Ali's drift 360 project

[jtbo]

I dont see how 0W can have ANY effect on oil pressure, the thickness when the "0W" reading is taken is still thicker than even mega thin "30" oil...

And its not pressure thats causing the smoking, its it losing thickness, which can lose pressure too, but not the issue really.

I'm sure it is not 0W but what that stuff is in general, anyway that is what I have heard from those. My own experiences are that those are not staying inside of engine.

If someone likes to get real good oil for track day car, buy Redline racing oil.

[A M R]

so you paid £11 for the cheapest 10w40?

i sell the damn stuff for £5.99!

we get oil from a company called 'granville' (used to be known as some other name but i cant remember). we sell 10w30 semi for £13/£14 i cant remember.

maybe i can flog some oil at a meet sometime if you lot are paying extortionate prices for yours...

i think we have some 5w40 for £17/18 or so.

[Stavros]

Ok lads, dont listen to me i know nothing and you all know loads about tuned turbo cars, thats why you all mucking round with lightly modded cheap volvos.

Ive not owned tons of highly modifed turbo cars for the last 10 years, oh no, not me. I imagined the 400bhp antilagged Cossie, the GTTs, the S13, the GTR, the Legacy, the TT V6, the twin turbo v8, etc etc, and my job deffo isnt writing technical/performance articles for a magazine, nope.

STANDARD turbo cars with very tight clearances and not driven like a madman can get away with piss thin oil, tuned/track/older ones cant.

If you dont belive me, look on, i dunno, GTR forum, SXOC, PassionFord, or ANY other forum where there are highly tuned turbo cars.

May not be the solution but you ARE running way too thin oil for a turbo car and it will piss past the seals far too easy.

Laughable to even think n/a cars need thicker oil than turbos anyhow, turbos create heat, and around half (sometimes more, depends on engine) of a cars cooling is done by oil, not water, so it needs all the help it can get, and will thin out due to heat a lot easier than in a n/a engine.

Dunno why i bother somtimes...

[jtbo]

Stavros, don't get depressed now, it is discussion forum after all and you know how everything you read from forums is going under some level of sceptic

I would think that too thin is really bad thing, as turbo spins 150 000rpm you like that there is solid oil layer in bearings, but with this oil you get thinner layer of oil and easier damage...

[foggyjames]

May not be the solution but you ARE running way too thin oil for a turbo car and it will piss past the seals far too easy.

If 10w40 is "way too thin" for a (any?) turbo car and it "will piss past the seals", how come my housemate's car has done (at least) 40k miles on this weight of oil without burning a notable amount? Sure, it's burning oil now, but it's not like we've changed what we're feeding it...so I'm in no hurry to blame the oil...whereas the cheap Chinese turbo...

If 10w40 is causing this problem with Ali's car (and I'm not saying it's not)...WHY? It seems to be AOK in plenty of very similarly specced cars...and Ali's is, effectively, more or less a standard B200FT which had ~155bhp from the factory. Not exactly an excessive output for a 2.0 turbo. I could follow your logic if this were a monster engine build.

I'd like an answer as much as the next man. How about we let Ali work though this methodically and find whatever is causing this? My money is on the turbo, but I'm more than willing to be proved wrong.

cheers

James

[pettaw]

IF you're running a race tuned car with the engine designed for that spec, then absolutely run a heavier weight oil. You're gonna need to, because the bearings need the protection of that heavier weight oil at the temperatures and pressures they run at.........

This is a standard road engine running a LPT. If a 10w40 was such a cr*p oil and p*ss*d past every turbo seal there was, why do you think its the standard oil in use today. Why not used good ol' 20w50, much thicker. Answer, the lighter 40 weight is deemed to have a better flow rate and get into the spaces left by the tighter machining tolerances of todays engines.

I do wonder how you've owned so many fantastic cars and yet seem to know so little about basic engineering. Maybe its a wood for the trees issue

[redline]

I think its about time people stopped turning this into what could potentially become a nasty slanging match ,

comments like


thats why you all mucking round with lightly modded cheap volvos.

and


I do wonder how you've owned so many fantastic cars and yet seem to know so little about basic engineering. Maybe its a wood for the trees issue


are not helping Ali in the slightest.





