snwbrderphat540

The title says it all. here is all the information and tests/inspections I have performed.

Head completely rebuilt, new valve seals/valve stem seals. vavle job. Cleaned and milled

1.5mm Kameari MLS head gasket.

ARP head studs, torqued and still in spec at 65 ft/lbs. yup, i went a tad over the 60ft.lbs because I felt like it so shove it :P

honed cylinder walls.

new piston rings, and the gaps are staggard properly

compression is 165-175 accross the board, still not broken, only ran never driven so the rings probably arent fully seated yet but still this is ALOT of smoke.

oil level still right where it should be

turbo rebuilt, turbonetic t3/t04e 50 trim. 0 miles on it just ran

now the head is getting oil. but when I pop the oil filler plug out it is smking a bit from there. same with the dip stick. nothing bad, but still smokey

PCV is removed. plugged in the intake manifold and open to the atmosphere in the block.

the turbo return line I noticed is kinked some, not fully but a decent amount so that needs fixed and I am sure is contributing to the problem but I doubt is the cause of this much smoke.

intercooler pipes are SPOTLESS so no oil is coming in through there. same with the throttle plate. clean as a whistle.

sooooo... any ideas fellas? lol. this one is a real pickle. I'm hoping its just a combo of the return line and not broken in engine

oh and on start up the smoke isnt there, after half a minute its starting to smell. rev it up it billows blue smoke. keep reving it and the smoke isn't as bad, so it's like it is collecting at idle and burning off most of it when rev'd

NismoPick

Sounds like the rings still need to be seated. How long has the motor run? Did you prime the system w/ no spark plugs before starting it? Did you use motor oil or WD40 to install the pistons?

On my Geo motor rebuild, I soaked the pistons in WD40, and applied tons of oil to the cylinder walls before install. Then primed the oil system by cranking it w/o plugs until the oil light went off, started, let it idle for about 30 seconds, then raised the rpm little by little to about 5k. It smoked for the first 5 min, then clean as a whistle.

EDIT... is there a real reason why you removed the PCV?

snwbrderphat540

yes cause it is an N42 manifold and the PCV hit the turbine housing and I didn't feel like relocating it.

And the rings were oiled, WELL OILED. I pooled oil in those pistons at one point. While the head was off because the motor was hard to hand crank. then cleaned it out and put the head on. Primed the oil pump. It cranked a fair amount of times prior to starting. It idled for a few minutes. it has been reved. It has probably a total run time of about an hour now.

theramz

I think you over oiled your pistons. A race engine builder told me to only oil the oil rings and shirts. It will take a few hours to burn all that off and the rings won't seat until it does. It's not enough to foul the plugs but it smokes for a while.

snwbrderphat540

I was starting to think if that was a possibility after I wrote that... Yeah def not fouling. infact I only found oil residue on one plug. the rest are black though so they need cleaned. I think I will straighten out that oil return line, get the car together and drive it around my block for a couple hundred miles hahahaha. Oh god that will get boring. but oh well. then see what happens. I'll update this after that. until then, I'm open to any other ideas.

hoov100

Whats the ring gaps, bore size and piston size? Have you considered the possibility of a bad or incorrectly installed head gasket?

snwbrderphat540

def no issue with the HG. I made sure to check that it seated right on the block and didnt block or restrict any passages. and putting a head on using ARP studs makes it hard to set it on the gasket at any sort of angle which could cause the gasket to get askewed. or whatever. Bore and stuff wasn't touched. just honed. forgot the gap, just remember it was in spec.

hoov100

If you bumped the hone or even just cleaned up the cylinders and didn't replace the rings then I highly doubt the rings are in spec. Did you double check the head surface and block surface prior to installing everything? Like someone ****ing up the surfacing job on the head and not noticing?


