Oil leak, exhaust leak, how serious?

[Silver71]

I'm starting to uncover more and more issues with the car I purchased. Nothing major yet, but things I need to address at some point here. Maybe you can all have a look and let me know how serious these things are.

Firstly, I'm losing some oil. I don't readily see accumulation when the car is parked, but it's going somewhere, I just haven't pinned it down yet. I lose a little under a quart per 3,000 miles perhaps? Haven't owned it that long.

In this picture, it looks like there is some oil buildup on the block. Bad gasket? What do you think?

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Next, the other morning I noticed a lot of smoke coming from places other than my muffler. Down on the ground I went to have a look. I found that I am leaking exhaust at one of my O2 sensors, as well as another connection point behind the muffler! I have some work to do it would seem. Have a look:

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This is a 17 year old car. Though it has low mileage, it has seen winters, clearly. I live in the salt belt, so I should have inspected the underbody better. No rust on exterior, but underbody needs work.

How serious is all of this? I should note, this is the ONLY time I've ever seen the exhaust do that. And what do you think about the oil leak? Gasket? Turbo oil return line?

 

[PrimerPLus]

Looks to be a gasket leak.
I would clean it up real nice and run it to he store whatever then back home and see if you see any leaking out.
For the exhaust, pull it and upgrade to a 3" from o2 housing back. That will fix all your pipe leaks

 

[Eagle96TalonTSi]

Exhaust leak isnt that big of a deal if you were planning on upgrading anyways.

 

[Roberti 2G]

Definitely time for an exhaust upgrade STM is having a black friday sale all week see if they can hook you up.

 

[Talon96fwd]

My old 420a use to burn oil had to top It off every other week or so but raned great. How many miles on your car?

 

[NHerron]

Maybe valve cover gasket leaking, particularly the half moon shape piece located between the VC/Cyl Head - passenger side corner towards radiator.

FYI it looks like your rear differential has been replaced at one point since it has "100k" written on the back of it. Good new though, it's the viscuous type limited slip differential! Indicated by "BFH". Those are very good to have (it's like a tank in snow). A low mile stock GSX + rear limited slip + ERPOM ECU? How much you snag it for if you don't mind me askin?

Wanna rip out the rear diff+axles and sell it to me for say, I don't know... $200 shipped?

 

[Silver71]

Just to keep you all updated, I haven't had time to address the oil leak issue yet, but I am shopping for a different valve cover. I'd like to paint it blue, but also one of the spark plug cover screw holes has eroded away and that bothers me. ANYHOW, long story short, I'd like to replace the valve cover and gasket at some point.

at another point, I'd like to clean up that oil on the block and watch it more closely.

As far as exhaust, I have been looking at my options in another thread. I think I will be replacing it with a 3" o2 housing-back setup but haven't finalized my decisions. Actually, on the fence about cat delete or using stock cat or putting in high flow 3" Cat. Decisions... I don't want to deal with CELs from having no cat

 

[idkiliketurbos]

There are ways you can not have a CEL from the rear o2 sensor for no cat. One would be ecmlink, another would be the sparkplug nonfouler trick. Google it and you should be able to find it pretty easily. A few of my personal friends have done that and have all been successful in getting rid of the CEL which they previously had.

 

[99ECLIPSEGSXDSM]

Have you check your turbo for shaft play? Check your intercooler for oil. If there's oil in there your turbos on it's last leg.

 

[Silver71]

Have you check your turbo for shaft play? Check your intercooler for oil. If there's oil in there your turbos on it's last leg.

I've never taken my turbo off or anything. Can you check shaft play without removing it, ?

And check my intercooler, you mean my stock sidemount? how would I "check" if there is oil in it, exactly? Drain it? When I open the radiator cap, my coolant is bright green, if that helps any.

 

[PrimerPLus]

Take off your intake pipe. You will be able to see right into the inlet of your turbo. Put your hand in there and move the wheel/shaft around, push in and out and pull up and down on it. Then report back what you found.

