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Turbo oil leak cold side

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JGL122

10+ Year Contributor
105
29
Aug 8, 2012
Houston, Texas
So working on my car recently I noticed a lot more oil in the intake inlet of my Turbo. I'm hoping someone can guide me on what steps to take to remedy this.
The car doesn't smoke when idling or while driving. So it doesn't appear to be leaking on the hotside. I don't know how long its been doing this since I normally have an intake on it. When I rev it up it sprays out of the turbo. The turbo is an PF HTA 68 with approx. 7000 miles. I'm using the PF oil feed line from the oil filter housing. Also using the FP return line. It's mounted on the FP exhaust manifold. Oil has been changed every 1000 miles approx.
I'm wondering if it needs an oil restrictor. Or perhaps the turbo oil seals have gone bad. I can't imagine why with such low miles on the turbo and I don't beat on it so much that it would already be bad. The car runs good otherwise and i've done a boost leak test on it. There is oil in the intercooler and residual oil in the intercooler pipes.

On my catch can setup i have a line running from the left valve port to the can and the top port running into the intake manifold .

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I'd like to know if this is a sign of a bigger problem or if perhaps a simple fix with an oil restrictor. I wanted to see what you all thought.

The car is a 98 gsx with 7 bolt engine.
 
A few questions:
What does your oil pressure peak at?

Is the JMF style catch can baffled or an open style?

Is the oil also in your intake pipe before the inlet?
 
The oil seals look to be blown... :| I was under the assumption that when using that turbo it was to be fed from the OFH with their supply line (like you did) and you should be good. :idontknow:
 
A few questions:
What does your oil pressure peak at?

Is the JMF style catch can baffled or an open style?

Is the oil also in your intake pipe before the inlet?
I don't have an oil pressure gauge but my dash gauge reads normal. At idle it reads below middle and when i rev it up it goes just above the middle.
The catch can is open style with the little filter on top.
I don't have any lines going into the intake pipe, so there isn't any oil in there.

The oil seals look to be blown... :| I was under the assumption that when using that turbo it was to be fed from the OFH with their supply line (like you did) and you should be good. :idontknow:
Yeah thats what i did, i followed there instructions and bought all the supporting mods so they could less likely say it was cause of this or that that it didn't last.

Also forgot to mention there is no in and out or side to side play.
 
If you ran it how they said to run it then contact FP directly, they are usually good to work with.

Just an FYI, the open can styles do a terrible job but it's not hooked up to your intake. You should really get a vacuum source to help draw those gases out, do you have high crank case pressure by chance?
 
If you ran it how they said to run it then contact FP directly, they are usually good to work with.

Just an FYI, the open can styles do a terrible job but it's not hooked up to your intake. You should really get a vacuum source to help draw those gases out, do you have high crank case pressure by chance?

Yeah, i contacted FP and am waiting on a reply, but i thought i'd start a conversation here in case someone has had this issue before.

I know i have crank case pressure because it was leaking a little oil from the side of the port of the cover, but i don't know if it was high.

Thanks
 
That doesn't appear to be from the turbo, but I mean it's not like I see it spraying out of it

The restrictor should have come pre installed on the line and screws into the turbo and the line screws into the restrictor. If you have a banjo style feed it should be run off of the cylinder head

I thought fp had a more official designation on their housings, that looks like an eBay cold side, typically fp doesn't use eBay housings
 
Does it have a sufficient drain amd free flowing? That hadn't been brought up yet.
 
That doesn't appear to be from the turbo, but I mean it's not like I see it spraying out of it

The restrictor should have come pre installed on the line and screws into the turbo and the line screws into the restrictor. If you have a banjo style feed it should be run off of the cylinder head

I thought fp had a more official designation on their housings, that looks like an eBay cold side, typically fp doesn't use eBay housings
The hta68 V2 uses this new generic compressor housing and should be fed from the OFH. @19gsx91
 
That doesn't appear to be from the turbo, but I mean it's not like I see it spraying out of it

The restrictor should have come pre installed on the line and screws into the turbo and the line screws into the restrictor. If you have a banjo style feed it should be run off of the cylinder head

I thought fp had a more official designation on their housings, that looks like an eBay cold side, typically fp doesn't use eBay housings
So the oil is coming from the top of the inside of the inlet. I wasn't aware of a restrictor on the top of the turbo. Mine came with a banjo fitting for the top of the turbo and an FP oil filter housing adapter fitting.
Does it have a sufficient drain amd free flowing? That hadn't been brought up yet.
I'm using the recommended FP blue oil drain tube. I haven't removed the hose yet cause i wanted to get some feedback before going through the hassle of removing the drain hose.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Forced Performance.
 
