Oil in BOV....PCV, or other fault ?

[HondaEat-R]

Ok guys, I was adjusting my BOV yesterday, when i noticed it had quite a bit of oil in it. Also, a good amount of oil in my IC end tank coupler (cold side) and IC piping. The big issue is, when I took off my air filter from the Perrin SRI, I looked down in the intake and saw a puddle of oil at the intake pipe elbow right before the turbo inlet. Yikes ! BTW, my BOV is recirced to the intake pipe.

I have the drivers side of my valve cover venting to the intake, instead of a breather filter. Do you think this is why I have all of that oil there ? I know people put catch cans between the PCV and intake manifold, but what about between the valve cover (drivers side) and turbo intake ?

I need to do something about this, soon. Can I run the PCV and valve cover into one catch can ? I'm gonna make a Home Depot catch can, but am unsure of the best way to hook it up. If someone could help me out, that'd be great. Thanks

[HondaNoMore]

hook up your catch can between the valve cover and intake and see if that helps. If not, it sounds like blown turbo seals. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

[lowr3y]

take off your sri and see if u have turbo shaft play ( yeah i said "shaft play") compression check it, do a cylinder leakdown test, then report back...
this should tell u if u have bad turbo seals, or a head gasket... do u have any blue or white smoke coming from the exhaust? any loss of power?

subbin for update...

[yashooa]

This happened to me when I broke a ringland.
The motor does use oil now with my forged motor and all my mods but only when I boost it really hard in the18-22PSI range with my bigger turbo.
I never see any oil in the IC or anywhere it should not be but I do have to add oil every 2000 miles or so if I let it go I would need a full quart during those 2000 miles but I check it and keep it topped off.
I have two quarts of synthetic oil in the trunk at all times. I have gone through 6 quarts in roughly 15k miles or so.
If I baby drive it the car does not use oil only when I hammer the fuck out it does it go through oil.
It does not smoke, it does not run poorly, it does not get bad mileage, or idle strangely it just eats the oil slowly over time.
I think that a catch can (which I have) and the krank vents will greatly reduce this.

You sound just like I did when I was attempting everything to avoid having a broken ringland. I did all those same things making my own catch can, buying a Cusco etc. etc. etc.
When it came down to it stalling all that time just lead to me killing my turbo from all the oil going through the hotside. So in the long run it might be cheaper to do the compression check ASAP. For the record my car still pulled hard and pulled down 37MPG with the broken ringland. I am sure it would change as the turbo got worse.

You have many of the same mods I do so I really dont like seeing this. :(

[lowr3y]

that is why i said to do a cylinder leakdown test

[DiscreetSpeed]

Wrd a compression check and/or shaft play check?

[DiscreetSpeed]

I think that a catch can (which I have) and the krank vents will greatly reduce this.

Youd be surprise. I had a metal catch can on my car for some time and just recently i bought and installed a clear one to see how much oil was building up over time. After just over a day there was some build up. I used to get some oil in my intake mani and intake pipe but no longer after installing a catch can.

[MSP2003.5_Nick]

I had this problem with the stock turbo, ended up being the turbo seals making huge puddles in my charge piping and blowing oil all over the engine bay with my tial bov. Time for a new snail me thinks (2thumbs)

I'd just take it as a perfectly good excuse to upgrade.

[yashooa]

Youd be surprise. I had a metal catch can on my car for some time and just recently i bought and installed a clear one to see how much oil was building up over time. After just over a day there was some build up. I used to get some oil in my intake mani and intake pipe but no longer after installing a catch can.


I have the Cusco which has a clear tube along the side so you can monitor the amount. You can take this tube and invert it to drain the oil out of it.

Hey, I broke a ringland just like your did with your stock MSP.
We both hammered those poor stock blocks to death and they just kept coming back for more!
I hope that this guy has a bad turbo and not a bad ring.

[HondaEat-R]

OK, I'll check some more stuff out today. Nobody thinks it's just a lot of blow by from the PCV and the valve cover vent ? That's what blow by does, coats IC piping etc. Maybe I'm just hoping for the best. The car does smell like burning oil sometimes, but doesn't really smoke at all. I could just get a turbo rebuild kit for a t25 and that'd work too right. I can't have any time w/out a car, work full time and school kills ya.

Are you guys running PCV catch cans, or the valve cover vent catch cans (to intake pipe) ? Because I know both will produce oil blow by . Thanks !

[magnumP5]

PCV still rattle? If so then it's fine. The PCV valves in these cars aren't as bad as most people make them out to be. I had a Millenia PCV valve on my P5 for a while (which most people consider to be an upgrade) and I noticed no improvement. I have since switched to using the Krank Vents which are essentially large metal check valves so my PCV actually never sees boost anymore.

BTW, those T25 rebuild kits you're talking about are only for the journal-bearing turbos and will not work with the GT25 ball-bearing turbos we have.

[shane02pro5]

Not much of any oil escapes through the valve cover vent hose to the intake (I had an inline fuel filter on there to monitor for a month and only accumulated a few drops). I also have the millenia PCV and it's not much of an upgrade as magnum says but with the catch can too I have no blowby.

My old motor went through 1/2 quart every few weeks but I think this was a valve guide issue causing it to pressurize the catch can to 1/2 full at least once a month. I'd get a big puff of blue smoke at wot between shifts.

[magnumP5]

^^^ Sounds like what my car is doing now. Won't know for sure until I get a compression and leakdown test done. Right now, depending on how much I drive I can burn up to 1 full quart in one week.

[DiscreetSpeed]

I have the Cusco which has a clear tube along the side so you can monitor the amount. You can take this tube and invert it to drain the oil out of it.

Hey, I broke a ringland just like your did with your stock MSP.
We both hammered those poor stock blocks to death and they just kept coming back for more!
I hope that this guy has a bad turbo and not a bad ring.
Yep... sounds like you have the same problem i have ....we're both boost addicts.

[shane02pro5]

I wasn't overly concerned since I did constant compression tests and they were always perfect and I had my motor in the works.

I still haven't pulled my old motor apart to see what was actually going on! Have you checked your plugs to see if there's any oil getting in there??

[DiscreetSpeed]

OK, I'll check some more stuff out today. Nobody thinks it's just a lot of blow by from the PCV and the valve cover vent ? That's what blow by does, coats IC piping etc. Maybe I'm just hoping for the best. The car does smell like burning oil sometimes, but doesn't really smoke at all. I could just get a turbo rebuild kit for a t25 and that'd work too right. I can't have any time w/out a car, work full time and school kills ya.

Are you guys running PCV catch cans, or the valve cover vent catch cans (to intake pipe) ? Because I know both will produce oil blow by . Thanks !
I am running both sides with check valves but only the pcv side with a catch can. If you have oil in as many places as you do and may just be blowby from the pcv or the vent from the valve cover then theres too much blowby. Enough to say possibly valve guides or oil control rings.

[MSP2003.5_Nick]

If you do find it is the T25 seals then i will share a little wisdom about why these stock turbos typically do this. It is because the oil feed line is too large. Apparently mazda never heard of an oil restrictor. Reason being is that the oil going through the turbo was meant to keep the seals and shaft lubricated to prevent heat from friction. It is not meant for cooling, that is what the coolant lines on the turbo are for.

Ok I can see someone razzing me now but let me explain more. Oil does cool the turbo as well but it takes a long time on it's own which is what turbo timing is for. Mazda chose a turbo with added coolant lines to speed the process because lets face it most people who buy the car dont even know enough to turbo time.

Too much oil in the turbo creates more pressure than needed which ends up blowing the seals eventually. There is a reason why the return line is much larger than the inlet, to get the oil the hell out. A restrictor makes the inlet the size of a pin hole which reduces pressure which will make your turbo last much longer!

What a mouthful lol, needless to say I have an oil restrictor on the inlet of my T3/T4. Pin size hole is more than enough for that turbo so T25 does not need what it has.

Just FYI, sorry for threatjack haha

[magnumP5]

^^^ While you are correct about oil cooling and the need for turbo timers there is no need to run an oil restrictor with a ball-bearing turbo with these cars. Also, IIRC, the stock oil feed line is specially made to allow for the correct oil pressure entering the turbo. These cars have notoriousl low oil pressures - according to the FSM the oil pressure should be between 50-60 psi at 3000 RPM and it doesn't really change after that (there's a valve in the oil pump which prevents this but that's a whole different story). Journal bearings may be different but there are a whole lot of people running larger turbos with aftermarket supply lines without using restrictors. IIRC, there is a member here who kept running into problems using oil restrictors on his ball-bearing GT28RS.

[Bu11dogg2]

A little oil in the IC or BOV is fine. HOWEVER, if it's a lot...

If you're running high boost.... get a catch can.

wait... I said high boost and implied that it was possible in an MSP.... (doh)

[yashooa]

A little oil in the IC or BOV is fine. HOWEVER, if it's a lot...

If you're running high boost.... get a catch can.

wait... I said high boost and implied that it was possible in an MSP.... (doh)

I ran up to 20PSI on a stock bottom end with and MPI Nick turbo and it finally broke a ringland after 121,000 miles! Of course I had 5k of other mods to :)
Now I run 18-22PSI with my new motor (alright) I would like to tune it soon to a max of 24 for this turbo.

But yes I do know what you mean. LOL

[HondaEat-R]

A little oil in the IC or BOV is fine. HOWEVER, if it's a lot...

If you're running high boost.... get a catch can.

wait... I said high boost and implied that it was possible in an MSP.... (doh)

Define "alot", haha. Who knows how long it took to build up, but when I took my intake pipe off the turbo inlet, there was a solid teaspoon of oil sitting in the elbow of the intake pipe. My Blow-off valve has a layer of oil in it as well, but not a big pool. I haven't yet taken off the Hot pipe coming off the turbo though to check.

I am running "high boost", 13-15psi depending on spike, motor is forged of course. I just made a DIY catch can for the crankcase vent, and will make another for the PCV today. So, can I tell if the seals are shot just by check for shaft-play ? Thanks