oil leak

[sherryrose93]

help me i have an oil leak but it is leaking into my exhaust. how can i determine if it is my valve seals or my turbo leaking. i am also new to turbo dsms i have always owned n/t so can someone please tell me what inside a turbo will make it leak into my exhaust thank alot.

93 talon awd

 

[bling5tatus]

a leakdown test will tell you if it's your valve seals. I think the car would smoke all the time if there were valve seal problems though. If you have an issue with the turbo, it'd most likely only smoke when you began boosting.... unless the turbo is leaking a ton of oil, then it would probably smoke more often without boosting, but generally if a turbo is leaking oil it's a problem under boost.

 

[terminaltsi]

if it's the original turbo, chances are it's seals are leaking. also your valve seals could be leaking. the easiest way i know is to take off the exhaust manifold and look into the turbo. if there is oil pooled in the exhaust side, its the turbo leaking. no oil there, i would look at valve seals.
it's probably time to rebuild that head anyway, so take it off there and send it to a machine shop and have them do a rebuild. it's not too expensive.
as old as these 1g's are getting, i always like to at least rebuild the head when i buy one as long as the compression is still good.

 

[spoonman]

If you do the leak down test and find out it is not the valve seals or the turbo seals, then you need new rings.

 

[kenamond]

You might also want to pull the lower intercooler pipe off the compressor outlet and check for fresh oil. If the seal on the compressor end is leaking badly, this oil will make its way through the motor and into the exhaust. You can also pull the intake pipe off of the compressor inlet (cool motor) and check for in/out shaft play (grab the nut on the compressor wheel and try pulling/pushing it out of/into the turbo) or excessive side/side shaft play (fins on the wheel hit the compressor housing).

A boost leak test may reveal bad intake valve stem seals. If you fix all intake tract leaks and still have boost leak test air leaking out the oil cap during the test, and your compression is good, that would suggest bad intake valve stem seals. Depending on your mechanical skills and confidence, you can change the seals without pulling the head, but it's not the simplest thing to do.

On a 2g (and maybe a 1g), you can drop the turbo without pulling the exhaust manifold off the head. If you strongly suspect a leaking seal on the hotside, you could drop the turbo and check the turbine inlet and O2 housing outlets for oil...if there's no oil in the inlet and oil in the outlet, the oil's coming from the turbo.