Turbo Issues

[Sky]

Heyas,

After a couple of years of blissful FD ownership, I finally went through my first rebuild towards the end of last year. I\'ve had the car back since May, and I ran it in for a good thousand miles or so before putting my foot down.

Something\'s broken

On WOT, it pulls fine up to somewhere around 4-4.5k revs, but then it stops pulling and I get quite a lot of white-ish smoke out of the exhaust. It smells pretty bad at this point (burnt oil I guess?).

Now, it doesn\'t do this if I accelerate slowly up to 7k revs (ie, no boost), and there\'re no symptoms at all below 4k. It\'s been suggested that the oil seals on the 2nd turbo have gone, hence it\'s dumping oil direct into the exhaust, and the smoke. This fits with observations. The engine itself seems fine - it\'s not really using much oil now (driving <4k revs nearly all the time, and not driving a lot anyway) and there\'s no problem with coolant levels (rebuild was down to coolant seals, but that\'s all good now).

Is there anything else it\'s likely to be? Perhaps something with the oil injectors? I\'m running stock twins - how much should I expect to pay for a replacement turbo, or would I be better off getting the existing one reconditioned?

Any advice would be much appreciated,

Rick

[shaunwil]

Sounds like the turbos. Just do a search in the for sale section for some 2nd hand ones from somebody that has gone single. Recon ones are usually very expensive !

Shaun

[iaint]

Hi Rick,

Long time no see!  Sounds like the perfect time to whack a single tubby on there

Reconditioning the twins will be expensive as will new ones (more then a small single!).  Buying second hand might work or you might end up in the same boat in a few months time - no guarantees that a second hand turbo pack will last.

[clive]

Hey Rick, good to see  your still around, thought we\'d lost you to the piston brigade.

From reading your post my advise would be before you think about other turbos etc etc would be contact whoever built your engine, blimey I know your on the edge of the world down there but you  can\'t have done that many miles since May.

[Sky]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Hi Iain!
I\'ve been meaning to get up to an MRC South meet, but it barely seems worth it without the car If I had the money, I\'d have gone single when I did the rebuild. But I\'m still a student RX7 owner (PhD\'s not due to finish until next year some time) and the money situation isn\'t great.

At least if I buy a turbo pack off someone I\'ll get two shots at it, only one of mine\'s duff

Hi Clive!

I\'ve still got the rotary bug too bad to consider a piston replacement

I\'ve been back to the engine builder a number of times. It\'s a local place - the owner\'s a genuine car enthusiast, had been doing some other work on the car and has worked on first gens before. I lent him the turrentine rebuild dvds and I got to see how work progressed on it. I\'ve got a bunch of pictures of it too, I keep meaning to sort them out. We\'re both trying to work out what\'s wrong, and I don\'t think I\'ll end up paying much to get it sorted.

I\'d love to have had a go at it myself, but I just don\'t have the space right now. It must be a great feeling to know you built your own engine.

[Adriansturgess]

4.5K is just about where the second turbo would normally cut in so sounds like that could well be it. I may have a good used turbo pack for sale (if interested PM me).