Oil burning from turbo?

[Joey Joe]

My head gaskets are in and the engine is back together. It runs excellent and I am almost 100 percent sure the gaskets arent the problem, but now the car is burning oil. Once the car heats up the oil pressure runs a little lower then it should and smoke starts coming up from right at the turbo. It always starts up perfectly when cold but once it is heated up and the oil pressure has dropped some, if I turn it off and start it back up sometimes I will have to turn it over until the engine gets up to speed. Also I accidentally loosened some of the turbo screws in the head gasket installation due to my newbie status, I think that might be the problem. My pcv sustem is fine. I also have an exhaust leak that is loud right under the turbo. Any help would be appreciated.

[86subaru]

did you replace the coolant + oil lines going to the turbo ? because they can go bad , i replaced both lines because they were leaking oil+ coolant

[NorthWet]

Exhaust leak at turbo and smoke coming up from turbo indicate, at least, a bad crossover/uppipe-to-turbo gasket, or more liekly a cracked crossover flange at the turbo.

[4WDFrenzy]

Northwet hit the nail on the head. The turbo mounting flange is a common problem area. It will get hot and crack over time. Add in some exhaust flexing due to engine movement, and you have a recipe for disaster. You might want to get your exhaust leak fixed as it is before the 02 sensor. It will ultimately wind up screwing with your 02 readings, which in turn will probably make your engine run terribly rich. My car did something similar about 2 months ago. Basically, just get the leak fixed(so that you can eliminate it as a possibility of being the problem) and then tackle any other problems thereafter.

 

Patrick

[4WDFrenzy]

Oh yeah, what weight oil are you running? It might be leaking past the rings if it is too thin. Or another possibility is that you could have a leaky valve guide, or even a leaky oil seal in the turbo itself.

 

Patrick