oil in the charge pipes
 

Ok, I just rebuilt a t-25 from a talon and I helped (watched) a kid put it on his 97 civic (d16y8) After we got the turbo in, we hooked up all the lines and his oil return is almost straight over to the pan ... not alot of drop at all.

After the rebuild, the t-25 has almost no shaft play at all, and spins like a dream. Today he comes to me and says there's oil in his charge pipes .... not 'hey, there's some residue .." more like "hey, oil spit out of the BOV and got the underside of my hood all oiley" ....

He has no restrictor, reducer, or needle valve in his oil supply line.

Here's my question ... did I screw up the rebuild or is his turbo getting too much oil and not draining right ?

If I screwed up the rebuild ... what could I have done to make it kill the seal inside the first week coulpe days ? It didn't seem to smoke at first and it deffinately wasn't hemorrhaging oil like that ... is it possible his oil pump has overpowered the turbo's seals already ? The car seems to make quite a bit of oil pressure at idle and then a bit more driving.

Thanks for your opinions guys.

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

how did you rebuild it? was it balanced? i mean once you remove evrything its all off balance and out of wack, thats the purpose of the slightly ground off nut on the ends of the shaft. or chances are the seals blew. cartridge seals are like a headgasket, sort of a safety measure. thats kind of their 2nd job.

if his oil pressure was high, like hondas usually are, and he had a piss poor drain, yeah he could have had a slight back up and the oil had to go somewhere.


was his car turbocharged before, or is this a whole new set up

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

Yea but a couple of days and its fucked, id say it was his lack of restrictor valve, and shityy downpipe

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

what does a shitty downpipe have anything to do with it

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

Downpipe wouldn't have anything to due with it...oil return line would though :P Most DSM turbos on their respective motors under most circumstances don't see anything over 40 psi of oil pressure, most sit at around 10psi due to how the oil feed is designed coming from the head. Your average good condition honda motor will well surpass 40 psi, so a restictor of some sort is pretty much a requirement. I would say try it with a restrictor and see if it still pukes oil. If it does then those seals are def. wasted.

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

I think when he said downpipe he meant oil drain ;)

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

NCHATCH - I ordered a full rebuild kit from someone on ebay. Was a pretty straight forward process ... open up ... take guts out, replace with new parts. As for balance is concerned, I marked compressor blade orientation with respect to the shaft and the center housing in order to maintain the factory balance ... and from what I've been told on this forum thats pertty much a formality, but I did it anyway. I know the rebuild did all sorts of good for the turbo, I was expecting it to be trash when I took it apart, it had ALOT of side play. However, upon inspecting the blades I was surprised to find out it hadn't contacted the housings yet. So I went ahead and rebuilt it. When everything was said and done, there was almost 0 shaft play. Funny thing, I bought the turbo from him about a month ago + a DSM SMIC for $35. I rebuilt it and sold it back to him. It was his original setup so putting it back on the car wasn't too difficult at all. We had to clock it, but that was about it.

peenmysoup - So you think the seals are again toast ? >_< that would really suck. I told him when I sold it back to him that he NEEDED To have a good oil return and a restrictor fitting of some kind in his oil supply line when he put it back on. He blew the seals out on it before. I was really pleased when it started up the second time (after proper priming) without any real smoke, just small stuff from assembley lube. He said he was going for a restictor today ... >_< ... hopefully the seals aren't toast already. I would hate to dig back into that turbo again ... he already has his friends lining up to have me tear apart their old turbos.

His turbo sits really low ... he has some pre-made ramhorn manifold .... I don't know ... is there anything you guys can recommend to help the turbo drain better ? I'd appreciate any help you guys can offer.

After this fiasco I'm not sure I trust my rebuild. Here's hoping that with a restrictor in place and a better return line it stops puking oil.

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

Tell him he may need to remove his intercooler and drain the oil from it. I would suggest rinsing it out thoroughly with something that will not corrode aluminum.

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

clocking it, and it not being 100% percent level, has cause a couple turbo issues in MY past.

from what it sounds like, you did it all right. might have to chalk this one up to "bad luck" and try again. but if it happened a 2nd time, i would be worried

Re: oil in the charge pipes
 

are you sure its not coming from the crankcase ventilation setup? I had this problem, i saw the oil coming out of the BOV and went "----" but upon teardown i realized i had so much pre-turbo oil that is caused me to look else were, turns out the turbo was fine, it had just been the build up from the PCV system (i had over filled the oil), i installed a catch can and now everything is okie dokie

heres what mine looked like:

http://ultimatecarforum.com/smf/index.php?topic=38.0