The hta68 V2 uses this new generic compressor housing and should be fed from the OFH. @19gsx91

Ah ok, yeah I guess I only remember the black Friday run on the v1

So the oil is coming from the top of the inside of the inlet. I wasn't aware of a restrictor on the top of the turbo. Mine came with a banjo fitting for the top of the turbo and an FP oil filter housing adapter fitting.

I'm using the recommended FP blue oil drain tube. I haven't removed the hose yet cause i wanted to get some feedback before going through the hassle of removing the drain hose.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Forced Performance.

Hmm yeah. My generic kinugawa or whatever line included the restrictor which is what the oil feed line bolts into. It could be that the restrictor is on the housing for your line. But again that oil build up could be coming from your intake pipe and the valve cover breather

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^^^ What Vegas said. v1 68hta is built using genuine MHI parts and needs to be fed like an MHI turbo (from the head) the v2 68hta requires oil to fed from the OFH per FP themselves (I had to get mine rebuilt under warranty and they kindly informed that I had been feeding it wrong and that is why it failed)

I apologize if this has already been asked but I'm at work and only glanced through since Nick mentioned me, but are you running a line from your VC back into the intake? that's a lot of oil and I'm wondering what your intake tube itself looks like and if you perhaps don't have an issue there.
 
So the oil is coming from the top of the inside of the inlet.

I'm using the recommended FP blue oil drain tube. I haven't removed the hose yet cause i wanted to get some feedback before going through the hassle of removing the drain hose.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Forced Performance.
Don't worry about removing it, leave it alone I was just checking the obvious.
Hope you here from FP soon!
 
I'm using the recommended FP blue oil drain tube. I haven't removed the hose yet cause i wanted to get some feedback before going through the hassle of removing the drain hose.
Holy crap those things aren't even suitable for ball bearing use...the ID of the fittings is like 3/8" and I've seen the "rubber" or whatever the hell the hose is made out of become hard as a brick after a year.

You have a stock-fitment turbo in a stock location...why are you using anything but an all-metal OEM drain? The 2G drains are the absolute best bang for the buck- they're $15.99 new and fit MHI turbos with two minutes worth of dremel work to the holes on the upper flange.
 
Holy crap those things aren't even suitable for ball bearing use...the ID of the fittings is like 3/8" and I've seen the "rubber" or whatever the hell the hose is made out of become hard as a brick after a year.

You have a stock-fitment turbo in a stock location...why are you using anything but an all-metal OEM drain? The 2G drains are the absolute best bang for the buck- they're $15.99 new and fit MHI turbos with two minutes worth of dremel work to the holes on the upper flange.
I plan on buying the OEM drain in the future, it's just when i bought the whole setup I bought all the FP recommended supporting components because I didn't want them to say that is was because of this or that that the turbo failed.
 
So I called Forced performance and talked to someone about my issue. They recommended I check the PCV system. I explained my setup. My other option was to send them my turbo for inspection. I don't drive the car a whole lot right now and last I checked it wasn't leaking as bad.
I just wanted to make a small update. Its not leaking oil on the floor and its not burning oil, but there's still oil in the intercooler. I'm planning on taking the intercooler off and cleaning it with gas.

I'll update again if/when i get around to fixing it.
 
PCV issues are common on older cars like ours...some exhaust valve seal leakage is all it takes to show up as a failing turbo problem. Guys will buy a crappy $12 sealed catch can from eBay and think they're making it better but it only makes it worse because it's sealed and they don't understand how a PCV system works to begin with.

Old valve seals let exhaust pressure enter the engine, which overwhelms the existing PCV system. The engine has no choice but to try and breathe through the turbo through an already-undersized drain like the FP "blue" drain which should never even be sold as it uses rubber that can kink, crack, or leak and fittings that are roughly 8AN in size when even 10AN is a downgrade from stock. It's usually just 4 or 5 small problems that are compounding into a major issue.
 
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