Stavros has obvious credentials in this matter ( after all you dont get a job writing technical/performance articles for a magazine by doing needle point )

and we all know Andy's expertise and knowledge of the 300's ,

its a shame Husky isn't around to give his opinion because at the end of the day opinions vary and that dosen't neccessarily mean anyone is more wrong or right than the other,

you are all talking about your own experiences of DIFFERENT turbo engines of DIFFERENT ages/mileages and used in DIFFERENT ways

as a layman, with little mechanical knowledge, I will now add my twopence worth,

Its obvious to me that foggys mums car isn't likely to have suffered the same abuse as a car designed for any form of racing ( except if James got behind the wheel )and therefore due to less wear would probably run ok on johnsons baby oil,

I would have thought , and bear in mind this is just the thoughts of a rambling old golf driver ,

an older engine with more wear would ,shall we say , benefit from a thicker oil, to kind of take up the play caused by worn rings , valve seals etc.

surely oil has to work harder on a worn higher mileage engine ?
so therefore it would get hotter more quickly and its viscosity would alter ( Please note use of technical term there lol)

that being the case by the time the engine warms up the oil is already working hard and then the turbo kicks in making the oil even hotter and even thinner .

what I'm saying is there is more than one factor to consider here ,
surely a worn engine plus a turbo must be more demanding on the oil than a low mileage turbo engine or a high mileage n/a unmodified lump.

plus throw into the pot the unknown condition of a seconhand turbos bearings and seals thats another factor.


I dont know if any of these ideas may help , I am no expert but from my experience

the simple facts in this case ,as I understand it, my lord ,

are for some reason or another the car smokes more the hotter it gets . which would suggest either oil burning or getting into the exhaust system through seepage.

I take it head gasket failure has been ruled out,
my calibra smoked like a bitch when it was on tick over but the smoke became more of a haze when you drove at a decent speed and the car warmed up

has the car been taken for a decent run yet to see if the smoke situation improves ( ie could it be oil that has got into the exhaust during work on the car and it needs to be burnt out )

has a compression check been done on the bores to see if the rings etc are ok ?

has the water level dropped at all to suggest overheating (no Dekay not overeating , over heating )

have the valve guide oil seals been done because if these are worn that can cause smoke on start up because of oil seeping past the valves when the car is standing and going down the exhaust manifold ( a common problem with golfs) and if the car hasn't had a decent run to warm it uo properly this May be the case .

its easy to blame the turbo as its the latest mod but it could be a contributing factor highlighting another underlying problem

so please guys put your handbags down and your egos to one side and get on with the job in hand of sorting out Ali's car.

(ooo look at me being all diplomatic I didn't even use any speech marks lol)

[Ali]

Mick, the longest its been driven for constantly has been only about 20mins, i've done a few runs where i've driven for 15mins, popped into a shop, then moved on etc so the car wouldn't really have chance to cool down so ive probably done more like 45mins driving in one go. I can see the arguement for both the oil thickness and the turbo, its just a case of which to try first! Both are looking to be about the same price lol

I was thinking the oil would make sense as it seems to smoke more and more the hotter it gets but then this could also be the exhaust getting hotter and hotter and therefore just burning off any excess oil left in the exhaust. Only way is going to be to try both really, then theres also breathers etc, would this cause same symtoms, oil catch can work? Oh another thing I noticed was when taking the air filter off there was oil in the pipe for that and a little puddle in the turbo (just where the hose goes over).

[Stavros]

This is a standard road engine running a LPT. If a 10w40 was such a cr*p oil and p*ss*d past every turbo seal there was, why do you think its the standard oil in use today. Why not used good ol' 20w50, much thicker. Answer, the lighter 40 weight is deemed to have a better flow rate and get into the spaces left by the tighter machining tolerances of todays engines.

What ARE you talking about?

Ali is using a decidedly second hand old school engine and same with the turbo.

You think either of them has tight clearances?

And you REALLY think 50 or even 60 oil is so thick it couldnt get in to places (on a car like mentioned especially) a 40 one could? What planet are you on

Only place it might not get is out the turbo seals, lol...

Im not guessing, ive talking from EXPERIENCE, but no, yall can get high and mighty all you like, im just trying to seperate the truth from the internet bullshit for you.

40 can be fine on SOME turbo cars etc, of course it can, but it doesnt make it wise. And yes, ive used plenty of 40 oil in the past...

