Does the PCV operate correctly? This can cause excessive crankcase pressure leading to blow-by.

While doing the head gasket, was the head refreshed? You seem to be showing possible signs of failing valve stem seals.

Define correctly...It allows the plunger to move freely when blowing one direction. If I blow the other side there is some air going through but its minimal.

And no, the head was not refreshed

Used turbo.. may be pushing oil past the seals on the exhaust side. There doesn't need to be noticable shaft play for that to occur; could have even been assembled poorly if it was rebuilt prior. I would expect smoke to become more noticable as rpm/oil pressure raises.

Valve stem seals also might be worn as said

I doubt the pcv valve is causing your problem. But it should only allow flow one direction, it should shut completely and not let air through the other direction.

My bet is valve stem seals. Slight smoking at idle and smoke during decel are tell tale signs.

Does it smoke during WOT?

Smoke does increase as throttle increases, but the most dense smoke aka. CLOUD is after letting off the throttle.
Is there a way to diagnose the possibility of bad seals on the turbo besides shaft play? And is there a way to test the diagnosis of valve stem seals short of replacing them?

Id def. Say its turbo seal. If it is only at idle id say it was valve seals. Buy a rebuild kit for 40 bucks and rebuild it. Very easy to do.

Well okay guys...Reviving the dead thread because I finally pulled the turbo (I'm a procrastinator I know). There is oil in the turbo right at the flange to the manifold...as well as heavy oil spray in the manifold ports 2&3. However still no oil on the exhaust or intercooler side. When draining the oil, it had a heavy gasoline smell as well...

School me on how f'ed I am!

Post pictures

My car smoked heavily at idle after a head gasket. I used brake cleaner to clean the intake and exhaust runners and it ate away the valve stem seals.

Does your head look like this with the manifold off? Its oil from the valve stem seals

I dropped the turbo from the manifold, but yes it looks like that from the inside of the manifolds. Did your oil smell like gasoline as well? Or am I having 2 different issues.

The file I attached is essentially from 5 miles worth of driving and idling for 15 minutes, then sitting for 1.5 years.

Seems like it's the valve stem seals then if the compression test is good.

To see what color the smoke is you really have to look straight into the tailpipe at night with a flashlight shining into the tail pipe. Otherwise they all just look like white smoke






You can do them with the head still on the car, but I will warn you it is probably the most difficult job on a dsm. You should know the timing system like the back of your hand

Valve stem seals are shot. U can replace them while the engine is in the car. You can use a string as suggested to hold the valve up while u compress the spring. This tool works awesome as well as a magnet screwdriver.
https://m.ebay.com/itm/SR-Valve-Spr...840642?hash=item3f50945f42:g:lQEAAOSwT6pVrJ5p

I used small diameter vacuum hose with a coating of engine oil on it, allows the hose to slip right into the bore through the spark plug well and is a better cushion against the bore/pistons/valves.

Yeah the rope or tube trick works. Still a pain tho

I'm hoping it's just the valve stem seals...but as far as I know, that wouldn't account for the gasoline smell in the oil correct?

Maybe the piston rings sir.

Car has been sitting for close to six years now. I expect the ecu is dumping fuel like crazy to prevent knock.


Your leak down test is good
Your compression test is good.

Exhaust fumes escaping into the head will smell like gas. Smoke under deceleration would be an indicator of exhaust valve stem seals failing

The pcv valve should let no air through it. Even a small amount of air being let through is amplified under boost pressure. Typically this would also cause the dip stick to blow out, or cause the oil cap to leak under boost, however it can also cause excessive crank case pressure and spew oil back into the turbo or Intake or exhaust seals

So replace the pcv valve with an Oem mitsubishi unit from extreme psi or another vendor, and check results again. Hell for now just put a cap on the intake manifold vacuum source to eliminate the potential there and try to see if the smoking goes away. Also remove down pipe from the turbo and inspect for oil there

So I would like for you to pull the exhaust manifold off and look for the exhaust chambers in the head to be wet with oil. To be specific the valve itself should be covered in oil if the exhaust seal is bad. My intake seals were bad so it coated my pistons in oil and the exhaust chamber but not the back side of the valve itself

Compression dry is good so im not overly worried about the gas smell in a car that's barely moved in 6 years


I mean how many miles have you put on it. 300 miles after a head job and you need to retorque the studs so how many miles are on the build so far.

What kind of oil feed line are you using to feed the 16g turbo, what size oil restrictor is mounted in the oil line?

