Valve Stem Seals Or Turbo? Help A Canadian

[gotRICE?]

Is there blue smoke when you start up, or do you have to start driving?

Take off your hot pipe and your inlet and see if there's alot of oil there. If you can manager it, take off your down pipe and have a look at the back of your turbo.

Do a quick compression test and see where you're at. If you smoking issue are related to you're throttle, as in when you step into it you see smoke, then could be your turbo. or engine.

If you think it's valve seals then from what i gather, its related to burning off primarily in the first few mins of driving, and a hot engine will have parts expand and the seal will be better than when it's cold. A test someone told me about was to get up to a high speed in a high (like highway speeds) let off the throttle and let it wind down, then give step into it and watch for a poof out of our mirror.

If you want to know if it's your PCV just out of curiosity, block off the hose going to your PCV, and block off your inlet hose on the other end. Vent your valve covers to ATM just as a test and see if you're still seeing it.

No smoke what so ever on start up. And as much as it made me cringe, i even have it a good rev stone cold and still nothing.

It takes till the car is just starting to warm up to do it (maybe the oil is starting to get thin enough to get past the stem seals or rings??).

Then itl do it for a bit, and once its warmed up, as far as i can tell it doesnt do it anymore

Not looking foward to a rebuild... but i have yet to take off the hot pipe and intake pipe to check for oil.

My PCV is gone, old photo, looks much nicer than this now but same setup:

[Paradis v.1]

No smoke what so ever on start up. And as much as it made me cringe, i even have it a good rev stone cold and still nothing.

It takes till the car is just starting to warm up to do it (maybe the oil is starting to get thin enough to get past the stem seals or rings??).

Then itl do it for a bit, and once its warmed up, as far as i can tell it doesnt do it anymore

Not looking foward to a rebuild... but i have yet to take off the hot pipe and intake pipe to check for oil.

My PCV is gone, old photo, looks much nicer than this now but same setup:

Yah, that sounds alot more like mine. Kind of unpredictable beyond the fact it's usually once i start driving after a couple mins, and then it teeters off the longer i drive. Are you sure its throttle dependent? Try in your first couple mins driving, down shifting a ways away from a stop and then when you get there, through into neutral so you're suddenly going into vac and tell me what you see.

also for the sake of curiosity, vent your crankcase to ATM just for an hour so it's not going into your inlet and tell me what you see

[gotRICE?]

It is vented to atmo See in the hose that goes from the exhaust cam cover to inlet? Theres an alloy bung in there

I just did that because i didnt have anything to block up the inlet, and the breather. So kept it tidy (its now black, minus cable ties) by keeping the hose there.

[Paradis v.1]

^^^ any news from you?

Nothing conclusive from my end. I still think i'm seeing/smelling some wafts, but no doubt there's been a massive difference since venting to ATM

[gotRICE?]

Will report back tomorrow

Im not allowed to do "mechanical" work in my parking lot. So will be doing my checking at a mates workshop in the morning.

Am going to check the turbo pipes, and re-connect my PCV to the manifold as i have been advised to try.

[gotRICE?]

Ok so the update.

Went out and started up cold this morning, and nothing as usual. Car got a little warm, and there goes the ozone.

Drove on the freeway for a good 20 mins to the workshop, pulled in, and was followed by a cloud So still doing it while hot.

Proceeded to pull of the hot pipe, and intake pipe.

The compressor side looks brand new. Im not even kidding. There is not a spot of oil on it anywhere. So this is good.

Hot pipe is clean as a whistle too. No sludge, nor any oil coating of any kind. Kinda impressed to be honest!

The bad thing about this, is that its engine related

Re-connected the stock PCV back into the system as it is OEM. And believe it or not, i havnt seen a single whiff of smoke since!

If i was in Australia, Mr SECURITY would be tripping over a large case of beer when he got home tonight.

I dont want to count my apples too soon of course. But i drove around a fair bit and got not thing at all. So smiles from this end. Will check again tomorrow from cold startup.

[Paradis v.1]

Ok so the update.

Went out and started up cold this morning, and nothing as usual. Car got a little warm, and there goes the ozone.

