Engine and turbo issues...I'm just sick over the problems.

MrDiggler

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Spicy MSP #1349, '88 323 GTX, '79 10th Ann. T/A, 462 ci 4-spd
My sig info is for my previous MSP. I haven't updated it yet. I had it for eight years, and that car was as close to perfect as a car can get. No issues and compression was still 190-195 in every cylinder at 150k miles. When I bought my 2nd MSP with only 110k miles on it, I expected a lot better than the crap I'm having to deal with now. At 114k mi. the turbo went out. No boost and the car started just pouring light blue oil smoke when driven. After getting screwed on the deal the first time around, I finally get a replacement turbo from a salvage yard in Utah this week. This turbo is supposed to have 132k mi. on it and has a 30 day guarantee. I get the car back Tuesday and it's still smoking some. I figured there's residual oil in the intake plumbing. The boost doesn't seem to come up very strong with the new turbo, and the mechanic told me that the wastegate on the new one didn't look like the wastegate (factory?) on the old turbo. Didn't know this til after it was installed. I haven't been able to get a boost gauge on it yet to see exactly what it's doing. I live on a mountain, and now during daily driving on mostly level ground, it's not smoking. However, coming up the mountain it pours out clouds of oil smoke, and I can tell that the turbo isn't doing much of anything. My first MSP and this one used to pull strong up the mountain and the boost came up quickly and stayed up under load. Not now. Even on level ground I can barely tell it has a turbo now, and it doesn't set off the BOV like it used to. I want to note that I did figure out that the previous owner was way past his oil change interval after I'd been driving the car for a while. The engine may have been treated like crap. I don't know. I do know that his choice of mods was less than desireable and I'm missing my old MSP soooo badly right now.

I will be doing a compression test this weekend. I did one just a few weeks ago and was seeing 160-170psi, but couldn't check one of the cylinders due to a gasket stuck in the plug access hole. The mechanic got that out for me during the turbo swap and I'll check it again across the board. I have to wonder if I'm going to find really low compression on that untested cylinder. Other than that, does anyone have any ideas for a car with low boost and/or power, and smokes like hell when under a consistent, heavy load like going up the mountain? I will be beyond pissed if it turns out this engine is shot when buying a car with such relatively low miles. Thanks in advance for any help or ideas. I will post the info on the compression numbers and boost numbers and behavior just as soon as I can get them.
 
115k miles is low for a car as old as the MSP, but that does not necessarily mean the motor is healthy. I bought my second one with 110k and the original motor had been blown to bits. The turbo was bad when I got it running and I have a similar issue to you as the supposedly low mileage replacement turbo smokes but it only smokes a lot when I boost for the first time after the car sits over night. I would start with a compression test like you plan and then check the charge pipes for oil. The wastegate may be bad causing the low boost and lack of power.
 
Thanks. I haven't been able to check the boost yet, although I did pick up a gauge today. Bad news on the compression. It's down a lot from the 160-170 before. Now 138, 139, 148, 148. Either the oil was completely shot in it or metal shavings got into the oil after the turbo failure. Even though I didn't drive it much and drove really easy, I seriously regret driving it after the turbo failed. Now I'm even more sick about this situation.
 
I would be surprised if the compression changed that much in a short time. Did you do a dry or wet compression test?
 
It's shocking, I know, but don't know any other explanation. Dry test both times. Same gauge, same procedure.
 
Well, I got a vacuum/pressure gauge hooked up to it today and got some interesting results. Vacuum at idle is 18-20 psi. Boost behavior is really strange to me... Put it to the floor in 4th or 5th at around 2k rpm and hold it there, and the boost barely moves, eventually coming up to 1.5-2 psi and just holding there. Sometimes in 2nd or 3rd going slightly uphill I could floor the throttle from 2k rpm and the boost slowly builds as the engine revs faster, going a little higher to around 3 psi and then to 5 psi as the rpms sweep past 5k, settling back at 4.5 psi and staying there. Driving up the mountain under sustained high load, it never got above 2 psi in 2nd or 3rd gear, conditions that should absolutely produce full boost.

Obviously something's whacky with this replacement turbo. The mechanic mentioned after the install that the wastegate was different from the original one. Wish I'd known about this and made sure the rods were set to the same length. So, I wonder how much of an adjustment should be made based on the above behavior? I assume there is some good info on the forum about wastegate adjustments. My bigger question is does anyone think there's any correlation between the low (140-150 psi) cylinder compression I have now and the effective boost from the turbo? Not sure if that could be the case, thinking that the turbo is capable of enough boost to compensate for leakage past the rings...but I really don't know. Any ideas?
 
I would be surprised if the compression changed that much in a short time. Did you do a dry or wet compression test?
A friend of mine who is a seasoned old-school mechanic and I were talking today, and this is something I didn't mention previously... While the turbo was being installed I had Royal Purple put in it, and the previous owner had been using conventional oil. My friend is convinced that the ultra slick synthetic is the reason for the suddenly lower compression numbers, and I've heard about things like this before. He says the only way to know is to change back to conventional (Ugh) and see if the compression comes back up. I would really be tickled if that were the case and the motor is not going south on me quickly after all.
 
Update: No shaft play to speak of with the turbo. There was a trace of residual oil in the charge pipes. None near the turbo. There was a noticeable film in the compressor outlet and the hot pipe though. Not sure what to make of it. Silvery gray, almost like some type of a grease film. Any ideas? The often problematic bushing where the shaft for the wastegate flap passes through the housing appears to be in the factory position. It hasn't moved out, and that surprised me because I quite expected to find otherwise. It would've explained a lot. The WGA passed the basic blow into the hose test, but it was very difficult for me to tell with my head crammed down in there and the hose a little too short. Hornsfan, I agree with you and think the WGA is either bad or is the wrong one for my setup. I had to check some other stuff to make sure of that before R&R'ing the turbo to swap the WGA. Not even going to try it with the turbo installed. The WGA currently on there is not a factory unit, but I have a good factory WGA on my original turbo. I'm going to swap them as soon as I have the time. Thanks for all the good advice!

That said, some unusual but really awesome stuff is happening with my engine since I swapped it over to Royal Purple. The compression is now up to 180-190 psi. Oil consumption was at 1 qt. every 600-700 miles. As of the last three weeks and 400 miles it doesn't look to have used any. Periodic puffs of blue oil smoke are gone entirely now. I'm crossing my fingers, but I'm wondering if after an initial freak out, the rings reseated themselves because of switching oils. My original compression test of 160-170 psi was with the conventional crap the previous owner had in. Now even with slicker oil the compression is actually 20 psi higher than I started with. Please tell me that what I'm seeing will continue!
 
That is good news, I am surprised to hear it as I have never seen that happen before but it is good news for sure.

I think the wastegate will help with the boost issues.
 
That is good news, I am surprised to hear it as I have never seen that happen before but it is good news for sure.

I think the wastegate will help with the boost issues.

Any idea what that silvery gray pasty film is?
 
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