Hey, been boosted for around 3 months with no problems other than a little rough idle and having to reset the ecu to combat the ltft.

Yesterday, I was at a stoplight, had just started the 8 a few minutes ago and looked behind me, there was tons of white smoke behind me. Light turned green and I went ahead, smoke gone so I just thought maybe it was someone else smoking, not me. Drove down the road, no smoke, did not happen again.

Started the car this morning, pulled out of the garage and white smoke everywhere! It was me.

Car runs fine besides a rough idle everynow and then, no cels, drives smooth, has power. Just after it sits for a few minutes and I start it, it smokes then goes away. The longer it sits, the more it smokes, but it always goes away. i do smell a kind of oil burning smell while it smokes

So, this is my first rotary, so I have very limited experience with them.

Are my apex seals now busted? Oil metering pump going bad? turbo leaking oil in the exhaust?

Any input is great, i am thinking i may be doing some intensive work soon, got that bad feeling about this. I have had some knock a few weeks back because of the ltft but once I learned about that and started reseting the ecu, everythng seem to be fine.

Thanks

Chris

 

Usually with a broken apex seal you feel a rough idle all the time(based on my RX7s).Also there is no smole associated with an apex seal failure,unless you have big time damage to an oil cotrol seal.White smoke is usually indicative of coolant seal failure,but it has the peculiar odour of burning glycol.If the smoke has burning oil odour,then turbo oil seal failure or casting crack in the turbo would be my best guess.

 

Is the smoke actually coming from the tail pipes, or under the car?

 

from the actual exhaust itself.

How could i check to see if it is the turbo oil seal or casting crack in the turbo, just look at it? Would I see any indications?

 

Yes,you can remove the inlet hose,outlet hose and the exhaust pipe ,if you see oil swilling around then the turbo is the problem.Note that a lite oil film on the turbo air outlet
is normal.

 

Got under the 8 a little while ago while it was running to see if i saw anything different.

The first thing I notice is that I had oil leaking from the downpipe/cat connection, a real drip there!

Second thing, turbo housing has a good amount of oil around it. Airinx is coated with oil as well as the bottom tray under the airinx.

Sounds like a blown oil gasket on the turbo?

 

sounds like your turbo is gone/going bad. if it's white smoke, check your coolant level.

 

yea, that is what i am thinking, it is white/grayish smoke but it is definetly oil in the exhaust. I am running royal purple engine oil so maybe it burns lighter in color. I don't think i have any coolant problems though even though the color of the smoke is light.

Guess i will be taking the turbo off soon and sending it to Greddy for a replacement. At least this gives me a chance to finally tap and drill the exhaust manifold for my egt. Just trying to look at the brightside.

Anyone have any ideas on why the turbo itself would go bad so quick?

 

Do you have a blow off valve or recycle valve?If not spiking pressure is always good for destroying compressors.

 

bov and boost controller on mine, never noticed any spikes although i do get the horse sound once in a while, had it a bunch the first few weeks before i could get the bov adjusted.

greddy should cover this, don't you think?

 

Other possibilities-----not allowing the turbo to cool off before shutting motor off;this cooks the oil big time and carbonised oil particles wear the seals.
----manufacturing defect
----driving the turbo too hard.

 

white smoke = running too lean
go to the workshop and get it checked out

 

This has happened heaps of times. Had it serviced recently? Topped up the oil recently? It's overfull with oil, I reckon. Pumps out heaps of white smoke when it's overfull.

Drain some out and there'll be no dramas.....if that is the problem.

 

in the process of pulling the turbo off, checked the oil level, it was about a half of a quart low, so definetly something going on with the turbo itself in my opinion. i will post some pictures of the oil leak from the cat joint and the oil all over the turbo itself tomorrow.

Don't think it had anything to do with fuel mixture at all, definetly oil related, I can see the leaks but thanks for the input.

Can we start chanting on here to get my 8 back on the road? I miss her

 

Did you get the turbo off? any pics. Also, did you ever get ahold of Greddy to see about warranty?

 

this is my guess to why your turbo is going bad...

you don't have an oil catch can?? therefore blow-by oil (which has increased because of the turbo) is now shooting into the compressor housing. excessive oil in the compressor housing has caused the bearing inside the turbo to go bad causing oil to leak out of the turbine side. which leads me to the assumption that there is oil at the exhaust tips.

take off the intake to the compressor housing and see how much oil is laying in the turbo. then, by hand, wiggle the compressor shaft to feel any play. minimal play is normal...but i'm talking really small. also, check around the BOV and see if you can detect oil mist. make sure you prime the new turbo when you get one. i'd do a compression test just for kicks.

 

Sorry for the delays guys, we had a small huricane here and have been preocupied with that. have the down pipe off as well as well as some of the other small parts, should have the turbo off completely by tomorrow evening or so.

will put some pics up tomorrow hopefully too. The turbo itself, once the fan was exposed, told a few stories. When i spin the fan by hand, it scratches and you can also wobble it back and forth. So the problem sounds like the turbo to me. BTW, I do have an oil catch can so that should not be a problem. i have a tt and when it was not used I let it idle for at least 3 minutes and if i had ran hard then longer.