To check your intercooler for oil take off the connection that goes to your intercooler. See if any oil drains out of it. Your coolant is not connected to your intercooler.
If you have the stock side mount intercooler it is under your passenger side wheel well. Take off the pipe going towards to the turbo. That is not the one coming from the intake manifold.

P.S that is one bad looking exhaust pipe! Replace it. If I were to upgrade I would go with a Thermal R&D

 

[96eclipsespydergst]

Your oil problem dosent seem as bad as mine. I would check the turbo for shaft play and start with a new valve cover gasket kit.. and if your turbo is going bad wait to do an exhaust till you fix that problem because you may be leaking coolant or oil down your exhaust. hope that helps

 

[aajj1987]

ive had three t25s leak oil on the exhaust side. I also am not used to seeing coolant lines running to turbo. my t60 only has oil lines.... got a turbo timer so no ragging please. but ive had a gasket cover go bad before but usually its obvious.

 

[Silver71]

Take off your intake pipe. You will be able to see right into the inlet of your turbo. Put your hand in there and move the wheel/shaft around, push in and out and pull up and down on it. Then report back what you found.

To check your intercooler for oil take off the connection that goes to your intercooler. See if any oil drains out of it. Your coolant is not connected to your intercooler.
If you have the stock side mount intercooler it is under your passenger side wheel well. Take off the pipe going towards to the turbo. That is not the one coming from the intake manifold.

P.S that is one bad looking exhaust pipe! Replace it. If I were to upgrade I would go with a Thermal R&D

Thanks, I'm still learning things about turbos (never owned one before). I understand now that my side mount intercooler is for air only, and no coolant goes through this. In theory, there should be only air in there and if there is a lot of oil that could mean my turbo is leaking.

I also found a vfaq for removing and cleaning the side mount, if I find oil in there, I may do this procedure as well.

I've also read that it doesn't pay to rebuild a T25 if I do find shaft play. Instead, it would be more cost-effective to buy a used T25, or simply skip to my evo3 16G. I'd really like to wait on that though...

I will check out my shaft play when I find the time and get back to you all.

Your oil problem dosent seem as bad as mine. I would check the turbo for shaft play and start with a new valve cover gasket kit.. and if your turbo is going bad wait to do an exhaust till you fix that problem because you may be leaking coolant or oil down your exhaust. hope that helps

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if my turbo is bad and leaking oil, how would it get into my exhaust system? Wouldn't it simply pool in the side mount? To get into my exhaust, wouldn't it have to travel up through the intake, then into the cylinders, then out the exhaust manifold to my exhaust system? Or is there something I'm missing? And yes, a new valve cover and gasket kit is on my list, as my current valve cover has a cracked screw hold for the spark plug cover and that bothers me deep down inside



**Edit**

I checked the shaft play the best I could (It's tough to reach in there unless you have dainty, long fingers!) I didn't notice any in-out play, there may have been a teeny bit of side-side play (not sure), and I'm pretty sure there was a little up-down play. Nothing that made me think OH MY GOD, but it did feel like a little in the up-down.

I also snapped a few pics with my phone and felt the fins and none were bent or broken on the intake side at least.

 

[PrimerPLus]

When I first got my car it had the t-25 on it. After about a week of driving it I was burning oil. It was bad mostly only visible when going from high rpm to low rpm. So I checked my turbo for play, checked my stock SMIC for oil. Both passed. I had no oil in the Intercooler, and no play at all in the turbo. But I new the issue was the turbo. Why? Because I didn't want to rebuild my entire engine at the time ,
Well I trashed the t-25 turbo and bought brand new FP evo3 16g turbo with install kit. Got it all bolted up and no more blue smoke. So moral of the story is, the issue does not always show itself how we would like.
If you don't want to buy a new turbo I would see about swapping in another one that is known to be working.
But if it was me I'd bolt up that Evo 3

 

[NHerron]

Shaft play could be perfect, doesn't guarantee the shaft seal design to be good though. Also, on a journal bearing type turbo it's pretty normal to have up/down side/side play, since it's designed to ride centered (due to centrifugal force) on a thin film of oil during operation.

 

[Silver71]

Not sure if it helps anything, but I finally found the time to upload the photo I snapped of my turbo inlet:

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