OK.. i've been troubleshooting some very severe problems with my LSJ turbo setup for a month or two now..

To bring everyone up to speed this is what I have in the car:

-Custom Log Tubular intake manifold
-Custom exhaust manifold
-Custom aluminum turbo piping
-Tial wastegate
-[brand name here] blow off valve, (its a good brand, just cant remem name, turbo something)
-Garret GT3071R turbo
-Custom 3" downpipe
-3 inch exhaust
-Im running 17psi on stage one and 22psi on stage two with my dual stage boost controller
-Its tuned to 350hp approximately +/-15hp.
-The turbo has been freshly rebuilt with a new core because I thought the seals were screwed

What I have done to date:

-Compression test (165psi across the board)
-Leak down test (All cylinders except the second one from the passenger side were near the 20% leakdown) the second from the left was higher percentage but I think I may have done it inaccurately.
-My oil drain is as high as I can go in the oil pan, and its a 5/8" id hose I believe
-My feed line is from the back of the block (removed on of those studs in the back, closest to passenger side)
-Discovered that all spark plugs are soaked in oil or gas or mixture of both.

What I discovered today:

I know my tune is rich at idle and it has always smoked a blackish/white at idle until I got the car moving. When I installed all my piping and turbo back on I made sure all the piping was clean inside. Today I wanted to try something new, I unhooked the boost pipe from the turbo and started the car.... Long story short I found that there is definately oil coming out of the cold side of the turbo. Which means its also probably coming out of the hot side since its a freshly rebuilt turbo. So My suspicision is my problem has something to do with crankcase pressure or a shitty drain line. Oh and one other thing, the vent on the valve cover and front of the head are just vented to the atmosphere right now.

Questions I have:

1) What should I check next?
2) If a piston ring is shot (ie. 2nd one from passenger side) can this cause the crankcase to build up pressure and force oil through the turbo oil seals?
3) Can someone with a similar setup post some pictures of their oil drain and feed setup?

Besides that im all out of ideas.. My next step was going to be put in pistons and rings, but after discovering the oil in the turbo cold piping im stumped again!. PLEASE HELP, this is driving me nuts!

 

are you having any issues at cruising or w.o.t.? Or just smoking at idle? What were the readings on all cylinders on the leakdown? also, 20% is on the higher side of acceptable

 

clears up for the most part when im at wide open throttle.. smoke only comes back when im at idle.

The leakdown tester I used wasnt 100% working properly.. I took the fact that it was consistant across all that it was good.

 

how many miles on the motor? Is it all stock? Did the problem happen as soon as the turbo swap was done?

Also, is the oil return bent/kinked or anything? And where on the oil pan is it?

 

stock internals, oil drain isnt kinked or blocked, 50,000km on the motor.

 

did this start happening as soon as you put the turbo on the car?

 

just throwing this out there but you could very possibly need rings. i too did both a compression and leakdown test and the numbers looked good. here is what my car did:

S7300785.mp4 video by venom0713 - Photobucket
and this is what the problem cylinder sparkplug looked like:


i dont have any pics of my setup but it sounds like it is just like yours. regardless though, when i replaced the rings, i no longer had that smoking issue.

 

venom, thats exactly what it looks like except mine has a ton of fuel in there too..which I know is due to my tune..

My spark plugs have way more oil on them but look very similar. But its all the spark plugs..

Roughly how much is this going to run me to change the rings and pistons out? Also if you did it by yourself, was it difficult? Is there a how to?

 

To much fuel will wash the oil out if cylinders causing premature wear and smoke. How rich is it?

 

Out if curiosity, do you have an oil restrictor on the turbo oil feed?

 

Frogs beat me to it. Garrett ball bearing turbos need an oil restrictor

 

Well, its not gonna be fun. You could do it yourself if you have the tools/knowledge. But I would buy diamond pistons and rings.. I forget how much they are. Look it up on turbotechracing.com but if your spark plugs look like mine, you definately have a ring issue. I would change rings/pistons and then do the break in and then get a tune asap.

 

This. Ball bearing turbos can't be hit with the 100+psi of oil pressure these motors put out. It just goes right past the seals.

 

There is an oil restrictor on the turbo.. I should take it off and measure the size of it.. What size should it be??

The problem with my spark plugs is they are ALL covered in oil.. they dont necessarily have the deposits on the electrode like yours do..

 

yeah, i dont want to tell you to tear the motor down and replace stuff that might not need to be replaced. i just know that my issue was my rings werent installed correctly on one of my cylinders so i had to tear it down and replace them. *cough* Bates *cough*

 

How long have you been running rich and how rich is it? Do you have a wideband?

I ran pretty rich for a while and didn't wash out the walls on mine. You've gotta be dumping a **** load of fuel at idle to have washed it out, but that sounds like what you did if it's every cylinder...

 

165 psi on a compression test is VERY low for these cars. 210 is where it should be.
I think you have other problems also however