (hindsight being 20/20), I should have:
(A) Done compression and leakdown tests before tearing it down the first time and (B) Checked the turbo earlier. I even thought about it several times. Chalk a lot of this up to my lack of experience (coupled with a lack of natural mechanical ability ;) ).

I'm certainly not pissed, but I am frustrated. As much with myself as with the car and my luck.

The plan now is to put a clean turbo on there and do compression and leakdown tests assuming it runs. The head did need a rebuild and I ended up with a sick, sick deal on that so I'm not complaining in the long run. If I can get away with just replacing the turbo, I will be happy. It's entirely possible I could've gotten away with just swapping the turbos out and continuing my little stoplight puffs from the leaky valve stem seals.

I don't want to have to get into the bottom end which was supposedly rebuilt by Mr. D. (as part of the purchase price) less than 15k miles ago. Granted, the turbo was supposedly rebuilt at the same time and I'm not sure what would cause that to go either.

I am not ruling out user error, though. It's entirely possible I fucked this up somehow that I am just not thinking of.

[talontsi]

Sorry to hear about the bad luck Jack.

Hope you get it back ont he road soon and the problem is only the turbo.

[ImportTuner]

Jack this made me think of the time I wrote you that email, about bad piston rings, and I said, "Now you are sure it's the valve seals?" And you wrote back, "actually I haven't determined it, but I am pretty sure it's the valve seals." :rolleyes:

I guess you (and all of us) learned an important lesson, don't take shit appart, till you know exactly what is wrong with the car.

I can't believe you didn't check the turbo..hehe.. the easiest part of the car to check when you are burning oil, and just 2 months ago, my turbo went bad, and burnt oil like yours. However, mine burnt oil much differently then yours.

Screw burning oil patterns. If you car is burning oil, it could be the turbo, valve seals or piston rings.

The turbo is an easy check, see if there is *any* play up and down the shaft. I also had oil dripping from my center cartridige, almost looked like the oil return pipe gasket was leaking. Also the color of this burning oil is more white then blue. But by the nasty smell of burning oil, you know it's oil burning and not coolant.

Do a leak down test to determine if you have bad valve seals or piston rings. (you can even double check the rings by doing a wet compresson test.)

Good Luck Jack.... I think Chad pasted the DSM gremlines over to your car...

[ScrappyJack]

Originally posted by TurboEclipse95
Jack this made me think of the time I wrote you that email, about bad piston rings, and I said, "Now you are sure it's the valve seals?" And you wrote back, "actually I haven't determined it, but I am pretty sure it's the valve seals." :rolleyes:

Roger that. Just to be clear, though, I still believe the valve stem seals have been shot since November based on video footage I have of the car. I still would've needed a valve job at some point. The reason the head came off, though, was because I thought I'd lost the headgasket.


I guess you (and all of us) learned an important lesson, don't take shit appart, till you know exactly what is wrong with the car.

Exactly. Hopefully someone else can learn from my mistakes.


I can't believe you didn't check the turbo..hehe.. the easiest part of the car to check when you are burning oil, and just 2 months ago, my turbo went bad, and burnt oil like yours. However, mine burnt oil much differently then yours.

Well, to be fair, I don't think my early symptoms or my later symptom were like yours. Also, I did check the turbo in February and it was nice and tight. Still, I should've checked it earlier this time.


Screw burning oil patterns. If you car is burning oil, it could be the turbo, valve seals or piston rings.

Exactly! Don't forget about headgaskets.

[highoctane]

If you broke a piston or your rings are bad you'll have excessive blow by coming from the crankcase/breather along with oil consumption, low compression

Valve seals will usually cause oil burn at idle and will clear up while driving, worn valve guides do pretty much the same

When a turbo fails you get smoke all the time pretty much non stop

Running higher boost is harder on pistons and rings but won't really change the normal wear of the rings themselves, the piston ring lands may wear and get loose, the piston ring lands may break under pressure but the ring to wall sealing wears pretty consistently, as the rings wear over time and the cylinder wall wears the tension of the ring against the cylinder wall is reduced, reduced tension reduces sealing, less sealing leads to oil consumption and blow by.

