sorry for such a long post...

how many of you have or had a turbo system on completely stock internals? how many miles have you put on the motor since then/until something internal did give out? and if something did go out, what was it?

im pushing 6 lbs into stock internals on an original motor (factory headgasket and everything) that currently has 140,000 miles. the turbo was installed at 115,000. i am now beginning to have problems. im getting too much blow by and oil is coming out of any place it can. im being told valve seals, piston rings, headgasket, etc. i posted something on this recently and since then have done some searching, but cannot find a solution. im aware of the pcv and that oil will come out of my breather. but this is too much. it was so much compression i had to replace my vc gasket because it was getting into the wires and plugs.

the head is pulled at the moment. everything APPEARS like its fine. the headgasket isnt noticably destroyed. spark plugs are clean. theyre not dirty and they werent even fouling out as many say would happen if rings were bad. the cylinder walls are still smooth as glass. my buddy believes its headgasket, but i dont wanna slap all this back together to still have the problem. i know a rebuild would be the proper thing to do, but its no where near in my budget. this car is my DD and i need to get it back on the road.

I did a leakdown test yesterday and after checking it 2 hours later, all 4 cylinders were holding the oil. this morning i checked again, and cylinders 2 and 3 was only covering close to half the piston head (the car and engine is currently jacked up and at an angle with back tires on ground). but thats after being in there for 12 hours.

any ideas?

thanks in advance.

Do you have compression test #'s? How is the car running? Is it overheating? I know what a leak-down test is, and all I've heard of is using compressed air to find out the source of a leak within the engine, nothing about using oil.

My suspicion is you have worn rings or broken ring lands.. which I feel is my problem as well. I've only got ~2k on my turbo setup running 8psi daily but I think a 16psi boost spike when my WG line melted did the ringlands in.

Do this.. get a compression tester, they're like $9 at Harbor Freight. Google how to do the compression test or whatever you gotta do. Run the test, write down the numbers you get, then pour a cap to cap and a half of engine oil into each cylinder, let it set a few minutes, then do the test again. Write down those numbers. If your numbers go up drastically it's the rings.

perhaps im mistaken of the test ive done and if it is even a valid one for that matter, i poured oil in the cylinders and seen if there was a drastic leak or seepage down into the bottom. i was told to test my rings by doing that.

compression numbers? well my friend and i have already taken the head off without doing a compression test. we had a retard moment and just dove right into this. im aware of the brutal mistake we made...

as far as running, the car ran fine, no overheating from what i know. temp gauge was working, but i replaced vc gasket and after putting the vc back on it the gauge stopped for the rest of the day, got in my car next morning, it worked without any overheating, and then the following day it stopped again, havent driven it since...im stumped on that as well.

the car was seeming sluggish, but i dont know if thats because of me babying it or not. when i drove it i was barely getting high up into the rpms because i didnt wanna put to much pressure on anything.

my friend is stuck on it being the headgasket, but thats usually coolant related.

thanks alot man. yeah i got my head back from the shop on friday. im gonna get what i need and start slapping her back together.

GL, hope everything works out.

While you are in there change the crank angle sensor. That thing was more of a p.i.t.a then actually putting the turbo on.

I built my turbo 2g with blood sweat and tears....then sold it @ a profit . Email me if you have any questions abuford@chicagotuning.com

We all have ran turbo on stock internals before, some last a long time some dont. The concept is older than this board actually! Same with running a 14b on a stock manifold.

Do not go changing sensors if you dont need to.....Thats poor spending Adrian.

A leakdown test is not pulling the head and filling the cylinders with oil to see which one leaks out!

Now that you have it apart you have a couple choices:

1. Put the motor together with a new headgasket and drive it till it quits or you have more money for a re-ring job.

2. Pull the motor and drop in a fresh rebuild.


The reason you have so much blowby is due to the rings being worn out. Its not a headgasket (permitting it ran fine while it was together), its not valve seals or a valve job. Its all wear and tear combined.

You can do a simple re-ring job for about 500.00 if you do the work yourself and the cylinders are not out-of-round or Tapered.

Terry