If 10w40 is "way too thin" for a (any?) turbo car and it "will piss past the seals", how come my housemate's car has done (at least) 40k miles on this weight of oil without burning a notable amount? Sure, it's burning oil now, but it's not like we've changed what we're feeding it...so I'm in no hurry to blame the oil...whereas the cheap Chinese turbo...

As per above, 40 is acceptable in some circumstances on tuned turbo cars (and OE manufacturers reccomend it for standard cars, of course), but it dont mean its right, and hell, how do you know its not part of the new turbo issues. 50 or 60 certainly wouldnt have made anything worse, thats for sure.


Like said, believe all you like, i was just trying to help, but its like talking to a brick wall sometimes as people tend to believe any crap theyve read somewhere.
Ive been around the tuning industry all my working (and pre working) life and always owned highly tuned turbo cars, i know whats what and whats not in general, especially with regard to turbo cars, and i also know 75% of "infomation" and "help" on the internet is complete balls.

[jtbo]

I don't know for sure, but I would think that smoking comes when oil gets to turbo compressor side and from there to intake and engine where it burns and makes lot of smoke and mess naturally.

I would doubt that only replacing oil would help, if you decide to switch / rebuild turbo then I would recommend change oil to something that is thicker.

[Stavros]

Smoking can come from either of them two reasons, more often leaking directly into turbine side though if theres not another problem, BUT...

Theres one other VERY obvious thought I totally forgot about...

Have you still got the breather pipes connected up to the inlet somewhere? Ie pre or post turbo?

On a lot of cars, esp ones not intended to be turbod, this will cause you bigtime oil smoke issues too...

If pre-turbo then you can easily suck loadsa oil thru the breathers into the turbo and then engine in the way jtbo described.

If post turbo you can easily pressurise the crankcase and so on with the turbo boost, causing loads of piston ring blow by as well as a whole host of other problems.

Im most likely expecting the 2nd one, as in n/a form its impossible to pressurise it (vac all the time, atmo pressure at best which is good/fine for the engine), so there will be no provision to stop that, so there may well be (not looked at his enginebay to check) that issue.

[foggyjames]

how do you know its not part of the new turbo issues. 50 or 60 certainly wouldnt have made anything worse, thats for sure.

Why would oil he's been using sucessfully for 3 years suddenly start causing a problem? Sure, thicker oil would get rid of the problem temporarily, but it's gotta be a wear issue (somewhere). Once the wear worsens, it'll leak'n'burn the thicker oil too. As you say, it may be thicker, but it's still liquid! Using thicker oil to cover up a wear issue is just sticking a plaster on a gaping wound, surely? Fix the problem, not the symptoms, and all that.

We've already had a think about the breather system. I can't remember exactly how Ali's is arranged, but it's not plumbed up how a stock turbo car is, IIRC. It may well be hooked up how it was when it was NA. I *think* the 'large' line might be plumbed into what is now a boost pipe, which could potentially be a problem. The stock setup plumbs it in pre-turbo, where it will have a vacuum on it. Easy to test - pull the 'large' hose off the seperator box, plumb the hole in the boost pipe, and see if the problem goes away.

As Redline says, let's keep this amecable. It's a fair debate to have, and I'm very pleased that we're now having this kinda discussion rather than a year or two ago when we were chatting about which K&N filters fit a 340 1.4

cheers

James

[Ali]

rather than a year or two ago when we were chatting about which K&N filters fit a 340 1.4

Oh so true haha, I had a look about for the breathers with my mate earlier and couldn't work it out at all, was expecting it to be like on the 1.4 where its clearly visible on the rocker cover, i'm well up for trying anything thats free that could stop the problem! anythings worth a try! Any chance of you sticking up a diagram with what you meant about blocking one off? Oh also if you speak to Griz let him know i'm in need of a turbo, wouldn't mind going drifting next week and no chance with this turbo!

[germ]

hey maybe its oil that got settled in the exhaust with the first shagged turbo on and as we all know oil takes a while to heat up and burn ...
So maybe there is just some oil already in the pipe?

HAS THIS BEEN CHECKED?

in france you cant even get oil that thick but they sell 10w40 for TURBO engines...maybe the formulation is differnt. ie made so it cant seep through seals so easy.





Cheers
will

[Ali]

Nah Will, we changed the exhaust system after the first turbo so won't be that, i'm going to try the breathers now and see how it goes