My intake valve seals were destroyed, my pistons were soaked in oil. I could drive the car up to temps and pull a spark plug out and watch smoke come out of the plug hole. My compression numbers were skewed, cylinder 1 without the valve stem leak was 150psi, the other oil coated cylinders were 177psi. So as you can see from my pictures I had alot of smoke when warm at idle. I bought my car with a blown head gasket, I was really just going on a hunch of good compression that My rings werent blown

There's a few things it could be before you just let the car sit another year so check everything out first, inspect further to see where the oil trail starts

Chrysler kid: Thanks for the in depth response.

---For the sake of saving a gasket purchase, will taking the exhaust manifold provide any insight that I'm not already aware of, sinceI can tell the oil is coming from cylinders 2 &3 by looking at the exit of the manifold?
---I have replaced the PCV valve with an OEM one functioning 100%
---Since replacing the head (albeit a long time ago), car has been driven approx. 5 miles, just to test everything. And idled another 15-20 min in addition to see if the smoke went away once warmed up. (It did not)
---The feed line is a braided line, to be honest I couldn't tell you what restrictor is on it, I bought a 16g swap kit that had the line in it...not from eBay, my guess would be extreme psi.
---And not to put your picture to shame, but my smoke cloud is pretty much so thick you can't see through it
---The car won't sit for another year before I do some work....PROMISE!! I've ordered the valve compression tool and will be doing it after the new year! Hopefully that fixes it!

Now on a potential buster note, after reading back my replies I did notice I failed to mention that when test driving after reassembly, the car did have a slight backfire and momentary loss of power while under boost. I cannot recall if it was smoking before that occurred.

The exhaust manifold gasket is a metal gasket you can reuse.

Does it make a difference, eh, kinda. I'd like to know for sure that you aren't blowing oil out of the exhaust wheel of the turbo into the 02 housing.

My car also made a pop, it had a bad pcv valve too and it would blow oil out of the oil cap, and after that blow oil out of the valve cover gasket later too.

Compression test it, if its low then leak down test it.

My car would be fine cold, then at operating temps smoke like a train. Yeah my smoke was worse than that too, if I drove around and got the turbo hot, got the car really warmed up it would smoke out the sky in my neighborhood at night. Make all the street lights and porch lights look hazy. It would still run great though


I posted in a few valve stem seal threads, get a good set of 90 degree needle nose pliers from AutoZone or harbor freight to pop the valve seals off. Wiggle them left and right and pull them up and off. Then use an 11mm socket to help seat the new seal. Lube the new seal with assembly lube then seat it on the valve seat with an 11mm deep socket. Use the assembly lube on the cam caps so the cam isnt dry on start up. You dont need to remove the lifters to do the valve stem seals, if you dont have any lifter tick before the pull apart I recommend not touching them at all and leaving them in place.

The rope method is the best. You can take your time and do the job one cylinder at a time. Using compressed air is fine, but you have to finish the job before you can turn off the compressor. And you have to worry about air pressure possibly moving the crank back.

Okay, almost have everything apart. Had one last question before starting...when I finish getting everything changed, how do I determine TDC for the compression vs exhaust stroke for re-timing? Or does that matter, just make sure its at TDC on #1?

Until the head is on TDC #1 is TDC #1 & 4. The head (cam position actually) makes it either compression or exhaust.
With the crank on the TDC mark, the cam dowels up and the two cam timing marks lined up with the head to rocker cover mating line the engine will be timed correctly and all you need to fiddle with is the balance shafts timing.

Gysgt Guy said:

Okay, almost have everything apart. Had one last question before starting...when I finish getting everything changed, how do I determine TDC for the compression vs exhaust stroke for re-timing? Or does that matter, just make sure its at TDC on #1?

Click to expand...

Dowel pins up, cylinders 2 and 3 will have 1 with slightly open intake valves and one slightly open exhaust valves. You can tell by how the cam sits on the rockers when you're at top dead center.

I still like to mark my belts with paint or white out on the belt and gear, tooth to tooth on the cam gears and on the crank gear onto the belt

steve said:

Until the head is on TDC #1 is TDC #1 & 4. The head (cam position actually) makes it either compression or exhaust.
With the crank on the TDC mark, the cam dowels up and the two cam timing marks lined up with the head to rocker cover mating line the engine will be timed correctly and all you need to fiddle with is the balance shafts timing.

Click to expand...

Awesome thank you! Just wanted to make sure there wasn't something different with the exhaust vs compression stroke of cyl #1 TDC. I'll get it finished and hopefully reassembled next week. I'll post results

Well, got it all assembled, started it up and smoked like a sieve still...UNTIL! I drove it around the neighborhood for 10-15 minutes, burned up all the oil and now there's just a small touch of smoke (guessing its still burning off). But for those with the same symptoms as me, valve seals did the trick.