Drove on the freeway for a good 20 mins to the workshop, pulled in, and was followed by a cloud So still doing it while hot.

Proceeded to pull of the hot pipe, and intake pipe.

The compressor side looks brand new. Im not even kidding. There is not a spot of oil on it anywhere. So this is good.

Hot pipe is clean as a whistle too. No sludge, nor any oil coating of any kind. Kinda impressed to be honest!

The bad thing about this, is that its engine related

Re-connected the stock PCV back into the system as it is OEM. And believe it or not, i havnt seen a single whiff of smoke since!

If i was in Australia, Mr SECURITY would be tripping over a large case of beer when he got home tonight.

I dont want to count my apples too soon of course. But i drove around a fair bit and got not thing at all. So smiles from this end. Will check again tomorrow from cold startup.

Engine related? do you mean thats what you were thinking before you tried the pcv valve trick? Regadless good to see we talked each other through this

Ya, i'm starting allow myself to get excited. i still don't understand from a mechanical stand point, but whatever. I'm sure i've seen a little puff or two, but nothing even remotely close to what i was seeing. Could be that my valve seals were going in combination with the pcv valve issue. we'll see

[gotRICE?]

Yeah sorry i meant that since the turbo was mint, i was dreading that it was engine related.

Im guessing the crank was under too much pressure and it was blowing past the piston rings? One thing i did notice was that the little bung that RIPS supply with the catch can was actually slowly working its way out of the rubber seal! And the bung is so friggin tight that i had to replace the pcv seal twice because it tore.

Might flick RIPS an email and ask if they have had any problems like that. See what they have to say, im sure they will be interested to know.

Good luck with yours! Ill keep checking back, and if i get smoke again ill let you know haha.

Stupid cars

[SECURITY]

glad it worked out for you boys.

what happens is if the crank case cant ventilate then it will blow out of several places - through your rings, through your turbo's oil seal ring since the oil drains directly into the crank and worse case is you start to blow things like your rear main seal and front crank seal - it has the capability of causing a huge mess.

like i told you in PM gotRICE - you can still use the RIPS catch can just dont block off the PCV.

[royb31]

glad it worked out for you boys.

what happens is if the crank case cant ventilate then it will blow out of several places - through your rings, through your turbo's oil seal ring since the oil drains directly into the crank and worse case is you start to blow things like your rear main seal and front crank seal - it has the capability of causing a huge mess.

like i told you in PM gotRICE - you can still use the RIPS catch can just dont block off the PCV.

by what iyou guys are saying it sounds like valve guides/seals , sounds like its givin u a hed ache. Its not your turbo , as for pcv they can get gummed up take it out clean it wth solvent . oil grade is ok if its winter ,10 w 40 for summer ,i know how cold it gets used to work in fort mac oil grade was a difficulty in our large cat 3500 series engines [78 liter 2300 hp] in cold weather. but your symtoms sound like guides seals

hope this helps

[gotRICE?]

by what iyou guys are saying it sounds like valve guides/seals , sounds like its givin u a hed ache. Its not your turbo , as for pcv they can get gummed up take it out clean it wth solvent . oil grade is ok if its winter ,10 w 40 for summer ,i know how cold it gets used to work in fort mac oil grade was a difficulty in our large cat 3500 series engines [78 liter 2300 hp] in cold weather. but your symtoms sound like guides seals

hope this helps

Im guessing you didnt read every post.

We came to different conclusions based on different activity.

Turns out my catch can setup was causing the problem, and re-instating the PCV fixed it.

BTW Paradis v.1, still rocking the non-smokey ness!

[Paradis v.1]

^^ haha, nice! Me not so much. Turns out mine looks to be a valve seal issue after all. I did see a reduction in the severity and frequency of my blue puffing, so it appears my ventilation set up was adding to the issue, but i am still seeing a little bit of oil love smoking in the first few minutes before my engine heats up and expands to have the valves sit tighter.

Oh well. I have an extra head that i may plug away at and fix up and fit it on later this summer. May as well grab a better headgasket as well as i should have one while i'm running 18-19 psi