Well, I made it the 150 mile drive back to my house. Smoked a little bit. I think the saving grace was that Smoke Away stuff I bought, the car was sputtering on the highway at first but as it warmed up it magically went away. Checked my oil level, lost a little bit, nothing severe though. Checked shaftplay, still none. I guess there is no way to tell if a turbo is good or not, because mine certainly seems like it is good, but its not.

Stealth: The oil pressure is turned way down. I can't adjust it while the car is running because it is too hot so... Maybe I'll turn it down a little more, but I don't want to burn up the turbo, just a hair too much and that turbo gets starved.

Trebor: I am letting it smoke, maybe the smoke away will permanently fix it , maybe not. But I spent all my money on this kit, I certainly don't have the money right now to buy a new turbo.

Hotrex: No money for new turbo, anyone know if those CCA rebuild kits are any good?

I am working over Christmas break but I had origiinally wanted to spend that money to build a motor. This sucks, I have never heard of a turbo smoking after being starved for oil, oil return fixed, and no shaftplay. This is some kind of fluke.

 

Since the shaftplay is good, the turbo just has bad seals. Nothing is going to blow apart though right? I mean, it could have bad seals and smoke for a year before it finally went. Is that possible?

 

I think a turbo could smoke for a long long time before it "went".
Since your shaftplay is good, I would assume that as long as you give it oil it's still gonna keep running. That's weird that you don't have any shaft play and it's smoking. Nothing wrong with drain line or anything?

 

My return line looks good to me. Yep, still no shaftplay.

 

ya mang start new. replace it

 

if the turbo pulls til redline and minimum shaftplay, then i'd do what you wanna do, replace the seals. might aswell get a complete rebuild kit and rebuild the turbo. can you imagine how fucked up it'll be if you went and bought another used turbo and that one started smoking too....

 

Yeah, the next time I buy a turbo it's definitely going to be new. Probably going to rebuild this one. Started smoking like crazy today. Those seals are on their way out.

 

dude, just buy a real turbo.

 

Who is going to pay for that?

 

since you obviously cant afford forced induction you should convert your car back to na, until you can! otherwise your probably going to ---- up more ---- in the long run and you wont be able to afford that either.