[Dustin]

sorry to correct you brad but the rings don't seal because of their "tension" on the cylinder walls.thats like saying a mere maybe inch pounds of pressure(if that) is holding back the high cylinder pressures during combustion.the way rings do seal is because the cylinder pressures above them actually push them down and OUT against the cylinder walls

[highoctane]

;) Don't feel sorry, you haven't corrected me in the least, what you are saying is a mere piston ring with little to no tension seals by pressure pushing behind it, not true, some pistons do have holes drilled around the crown that does allow compression to go directly behind the ring, using it to help with ring sealing but for the most part ring tension is what allows a cylinder to build pressure in the first place. This would mean low compression engines would have horrible ring sealing while high compression engines would make for excellent ring sealing.

As rings wear from scrubing the cylinder walls the gap in the ring widens over time from ring "wear" and cylinder bore "wear". Since the rings are constantly slowly expanding/wearing open against the cylinder wall its only natural as wear occurs they get to the point that they can no longer expand to hold adequate "tension" agains the bore, when this happens the rings allow the compressed air to leak past the piston causing blowby as well as oil consumption.

If what you are saying is a "fact" then rings would never wear out and the engine would hold like new compression forever as long as air just leaked behind the ring and sealed it against the cylinder bore, or until they wore until they fell out of the ring land.

Did you know why after running an engine too hot you loose compression and start burning oil, the heat takes the spring/temper out of the rings which is directly responsible for the loss of compression, LOSS OF RING TENSION, weakening of the ring.

Do you know another reason why breakin of piston rings is important, can you guess, the extreme heat generated from the friction of the tension of the new rings scrubing the rough freshly honed cylinder wall has the same effect as running an engine too hot, the extreme heat generated on the rings removes the spring/temper from the rings causing, LOSS OF RING TENSION, weakening the ring & consiquently less cylinder pressure and more blowby.

So without ring tension how does the intake stroke draw in fresh air without sucking in air from the crankcase up past the rings seeing as there's no pressure to seal them anymore.

[Dustin]

sorry let me correct myself. i should have said that rings don't just seal by their tension alone.but other things affect their sealing ability too.rounding off of the rings(wear)....but i wasn't tryin to say you were completely wrong or anything.sorry it came out like that

[PiercedJD]

meanwhile, back on the farm........


(the) Jack: have you checked the compression yet? what were the gorey details?

[ScrappyJack]

The satellite is still in orbit.

Finished school tonight so this weekend will commence with details and gore. Actually...

Hrmm, basic question that I think I know the answer to but would like confirmation on: If the turbo shaft has enough play so as to allow the wheel to touch down on the housing, this shouldn't be a factor in a compression test where the motor isn't actually running, correct?

Danke.

[Geovannie]

Correct.

[PiercedJD]

Turbo won't have any effect on compression check. just remember to crack the throttle plate wide open. would be nice to run the car long enough to heat it up to operating temperature, but as things appear, that wouldn't be prudent or practical.

A cold check shouldn't yield drastically different results. should give you an idea as to the consistency between the cylinders and let you know if anything major is out of whack. Just remember if you find any inconsistent cylinders to drop some oil in them to check and see if it's rings or valves/ head gasket.

[ScrappyJack]

Roger that. Will make a run to Sears this weekend (if I can find a vehicle!) to pick up the necessary doo-dads and gadgets.

Posts will be coming henceforth.

[Rob Harfman]

Jack, I can attest to the timing being set correctly:D . I know the guy who did it;) . Let me know if you are planning on sending the 16g back as a core. I'll let you send back a toasted 14b instead.

[DOHCTERTURBO]

man that really sux jack... your old car is running real nice though ;) ... but cant deny the fact that your new car has more less alot of potential and is doing very well aside from wee 16g:cry: