Where's the oil coming from?

4 possibilities:

One, and the most likely. The oil return line has a blockage, a kink, or goes down up down so air locks, so the oil cant drain eisily...

Two, Turbo is shot... (seals or bearings or both, unlikely unless dirty oil has fried and carboned up the bearing and thje return route... (diesels do this more as they are full of sooty carbon)

Three. Engine breather is blocked or partially blocked so although the oil seal is ok the engines crank case pressure pushses oil out of the seals.

If its 4 buy the bike!

Four. Or one you dont want to think about, the engines shagged and the oil either comes past the rings directly, or causes excess crankase pressure that pushes it past the seals because now the breather cant cope....

It could just be that the piston rings are buggered and not the entire engine?

Whatever, it's the perfect excuse to rip out the piece of shit 1.8, and throw in an RB26.

If you have a 2nd car and the money to do it... why not!?

If the piston rings are buggered then its all buggered.

Would this be the oil return line from the turbo to the sump? I'll check that first.

I hope it's not this, although it's going to be cheaper than 4, those exhaust manifold nuts are a real PITA to get to.

I'm hoping this is the problem. I've read that one breather is particularly prone to clogging so I'll take off all the breather pipes and check for blockages.

I hope it's not this as I've just had a recon block put in recently.

Thanks for the reply.

How is it valved or baffled in the rocker? The 3S-GTE in the GT4 and MR2 Turbo just uses a baffle system rather than a proper valve (inside the cover). The inner baffle plate blocks with sludgy crap.

Just a baffle plate inside the cover but unfortunately the breathers were all clear so it looks like I'll have to get a new turbo :-( Think I'll go back to a T25.

The breathing system on this engine is pretty crap overall. I'm looking for ways to improve it and get rid of some of the, many feet, of pipework and maybe installing a catch tank too.

Turbos that do as you describe MAY really be buggered. Check for free play etc. But everytime I had one (mainly on bikes though) that did that it always turned out to be a badly routed return pipe so the oil could not drain back under gravity, freely. Turbo seals are not like an ordinary oil seal, and they cant stand any pressure! If the return is blocked, inadequate or routed less than perfectly the oil comes through into the turbine housing.

There's a bit of play (feels like a couple of millimetres) side to side but no in and out. I'll check the return when I'm underneath tomorrow. Would the fact that, because the T28 is physically bigger, the oil return pipe is a couple of centimetres lower than where it enters the sump cause such a problem?. If it could be that then I can cut a couple of inches off the pipe and fit a longer connecting piece. To be honest I thought the oil was under pressure and forced through the turbo and thus the return too.

No forced to the turbo, restricted, and then it lubes the bearing, and there is little pressure here or the oil just flows out into the exhaust / intake. From here gravity drains it back to the sump. Any pipework that say drops down lower, and comes up again, or can cause ANY restriction will cause it to smoke! That couple of centimeters may be your problem.

I'll take the return off tomorrow, shorten it and make sure there is a fall all the way to the sump and no restrictions. Touch wood this will solve the smoking problem.

Thanks for the advice, it's much appreciated. You could've saved me over £400 for a recon turbo.

It's pretty easy to do, although it implies an engine fault. I used plumbing pipes on mine, brazed together, combined with a second oil trap / breather. You don't need to use flexible hoses as the system should be fixed relative to the block anyway. You'd need to fix the catch tank to the bodywork, though.

I prefer to vent mine direct into the pancake simply because the oil will help compression and I'm not bothered about smoking / depositing oil on tracks.

I don't suppose you could post some pictures somewhere, I'd be interested to see someone else's solution?

This one shows the pipes fairly well.

As you can see, there are two "pepperpots" on the rocker covers and instead of being at the front where they were originally, I've reversed the tops so that they are at the back where there is more space under the bonnet.

The fresh air inlet on the other end has less clearance issues. And anyway, does nothing anyway, now. I ought to just blank it off, really. The oil filler is also on that end. I cut the second pepperpot and tapped it, easy enough to do in fact, if you can borrow the right tools.

The pipes are 22mm gauge, that's the larger 3/4 inch you find on bath taps rather than the 1/2 inch in kitchens and radiators. This is perfect for sealing onto the tops of the pepperpots with a bit of greased rag as a gasket. Screwfix sell ten x two meter lengths of this stuff for 20 quid so that's half the price of a Ford flexible breather for a start... ;)

I suppose it would be possible to braze them on for a gas tight seal but then you can't undo them later without taking off the rocker covers. This works well enough, though, no oil leaking out as yet.

This is version 1.0 by the way, I tried a version 2.0 where the pipes were mostly bent* rather than joined, and fed into a common pipe via a Y shape rather than the gases hitting head on and leaking out via the T piece. I couldn't get it to fit into the best place for the pipe that goes into the pancake. And anyway, it seems to be working ok as it is, just that it isn't engineer-attractive. Also a version 3.0 was slated, where there would be two separate pipes joined with a H piece for balancing, both venting into the pancake airbox. That would be very free flowing but overkill.

At the output end, the pipe with the elbow comes up and out again at 45 degrees, the pancake airbox has a floor and then a step so that the filter can be deeper than the gap between the top of the box and the carb top. This step is a 45 degree slope, the pipe comes through there and blows onto the filter element that sits below the step. That way, it is held in place when the pancake is bolted down without actually heating up the carb float chamber.

(* the idea was to make them elegantly shaped, using the fact that the pepperpots are slightly staggered due to the fact that the V8 has the cylinders offset by the width of a big end bearing. You can see in 1.0 there is a step across on one pepperpot so that the fresh air plenum can be put back without fouling the pipes. The idea was to bend the pipes over and past each other, then one would T-joint onto the other which would be going 45 degrees across the valley. It was supposed to have just the T-piece and the final 90 bend into the filter, which is necessary as it has to come across into a small space between carb body and airbox.)

Hope this inspires you to have a play. :)

That looks far neater than having rubber pipes clipped and strewn all around the engine bay. My uncle is a plumber so I'll see if I can beg some pipe and elbows off him and see what I can do.

Thanks.