Car smoking...bad valve seals or bad turbo

[calico]

Hi, i recently had a jdm motor swapped over. I noticed brownish black smoke the other day whenever i gave the car gas. At idle, there's no smoke. Is this a sign of a bad turbo, or bad valve seals? The car feels anmeic under acceleration, at first i thought it was a boost leak, but now think either the valve seals or old 148,000 mile t-25 has given the ghost. The jdm turbo wouldn't fit.

Thoughts? I am checking the plugs tonight to see how they look.

thanks.

 

[94_eclipse]

Has it done it since you had the swap? usualy when your burning oil its a blue and not a brownish black as your saying. Its a possibility your running rich, if your running rich you will see a black smoke out of your exhaust. Also when your rich it will run like crap.

 

[pmanaresi]

i would say you ae running rich, not burning oil. Check your oil level to see if it is lower, if its not you are probably running rich.

 

[endeffect0]

Sounds like a turbo to me, they usually only seam to stick around for 80-100k miles. I just had a valve seal go on my 6bolt and it would smoke a little during warm up and always under throttle. The smoke was a blueish color though.
I would suggest checking for both problems, its fairly simple to figure out.

To check for a bad turbo pull off your intake and pull on the intake side of the turbo, a slight up and down movement is normal as long as it's not too much. Check for in out play as well that's the real tell. If you can feel it moving it's on its way out. Also look inside the housing and see if there is any oil or junk in their.

To check for bad valve seals take out your spark plugs and inspect them if a valve is bad in just one cylinder that plug should be more fouled than the rest.

The other thing I can think of is if you perhaps have a leaky head gasket but i don't know how likely that would be between cylinders on DSMs.

A simple compression test will also help you test for the possibility of having a bad piston ring.

 

[90mitsu3clipse]

How bad does it smoke? Does it smoke worse when your at wot than just crusing?

 

[calico]

Also, i have a safc 2 installed. It's sit to karman, 4 cylinder, and initialized. Anything else to check on this? This may be the problem also.

 

[calico]

Found the problem..safc 2 settings were way off. Fixed them and the car runs great. Thanks....

 

[mksk415]

I just removed my TD05 turbo (Don't know anything else about it) from my '90 GST with plans on replacing it with a used TD04 I bought off Craigslist. I thought my current turbo must be bad due to the fact that it smokes bad when I go above about 3500 rpms.

With it completely off, I checked for in/out and up/down play like described above and there appears to be little to none. The vacuum line from the wastegate actuator however, is completely and solidly clogged. I don't notice any difference in the way the plugs look compared with each other.

This thread: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/turbo-system-tech/272249-replaced-blown-turbo-still-smoking-bad.html addresses a smoking issue where the recommendation is to clean out the intake and intercooler with gasoline. I think that's a good idea while I have everything apart, but am wondering if my turbo is actually fine.

With a used, but claimed to be good, TD04 turbo on the way, what should I do? Clean everything as described in the above referenced thread and put the same turbo back in? I'm a newbie for sure so I need some good advice. Thanks.

 

[mksk415]

I took my intercooler out and cleaned it out with gasoline and put the same turbo, etc. back in. When connecting the o2 sensor, I discovered the red wire from the wiring harness was broken right at the male side of the connector. This seems like the more likely cause of the black smoke. Now I need a new connector, but where???...Or should I just hardwire it???

 

[Whiteshadow]

I took my intercooler out and cleaned it out with gasoline and put the same turbo, etc. back in. When connecting the o2 sensor, I discovered the red wire from the wiring harness was broken right at the male side of the connector. This seems like the more likely cause of the black smoke. Now I need a new connector, but where???...Or should I just hardwire it???

Right now, if you have to get your car running I'd just splice a wire in on that before the connector so you can bypass it on the plug and still allow the others to use the plug to connect, then in the meantime figure out where you can find another plug or I believe you can actually get the wire out of the back of the plug and put a new one in

 

[mksk415]

Thanks. I thought about doing that, but decided to look at other options first.

Just in case, I checked on a new plug from satan and was told I needed a complete new wiring harness. I have no idea what possesed me to cause me to even think I should ask the question. I should have learned my lesson by now!

I went ahead and bought a $6 4-pin weather-proof connector (at Autozone) made for trailer lighting. It had both the male & female sides. I spliced it in, covered the wiring and routed it--it looks good and should work fine. I almost hardwired it, but I thought if I need to remove the turbo again, it'll be simple to unplug. If/when I need a new O2 sensor, I'll have to think about what I'm going to do.

Everything is back together, but I haven't started it yet. I need to rig up a coolant overflow tank. This car is a '90 and came with a different tank than the 91's on (I think 91 was different). However, because I have a '92 SMIC and air filter can, there's no room to put the 90 style overflow tank so I've got to figure out what I'm going to do.