Your problems describe either rings or a HG problem. Also the tools you used to gap the rings, when where they last calibrated?

snwbrderphat540

The rings were replaced. Pretty sure I said that. and not sure you can calibrate feeler gauges hehe. The head was resurfaced and set on a folded up towel on a wooden surface for a while. So shouldn't have warped. Block wasnt decked just cleaned and there were no gauges. And I honestly dont feel much need to deck the top of a cast iron block if it cleaned up well. all the old gasket material was removed. I highly highly doubt I'm having a problem anywhere near ring gap issues nor head mating HG to block issues. Not saying there can't be a ring issue for some reason, just doubtfully a gaping issue. And even less likely a HG problem. This seems to only be a slightly rich smoking and oil. No smell or color that would indicate coolant so another reason I'd doubt a HG issue. I'd expect coolant to seep into the cylinders and be more evident than oil if there was a problem with any headgasket issue being an MLS and all.

snwbrderphat540

Oh yah... The P90 head didn't have a cam oiler bar right? I'm so used to earlier Z heads with one and I don't ever remember taking one off or putting one on the P90.... So i felt I should ask even though it risks me looking not super smart haha.

hoov100

I say drive it and if it consumes oil (not just going by the smoke) then tear it apart and go through it. Freshly machined parts don't always mean they where machined correctly. Over oiling on assembly wouldn't do anything because the oil would drain out the second you flipped it over. (with a tiny bit of residual)

I have a good question that would solve the HG dilema, under boost does it smoke more, less or the same? Does it smoke more under heavy decel?

Not that I know of unless you swapped cam towers with a head that had a oiler bar. You wouldn't have any oil pressure if you didn't have the oil bar installed though and it would just flood the valve cover with oil.

snwbrderphat540

wow, so update...






it's all together, and running, and.... DRIVING!!!!! Dash is in, everything is working and no electrical fires. I do havea couple issues. One is, the thing burns oil like it's nobodies business, I know i probably over oiled the rings when I put the new ones in, but I also think they are just shot, because they should have seated better than they have by now, compression is GREAT but a warm engine leakdown test is telling me not so good news. And as soon as the car reaches operating temp it does this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCRoBaY9DR4

however it doesn't burn ANY OIL AT ALL until after 5minutes plus into runing. So it is definitely a after warm issue.

my other issue is, I have a BAD cut out when driving. Free reving it is great. under load it takes a crap. You can see examples of what I am talking about 1:25 seconds into this video and from there on out. Only when giving it 1/2 throttle or more and when it is over 3lbs of boost (8lbs is what it runs full at). I checked and there is no vacuum leak, and checked for possible sources of a boost leak. Nothing, I had one bad plug wire for sure out a new set of NGK wires so I am wondering if they all are kind of crap. I just don't know if to pin it as an electronics issue, fuel pressure issue, or crap piston rings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt-62uP80gU

oh and if you drive teh car, there is no oil burning, it has to be at idle for 30seconds plus the rev it and it all blows out, anything above 2k RPM you can rev it then and it seems to burn clean. Freshly rebuilt turbo, absolutely no oil in the intake system anywhere.

Also forgot mention, it did once do a very clean pull, I was a bit premature on giving it throttle to run time/break in, but only one second gear pull and it hit boost and sun the rear tires. So that leads me to believe it since developed an electrical problem with ignition/air meter reading, or something with the rings.doubtful it could be anything else.

NismoPick

Maybe it's the valve stem seals leaking? Have you pulled the spark plugs to check the tips? How's the oil look?

As for the hesitation, I say check the fuel injectors. The more & more I hear about the L28ET hesitating, the more & more I think it's the injectors. I'm going to get my two sets flow tested to make sure I can get a full set close to each other.

snwbrderphat540

only one seems to get really oil covered, and the other semi, the rest have a nice brown coloration to their tips. I was thinking the injectors or ignition delivery...

hoov100

With that last post, I'm thinking a leaking oil seal in the turbo on the exhaust side and/or a head gasket issue. Having you done a compression/leak down test on it?

snwbrderphat540

Im almost positive I stated that I did. The head has new valve stem seals. The HG is an MLS with ARP headstuds. Head was planed and torqued properly. Compression test shows gret compession. A cold engine leak down test shows good sealing. A warm engine leakdown test though had bad news. tht's w im looking at rings for the burning oil. But it shuld still run better than that in boost.