fresh headgasket and white/blue smoke

[Kayvin]

hey guys, i just got my TSI running. Changed the head gasket, got the head surfaced, put new valve seals in and slapped it together with some ARP studs. I got it all together and started it up, and it was idleing pretty rough, but it smoothed out and i had some white/blue smoke comming out of the exhaust (i say it was white, my father said it was blue), It stopped so i got it off the jack stands and took it for a drive. I got 30 seconds from my house and looked out the rear view and couldn't see behind me. so i rounded the corner and parked it. I'm new to the turbo world so i have no clue what it could be. My guess is bad turbo seals from what i gather here on the site. Its an ebay 16g (it was on there when i bought it). I donno if he checked the wastegate actuator when he put it on so i have no clue if its overboosting or not. what is normal boost on the stock gauge? when i took it for my extremely long drive it would go to the 3/4 mark. I know i need to get a decent boost gauge but its not in the budget yet. what its looking like is that its all going to a diff. turbo. Let me know what you think and any tests i can do to see if it is my turbo or not. thanks

 

[nek]

first off blue smoke is just a slight tint of blue not a solid color so your dad is probably right. Second, I believe a hit of blue does mean oil so your on the right track. I have tint blue smoke out my tails and Ive limited it to the valve stem seals. Is it possible that in the change, some oil got into your exhaust route and its just burning that oil? Any chemical still in your exhaust route will smoke untill its burned up and sometimes thats the only problem. A question for you is how hard was it to change the stem seals, I gotta do mine soon.

 

[Kayvin]

i got my stem seals changed when it was at the shop, so i never did it. I read a tech article tho and it seemed pretty straight forward if you had the right tools. Now that you mention it there was oil in the exhaust, quite a bit actually. not sure if that was from the previous turbo blowing, which i assume is what happened for him to change the turbo to an ebay one but not to sure. maybe i'll run it abit and take a few smoked filled runs around the block to see if it burns off and just keep an eye on my oil pressure and level. as far as the boost gauge goes, where am i safe to run with that thing. ### i don't want that wastegate to stick shut and me end up blowing something while i'm driving. thanks

 

[spydergotboost]

ok hook up an air compressor to the wastegate and slowly add air to monitor its movement if you are worried it isnt working properly, also see how much pressure it takes to move it, most stock wastegates are 10PSI. and the stock boost gauge is worthless litterly it barely even knows the difference of vacuum or boost never mind how much boost.

 

[nek]

yeah you wont know your boost with out an aftermarket gauge or something. safe boost on stock system is less then 15 psi.

 

[Kayvin]

well i just took it out for an hour run. There was alot of smoke at first but then it started to die down alot. when i first started it, it had a hard time idleing. kept on shutting off when i put it in reverse to get out of the driveway, but i managed to get it out on the road and after it warmed up i never had any idle issues. It seems that the smoke only appears thick when i am idling at a stop light or something. I checked my oil, and it doesn't seem to be burning any. Then i ran into an odd problem. When i would put the car in Park or Neutral (yes its an auto), it would rev really high, like it would sit there and idle at 3K, so i popped the hood and pushed back on the throttle body and it settled down, so i think i just may have to set that. but I find it odd that at first it can barely idle and then after a bit of driving it idles at 3K. maybe its just sticking after the drive, i donno. and one last thing i noticed is that when i shut the car off, i popped the hood to check everything out and i could hear the coolant boiling. now i never heard that before but i also never owned a turbo car before so i don't really know whats normal.