Dado Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 So I figured it was the valve cover gasket for sure, so I replaced it. I cleaned everything up and went for a drive and its still smokey. Took out the turbo and up pipe, cleaned everything in the area to a spotless state. There is no dripping from the valve cover. In fact, there is no sign of oil dripping anywhere, other than on the outside of the up pipe heat shield itself. I am completely baffled. I had the turbo out, and the bushings were tight and the turbo itself was spotless in regards to external oil. There is no smoke coming out of the exhaust at all, just the passenger side of the engine bay. I inspected the rubber hose for the turbo oil dump and it was intact and still seemingly supple enough to seal. For good measure I replaced the little spring clamp on the bottom of that hose with a nice screw type hose clamp. Nothing changed. Also, it pretty much only happens when I get on the power. I left the car idling in the driveway for about 20 minutes and it stopped smoking. Took the car back out for a spirited drive and it was a cloud as soon as I parked it. Any ideas of what to check next? I have seen people mention stuff about PCV. What do I look for? There doesn't seem to be any oil pooling up anywhere on top of the engine. The whole block is spotless. I am pretty certain that it is in fact engine oil and not power steering fluid based on the smell. The oil seems to be hitting the top/front side of the up pipe, so it couldn't be shooting from the power steering lines anyway, especially with how clean everything else looks. I am completely stumped here... If you have any ideas, please fire away! I have tried to be thorough in my explanation of what I did today, but feel free to ask any questions for clarification. Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WRX USA Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 I had something similar that turned out to be the hard oil feed lines underneath the turbo inlet. I couldn't see any oil pooling but it would smoke. I went with the upgraded Infamous oil feed line kit to solve this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesA Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 At the rear of the passenger-side cylinder head, there is the oil line to the turbo with the banjo bolt. There should be two copper sealing washers, one on either side of the banjo bolt. If oil is leaking from there it would drip onto the uppipe. A slow drip from here would be hard to see during inspection. It seems your leak occurs only when oil pressure is higher, so oil could be making its way past the sealing washers only when the engine is revved up. If you reused the old copper washers, they might not seal as well as fresh ones would. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dishwasher Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 This might be a stupid recommendation, but are you sure the passenger cv boot is ok? It has a tendency to split open, and shoot grease all over your up pipe making it nice and smokey. Brought to you by Pfizer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dado Posted August 1, 2017 Author Share Posted August 1, 2017 I had something similar that turned out to be the hard oil feed lines underneath the turbo inlet. I couldn't see any oil pooling but it would smoke. I went with the upgraded Infamous oil feed line kit to solve this problem. One of my next steps will be to take off the intake manifold and all that jazz to have a look. I will check this out. At the rear of the passenger-side cylinder head, there is the oil line to the turbo with the banjo bolt. There should be two copper sealing washers, one on either side of the banjo bolt. If oil is leaking from there it would drip onto the uppipe. A slow drip from here would be hard to see during inspection. It seems your leak occurs only when oil pressure is higher, so oil could be making its way past the sealing washers only when the engine is revved up. If you reused the old copper washers, they might not seal as well as fresh ones would. I had definitely considered this as a possible source, but when I removed the turbo, everything back there looked really clean. Maybe a bit too clean... This might be a stupid recommendation, but are you sure the passenger cv boot is ok? It has a tendency to split open, and shoot grease all over your up pipe making it nice and smokey. I definitely considered this, and at this point wish it were the case, but the CV boot is definitely intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dado Posted August 3, 2017 Author Share Posted August 3, 2017 For anyone interested, I am pretty sure that the issue was the PS pump. I took it out last night and cleaned everything up. I was going to replace the pump for good measure, but I decided to just replace the top o-ring on the low pressure hose. The old o-ring was hard and flattened. Put it back together and drove it around for a little while. PS pump is dry as a bone, and the only noticed a very small amount of smoking when I got back to my driveway, which I am sure was just the remnants of the fluid that I couldn't quite clean up. It is a very obvious improvement! I am so happy that I think this is all sorted out, finally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pazuzu Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 For anyone interested, I am pretty sure that the issue was the PS pump. I took it out last night and cleaned everything up. I was going to replace the pump for good measure, but I decided to just replace the top o-ring on the low pressure hose. The old o-ring was hard and flattened. Put it back together and drove it around for a little while. PS pump is dry as a bone, and the only noticed a very small amount of smoking when I got back to my driveway, which I am sure was just the remnants of the fluid that I couldn't quite clean up. It is a very obvious improvement! I am so happy that I think this is all sorted out, finally.Thanks for finishing your thread after you resolved your problem. Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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