Smoking on startup and idle...Turbo seals?

[DAVID C]

This is a long one! My car smokes mainly on startup (blue). I suspect the turbo seals. There is oil inside the throttle body and intake. I also saw oil in the turbo compressor housing. But, there is no oil in the intercooler or outlet pipe to t/b. The oil is bad enough that all the vacuum hoses swelled up. The wastegate hose blew off, overboosted, and blew the headgaskets!
I'm not totally convinced it's the turbo seals. This did all start after complete rebuild #2 (comp cam wiped a lobe and put metal filings thoughout the motor.) I flushed the turbo at that time, but did not send it out. I've had the cylinders honed and re-ringed twice and had the heads done twice, valve seals 4 times, and intake gaskets 3 times. Has anyone had turbo seals fail and show these symtoms? I was dissappointed to get no oil from the intercooler after hanging it upside down for 2 days now. Any suggestions before I toss a set of headgaskets in it and replace the turbo. The motor is out ofthe car. I can't afford to waste any more money on this problem. All of these rebuilds have been done in the last 2800 miles. Dave C.

 

[Red Regal T]

My stock turbo had 110,000 miles on it. Big puff of white smoke on startup and smoked at idle. Smoke at idle got pretty good so I installed a rebuilt stock turbo and all the smoking mentioned went away. My opinion on your car is that the turbo seals are gone. I guess your mistake is that you waited too long to accept this fact and may have caused yourself additional problems.

 

[DAVID C]

Right On Red Regal T! I also have 2 of these cars. Yesterday I took my (bad) turbo, and installed it on my wifes car. I drove it for about 20 miles. Sure enough, there was the smoke. When I removed the turbo it was obvious the seals were leaking from the compressor side and the exhaust side. It was hard to tell on mine because the oil was everywhere (except for the intercooler). I returned her turbo to her car and confirmed the smoking was gone. I feel much better now. It sounds funny, but I was never so glad to see HER car smoke! I'll order that PTE 52 I've been wanting on Monday. While it sounds bad that my motor got rebuilt so many times, it wasn't a total waste. Each time I found something wrong that would have given me trouble sooner or later. The bad cam was the killer. It cost me about $2000 in parts and machine work, not to mention my labor and aggrevation and I now have a .010/.010 crank instead of std. Dave C.

 

[Red Regal T]

Glad you got it sorted out. I posted yesterday about a similar smoking problem with a 2000mi rebuild on my turbo. Can't get much response. Must be rocket science.