Need help, confused! *pics*

[s10blaza]

So i've spent the last day and a half tearing down the motor to give it a bit of a makeover and to fix the oil burning that I've been assuming is the turbo. I pulled out the turbo and had a bit of a bittersweet surprise.

Just a bunch of carbon buildup, no oil. Common sense tells me the turbo isnt leaking oil but then again this is my first time dealing with turbochargers so I was expecting an oily mess like this

All my plugs look like this

I've checked compression, I get 130 psi on cylinder 2 and 140 on the other five. With oil cap off and the engine running I get no smoking. What am I looking at now, valve guides? Any way to check them without pulling the heads?

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

EDIT - forgot to mention the truck goes through a quart of oil every 500 miles

 

[SY2455]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Your 130 psi on # 2 sounds low, With 91,000+ miles I'm running 155 psi on all 6 still. When is it smoking ? Can you describe it in detail ? Start up, Idle Driving down the road and Acceleration and deacceleration. When is it smoking, can you see it doing the above?

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

The smoking I'm worried about happens under medium to heavy acceleration. I also have the classic valve stem seal smoke at startup. At WOT I leave a nice blue-black trail. Its way more noticeable at night with headlights behind me. With steady acceleration I dont notice any smoke. Its also running rich again, I have black sooty spots on my driveway but I also just found out my throttle body shaft is leaking so a Matt Blum rebuild is in order, just waiting to hear back from him for payment and address

Kinda running out of ideas and I ran out of money a long time ago.

 

[Don W.]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Plug looks great. Turbine looks weird. Are you running leaded gas? What does the compressor side look like? 1 qt every 500 miles is quite a bit for those plugs to look like that. What does the tail pipe look like?

Disconnect / remove both PVC valves, plug the line to the TB and go for a test drive.

 

[Ty0284]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

1 qt is alot of oil for 500 miles

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Here's the compressor side, the turbo itself has very very little play, maybe .010 side to side and no in and out play at all

Here's a better shot of the turbine side, the discoloration is where I rubbed my finger and the soot came off

Now, i'm almost embarrassed to put these pictures up but im glad i found it. Looks like its been happening for quite a while. The upper plenum is also full of oil and sludge. It looks like the port is almost sealed shut

The factory AC delco pcv valve, I had changed the other side recently, I was unaware these things had two.

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Took some more pics to help

shot of the upper plenum and all the oily sludge

Im starting to think this may be the source of the oil burning the second I stuck my finger inside the plenum, its thick, sludgy oil as far down as my finger could reach

Could the PCV valve pass that much oil?

Im starting to think this may be the culprit. I'm assuming one PCV valve works while under vacuum and the other while under boost. This may explain why it only smokes heavily under moderate acceleration and WOT (boost) . At cruising speeds (vacuum) there is no trace of smoke

 

[SY2455]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Well you may have found your problem, that looks bad and a major clean up is in order. Like Don said your plugs like good. Yes the PCV valves will pass alot of oil.

 

[Don W.]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Now that is allot of crud. If you examine the throttle body you can trace the passage for the PVC and see if that's where it's coming from. The "under boost" PVC feed the inlet to the turbo and it's clean so I don't think it's that one. There could be an issue with the EGR as well but I'm betting on the PVC.

Looks like your sense line is disconnected from your fuel pressure regulater. Did you do that? Also you still have the original vac lines. You might want to change them over to syclicone.

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

EVERYTHING is original on this thing, even the water pump. Looks like after 4 owners I'm going to be the lucky one that gets to change all this crap out

 

[sleepy]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Lets see a pic of the turbo on the side to the throttle body - the turbo can leak a bunch there too under boost and cause big smoke. Otherwise, with that much through the pcv system, you may also have a blowby issue...

 

[KDBL1TY]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Oil and EGR will cook it in there.

 

[KDBL1TY]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Look in your upper IC if a turbo seal is toast you will have oil in there also. ( Throttle body to IC.)

 

[gkrcr882]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Jeebus! . Might as well pull off the lower intake manifold as well, and send em both out to be hot tanked to get all that crud out. As mentioned, while its all apart there's no better time to replace the PCV valves and all the vacuum lines. Someone on here makes a really nice silicone vac line kit in a variety of fun colors. Good luck!

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Thanks for the responses guys. The turbo is bone dry all around, which is a good thing, I was already thinking it was gonna need a rebuild.

I'm going to pull the lower manifold as well IF someone can tell me if its the same gasket as any other 4.3 or if its specific to the SyTy?

One more thing, has anyone done a catch can PCV setup? I'm also planning on doing away with the plastic crossover pipe and doing some type of CAI. Would I add a bung or can I eliminate one of those PCV valves?

 

[SY2455]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Thanks for the responses guys. The turbo is bone dry all around, which is a good thing, I was already thinking it was gonna need a rebuild. Would I add a bung or can I eliminate one of those PCV valves?

As bad as that is I would just rebuild it. When you make your new air inlet, just add a bung and keep both PCV valves.

For your intake gaskets.

http://www.sytyperformance.com/inde...facturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=26

 

[berzerker]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

you've gone this far . might as well rebuild the engine . then you won't have this problem any more . my .2cents . you've got the engine removal job halfway done now !! if you have the coin ...just do it . you can rebuild that engine now for around $1200 .

 

[s10blaza]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

Im in the middle of a divorce right now and my mortgage is about 70% of my paycheck so a rebuild isn't an option for a while lol

I was planning on taking out the money for the turbo from my 401k

 

[Don W.]

Re: Need help, confused! *pics*

OK, money is a problem so... Not much work from this point so pull both intakes to check the gaskets and clean the manifolds and TB. Put it all back together. Check the weep hole on the water pump but maybe change it anyway. If you still have the original serpentine belt idler and tensioner pulleys then change them. Keep your turbo assuming it turns free with little play. After it's back together run it without PVC's or, better, just install new valves. Least expensive pieces on the whole deal. Fire it and see what happens.

You've got nothing to loose except your time and the cost of intake gaskets and, if you can't do it, the cost of cleaning the manifolds and throttle body.

All my :2cents: but based on the looks of the plugs, unless someone has some really hot plugs in there (we haven't asked about that) the rings aren't pumping allot of oil. IMHO, based on what I've seen, the oil is coming from those damn PVC valves. Otherwise why is everything EXCEPT the manifold and TB so clean? Clogged/plugged, non functional, whatever, EGR system will cause high crankcase pressure and high oil consumption.

Could be totally worn exhaust guides and it's coming through the EGR valve but based on the pic it looks normal. I'll eat my words if I have to but that's what I think.