Have not talked to greddy yet, got to get the turbo out to get the serial numbers off. Looks like they should cover this though, i certaintly hope so!

Got one small problems, the nuts holding the turbo housing to the down pipe are very hard to get off, seem to be seized. One is starting to round off so I left off there as it was getting late then also. Any pointers on how to get that off, I sprayed some "pentrating blaster" on it but that did not help. Would a small handheld tourch work or is that a no-no?

Thanks guys,

I miss the 8 and the boost so bad!

 

Hi there zoomzoom_8. Sorry to read about your turbo probs and hope you get the 8 fixed soon.

Over here, UK, there is only one officially Greddy Turbo'd 8 and one more being converted at this time - we get every thing WAY later than you guys!!

Just wondering how long youv'e had the turbo fitted and if you had the same problem the UK guy's had with the ECU?? If so, what was the fix, as I am told that Greddy are doing an ECU for the UK problems. Did the US 8 have this problem too?

Sorry to ask all this when your mind is on more important things.

Regards,

Ian.

 

No prob, turbo was only in for about two and a half months, i think just a bad turbo compressor and nothing else cause no one else has had this exact trouble. Turbo is finally out now, took a couple of nights, lots of seized bolts from the heat i guess, i will be using anti seize for sure, should have in the first place! calling greddy tomorrow for replacement information, i will post on here what goes on with that.

What problems did the uk 8 have? We have trouble with long term fuel trim and the stock ecu but the interceptor seems to be the fix for us as it takes complete control of fuel and ignition, planning to get that as soon as i get this problem staight.

 

Thanks for your reply and I'm glad things are moving on for you.

The UK problems have been ecu related as far as I know, and I'm told that Greddy have now got their own ecu now.

TBH the best people to ask are ; Tim, he owns the first tubo'd uk 8 here's his website www.rxmotors.co.uk the guys who helped fit the turbo are at www.reworks.com What any these guys don't know about rotaries aint worth knowing!

Also, if you are interested, look at www.mazdarotaryclub.com (I'm a member).

To enter as a guest just click on the opening picture then look in the rx8 topics, there's some threads in there regarding Tim's turbo etc. Perhaps you could consider adding your experiences to the threads? I guess a lot of brits will be interested.

Cheers aagain.

Ian.

 

Update on the turbo issues. called greddy usa today, was informed that there is no warranty whatsoever on their products. The turbo has been in for only around two months, so it is apparent to me that the turbo was faulty from the beginning, weak bearing or oil seal that finally gave way.
I always let the turbo cool, really did not boost that much, keep the engine oil clean, watched all the oil temp/pressure gauges (which I have two of those) so i cannot see anyway that I did anything to this turbo. Their recommendation was to pay someone to see why it went bad but no matter what they would not cover it.

So my options now are to count my losses, gather the parts and go back n/a (which i will never do), rebuild the turbo at my cost, buy another greddy kit or go with ptp or another vendor. Either way there is more money out of my pocket.

I asked to speak to someone higher than the person i was speaking with at greddy usa, he informed me that he was the sales manager. He got someone else to come on the phone but that person also said he was the "sales manager". So greddy usa has a lot of chiefs but no indians evidently.

they gave me the number to greddy japan, which of course is closed at this hour with no voicemail. i will be calling them tonight to speak to whoever is above the greddy usa company which they would not tell me the name.

Needless to say, I am upset. I voided the factory warranty which really is no big deal cause i have not had any warranty claims but when i think that the product greddy sells is not even covered by manufactoring defects and all the money we all spent to go turbo, it really burns me up.

Broke apex seal says that the emanage ruin his engine, which i don't doubt because of all the problems with the emanage. Now my turbo is burnt. But there are some on here that has not had any trouble but take note, if you trust the "trust company" like i did, you may get burnt! Isolated problems do occur and most reputable companies stand behind those problems, not Greddy evidently.

i will not be doing any business with them again if they continue this practice of business.

So does anyone recommend anyone to rebuild a turbo or a good replacement to get that mitsubushi out of there?

 

Sorry to hear about your problems. Do you remember the names of people you spoke to at Greddy USA? Check your state laws regarding express and implied warranties. You may have some legal recourse there. As far as rebuilding the turbo, you could always call Mazmart to get the Interceptor-X and their turbine upgrade...
________
Magic Flight Launch Box Review

 

Many states have an automatic implied 90 day warranty. The only way around that implied warranty period is to specifically include with the item itself a warranty card with "alternative" warranty information. (Some states it's only 30 days..)

 

Well I would have thought this turbo would have lasted longer than it did.However it is a fact that the factory turbos on RX7s are water cooled.The reason for this is that heat soak on shutdown with none water cooled turbos on rotary engines is horrendous.Mazda supplied data showed a temperature difference on shutdown of 302F between water cooling and only oil cooling.Given that oil fries easily you can see the necessity for very careful temperature management.

 

I found the data.