Fuel's Winter Project: Build It Before It Blows

JoshK

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Just got done pulling the plugs. Third from front on drivers side was all wet. Think I found the issue. Now how can I tell if it is a valve seal or a piston ring. I put new valve seals in when I built the engine, not sure one would go bad that fast and cause this much smoke.





 

cm581978

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Vid is coming up private on my ipad.


No dyno day. I decided to drive the car to a town about 45 minutes away to have some fun with a few friends. Had some fun rolling in and out of boost about the whole way there. When I got to the town I noticed quite a bit of smoke coming from the exhaust. I went straight to my friends house and figured it was the seals in the turbo that had finally let go. Decided not to mess around too much and headed home. The car smoked the whole way home and the following video is it running in the driveway right when I pulled in.

The troubling part is the car feels and sounds like it has a miss. There is also a noticeable vibration when putting any load on the engine or transition into boost.

If it were just the oil seals in the turbo then that oil would just be going straight into the exhaust and not into the engine causing a fouled plug right? I am going to try to pull the turbo off tomorrow and see if there is any oil in the pre-turbo piping, but this miss/running rough has me thinking maybe a piston ring went?

 

JoshK

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I have always had quite a bit of vapor coming out the breathers on this engine. You can really see it on the drivers side in the video I posted. I even get some oil around the front coil boot on the passengers side. Related to the current issue or not?
 

rcm90

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I have always had quite a bit of vapor coming out the breathers on this engine. You can really see it on the drivers side in the video I posted. I even get some oil around the front coil boot on the passengers side. Related to the current issue or not?

Your most likely getting blow-by on that one cylinder causing the oil on the plug and excessive vapors out of the breathers.
You might be able to get away with re-ringing the piston. How many miles have you put on the motor?
 
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rcm90

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Like 05 said, no way to tell until its apart but if you have had a lot of vapor out of the breathers from day one I'd lean towards a compression ring. Unfortunately it could have broke and wiped out the ring land. Did the engine sound any different than normal after you noticed the oil?
 

JoshK

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Yes. I had a noticeable vibration yesterday under load when the smoking started that progressed into what felt like a miss also. Figured the miss was when the plug fouled.
 

JoshK

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Engine has about 2500 miles on it I would say. High boost evrytime its out too
 

weather man

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I always have quite a bit of vapors coming out of my breathers as well...

Ditto, but my breather is right under my hood vent, easy to see. I do catch quite a bit of water/oil foam in my moroso breather catch can.
 

JoshK

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You guys are making more power/lbs of boost than I am too and don't have a mosquito fogger either. Something is broke
 

weather man

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You guys are making more power/lbs of boost than I am too and don't have a mosquito fogger either. Something is broke

No, no, agree, you picked up the vibration/smoke. Your just making everyone nervous who has vapor coming out of their breather :)
 

JoshK

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Oh, I got ya. Just have my mind going crazy right now until I pin point the issue
 

Dark_horse

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No, no, agree, you picked up the vibration/smoke. Your just making everyone nervous who has vapor coming out of their breather :)


Haha... I was just pointing out that the vapors coming out of the breathers is not an alarming issue. How ever your mosquito fogger is... Building motors is really fun just not fun on the wallet... Sucks for a moment but then its on to bigger and better!!
 

retfr8flyr

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Do a leak down test on it. If you have air coming out of the dip stick tube, it's piston related. If you can hear air inside the intake, it's valve related.
 

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