Oil leak on the turbo

[davidvdm]

Cedric, on my 2,7TD, I also had a fair amount of oil in the intake. Then I made a oil catch can like yours, mine is just white .. Then I breath it to a chassis member where I have never seen any oil drip or even moisture. It seems that the slight vacuum created by the resistance of the air filter, does induce a lot more "breathing" compared to just an open pipe.

My intake looked much better, but was still not totally clean. I was told that an "older" turbo that has seen some kilos, will at start up, push a bit of oil past its seal until the oil pressure comes up properly and "seats", or floats the compressor wheel/shaft. I actually went through the exercise of removing the intake pipe from the turbo outlet and watched it at start up. Just after startup, I have one or two trails of oil that comes from the turbo and creeps up the intake pipe. As soon as you start revving and the oil pressure is up to normal, no more oil trails from the pipe.

Now I am not saying this is normal, and in my case, without an IC, I can get away with it. But when the IC goes on, I will have to monitor the situation again and see how much gunk I'll be getting in there.

But I think the best would be to get it to a good turbo shop that can give you honest advice without just thinking of lining their pockets. Take that info and make an educated decision from there.

I am hoping my turbo lasts long enough till I have the budget to upgrade. The little turbo on the 2,7 can only do 1.3bar un-managed, and I run 1bar boost. Now with the 33's, it is working much harder than before, and running with very little redundancy, so something a little bigger would be my choice. Then I have the IC laying in my garage that just needs flanges built for the turbo and inlet manifold. I am not sure what that is going to do for me, maybe I can drop the boost a little to 0,8 or so.

[ChristoSlang]

Cedric, turbos do not necessarily require oil restrictors, so don't blindly start modifying it before you Google a lot more! Go to Garrett's site to start off your journey of discovery. They reckon the follwing:

"Garrett ball bearing turbochargers require less oil than journal bearing turbos. Therefore an oil inlet restrictor is recommended to achieve an oil pressure of 40-45psi entering the turbocharger for optimal performance."

So... for the VQ35HR motor (my 350z) I needed some oli restriction, because the motor has roughly twice the oil pressure of the TD42 and I'm running ball bearing turbos on it. For Chuck I'm stuck with an engine that has about half the oil pressure and runs a journal bearing turbo, so my guess (I've never bothered to check) is that it does not have an oil restrictor.

Best option is to find out what oil pressure your turbo expects. Google is your buddy here. If the pressure is too low you'll deffo kill the turbo's bearings.

Lastly - you can purchase nice oil catch cans cheaply at a lot of places. AutoStyle, Mr. Turbo, etc. will take your money and hand you a nice stainless steel jobby to help get rid of the oily muck that you're getting from the PCV pipe that feeds from the tappet cover, then into your air intake system and on through the turbo & intercooler...

[Michael]

I agree with Christo, do some googling. Im not an expert, but your turbo will ba a journal turbo and not a ballbearing turbo.
The oil in the boost pipes and intercooler is a very common thing and you can take a boost pipe of any turbo'd engine petrol or diesel new or old and you will find quite a bit of oil in the boost system.

I have rebuilt quite a bit of cars from Audi 3.0tdi to Golf 6 GTI's and every one of them had more that a tabke spoon of oil that settled in the intercoolers.

[juice]

Hi iron maiden brother
Just though about another problem that can acure, and have seen it it turbo cars
It the trubo drain that gets cloged up from the black sludge and the oil can't drain freely and you get the oil
Seeping at the bearings or journals because of back pressure which no turbo needs, this also happens when you overfill your oil and slows the drainage down , my be time to drop the sump and clean
One more thing and you and me have spoken about it and that's when your car battles to get air into the motor
It will try suck the air from other places and that where you can be getting your oil into the intercooler at the turbo
I have seen it on mine when the filter gets dirty even if you changed it yesterday one really dusty road and it can be block up
Now that the snorkel is on it is so much better check there is no sponge or bird nest in the airway
Its a oil burner get over it, as long as it is boosting a bit of oil has killed no one
You know my saying f cubed
Juice

[davidvdm]

Christo, so what do we do if we want to go ball bearing turbo on our donkeys. Is the turbo going to suffer oil starvation?

Cedric seems religious with his oil changes, so, unless he is running sludge in a can, I doubt he will have a dirty oil system. In fact, I think he said he was also running Delo, and that stuff is just about too good for our diesel motors. I need to run a service interval or tow with normal multigrade as I think I am just starting to get barrel glazing with all the little trips and cold starts.

[ChristoSlang]

Christo, so what do we do if we want to go ball bearing turbo on our donkeys. Is the turbo going to suffer oil starvation?

David, my Madman tells me that I have up to 3 bar of oil pressure on the TD42. That's nicely in the ballpark a Garrett ball bearing turbo

The oil in the boost pipes and intercooler is a very common thing and you can take a boost pipe of any turbo'd engine petrol or diesel new or old and you will find quite a bit of oil in the boost system.

Agreed - if you add more pressure, you should expect more blow-by. If it bothers you, add a catch can...

Lotsa stuff!

On the money, dude! That's why Cedric and I went for big diameter plumbing without silencers - the less the pressure you have behind the turbo, the faster it spools and the less stressed its bearings & seals are. Naturally aspirated exhausts are very different, though.

Luckily our diesel motors do not have butterfly valves (that close off the inlet manifold when you're off the pedal), so we have no need for the blow-off valves (aka dump valves) that a boosted a petrol engine needs. Bargain!

On the VG35HR the turbos are located so low that they are barely higher than the sump, requiring careful routing of the oil returns to prevent smoking. No such issues on the inline TD42 where the turbo sits nice and high alongside the motor - the oil return drops vertically down to the sump. More bargain!

[ricster]

Thanks boys!!!

Good info given .....

The catch can I have on is clearly working very well, as noticed by the small amount of oil landing up in my experimental catch can connected to the end of the proper catch can I fitted a good few years ago.

I will do some checking up on the pressures required to run my turbo.

I'm sure the short trips I do with the Iron Maiden are not doing the turbo any good, as the oil is just collecting large amounts of soot and sheeeeet. Having said this, it makes sense the seals are not in the greatest shape any more....