[Ethdog]

Ive decided to post on here as a last resort, I’ve spoken to Subaru master techs, read every forum online, spoke with countless companies looking for advice and I’m so lost and desperate for help, I’m 19 and have had a broken car for about a year now, if you have any input that would be greatly appreciated!

I have an ej207 swapped bugeye wrx.

I rebuilt it 700 miles ago, I guess the only relevant details are, forged Manley pistons, blouch DOM 2.5xtr, Crawford V2 AOS

car runs great, the engine itself doesn’t actually burn oil, but the turbo leaks oil past the exhaust seal into the downpipe (lots of smoke)

So I put my VF39 back on, and there’s no smoke at all, which lead me to believe the blouch was defected so I fought with blouch for months and finally got them to inspect it. They said nothing is wrong with it, and I most likely have an oil drain issue due to excessive crank case pressure. (And I guess being that it’s a ball bearing turbo, it’s very sensitive with excessive oil/pressure)

Oil cap has little to no air coming out upon startup, but once it starts warming up there’s a good amount puffing out (no smoke), kinda hard to describe as I have not measured it. But my friends wrx has the exact same amount, might be worth it to add also, my dipstick doesn’t have an O-ring so it is fairly loose and the pressure is not great enough to pop it out (when my ring lands blew a while back, the dipstick would shoot out everytime I would drive it) so I guess It’s safe to say I don’t have an extreme amount of crank case pressure

I messed around with different PCV setups (stock, Crawford v2 AOS, vented both the valve covers and crank breather to atmosphere, still smoked)…. (I’d imagine it takes a while to burn off the residual oil so I’m not too sure how accurate those tests were, but the air coming out of my oil cap remained the same throughout the entire time) also just to get it out of the way, I am using the oil feed restrictor they gave me.

So I did a leak down test, about 10% per cyl (warm), so I thought it was my rings.

Decided to rebuild it AGAIN, got the block inspected, and replaced the rings (0.022” end gap)

Just finished putting it back together, and its still an absolute smoke show.

Should I just buy a journal bearing turbo and call it a day? I am so lost and cannot seem to get this blouch turbo to drain properly, if there’s any advice you have I would be extremely grateful

 

[killerbmotorsport]

Is the Blouch a Ball bearing turbo?

 

[Ethdog]

Is the Blouch a Ball bearing turbo?

yes

 

[killerbmotorsport]

Are you using an oi restrictor? Ball Bearing turbos require mush less oil flow.

With any turbo, if too much oil goes into them, you can overwhelm the oil seal... since the oil seal is a labyrinth seal not a traditional 'seal'.

 

[Ethdog]

Are you using an oi restrictor? Ball Bearing turbos require mush less oil flow.

With any turbo, if too much oil goes into them, you can overwhelm the oil seal... since the oil seal is a labyrinth seal not a traditional 'seal'.

yes. the brass restrictor fitting supplied with the turbo, was also sent back with the turbo when i had it inspected.

 

[killerbmotorsport]

What is your oil pressure?

 

[Ethdog]

What is your oil pressure?

cold idle: 80-90psi
warm idle: around 15psi

while driving increases with revs, never goes above 80

 

[killerbmotorsport]

Where are you measuring the pressure at?

This is a stock location turbo?

 

[Ethdog]

Where are you measuring the pressure at?

This is a stock location turbo?

stock location turbo, measuring it at the crankcase plug about 1 inch to the right from the breather nipple on the top rear of the block

 

[killerbmotorsport]

stock location turbo, measuring it at the crankcase plug about 1 inch to the right from the breather nipple on the top rear of the block

Move it to the front under the alternator. You have pressure drop from the front-to-rear port. The rear port is after the mains are fed, so it's not true to pump output pressure.

 

[Ethdog]

Move it to the front under the alternator. You have pressure drop from the front-to-rear port. The rear port is after the mains are fed, so it's not true to pump output pressure.

you mean the one with the oil pressure dash light switch sensor?

ill do this tomorrow, lets say it turns out i have too much oil pressure. what would be the next step?

and what if it still reads fine

 

[mheyman]

If Chris doesn't straighten you out, then take it somewhere. People run 1.5s all the time and something is wrong. Find the measurements of the restrictor and verify on your own. A knowledgeable set of fresh set of fresh eyes might find the issue quickly. I love to do my own work and hate taking my car to a shop. Butt, sometimes it's best to get help! Where are you?

 

[subiwoo]

Are you using an oi restrictor? Ball Bearing turbos require mush less oil flow.

With any turbo, if too much oil goes into them, you can overwhelm the oil seal... since the oil seal is a labyrinth seal not a traditional 'seal'.

I was just going to ask the same question, as people forget to use a restrictor and drown the turbo bearings.

 

[killerbmotorsport]

you mean the one with the oil pressure dash light switch sensor?

ill do this tomorrow, lets say it turns out i have too much oil pressure. what would be the next step?

and what if it still reads fine

Correct. Just remove it, or put it on the back port if you want to keep it. Most just remove it. It's a 2.1psi pressure switch, which is great for telling you that your engine just blew up. It's also a normally open switch, so no dash light will remain on if you remove it.

What oil pump are you running?

If you have too much oil pressure, there's something up with the pump.

If it reads fine, the next step would be to measure pressure at the turbo feed and checking the restrictor size. Blouch should be able to tell you a pressure & flow spec, max and min. From there you can dial in a restrictor that reduces flow. You have to be careful when doing this, because you don't want to reduce flow at RPM to a level where it will be below the minimum at idle. Sounds scary and not all that common, but it has been done.

 

[Leemanfor]

I agree with Killer-B

I have a Borg Warner ball bearing turbo that comes with an oil restrictor built into the CHRA. I still had to add a 0.035in restrictor on top of that to stop the oil from feeding my turbine housing.

 

[yamahaSHO]

Everyone beat me to it, but this does seem simple in trying the next size smaller, oil restrictor.

 

[Ethdog]

If Chris doesn't straighten you out, then take it somewhere. People run 1.5s all the time and something is wrong. Find the measurements of the restrictor and verify on your own. A knowledgeable set of fresh set of fresh eyes might find the issue quickly. I love to do my own work and hate taking my car to a shop. Butt, sometimes it's best to get help! Where are you?

unfortunately I live in hawaii lol... all we have is 1 dealer here that refuses to look at my car lol i brought it in once and they didn't even know what they were looking at. so that's kind of why I started to do it all myself I'm kind of outta luck wen it comes to finding a shop thatll figure it out

 

[Ethdog]

Correct. Just remove it, or put it on the back port if you want to keep it. Most just remove it. It's a 2.1psi pressure switch, which is great for telling you that your engine just blew up. It's also a normally open switch, so no dash light will remain on if you remove it.

What oil pump are you running?

If you have too much oil pressure, there's something up with the pump.

If it reads fine, the next step would be to measure pressure at the turbo feed and checking the restrictor size. Blouch should be able to tell you a pressure & flow spec, max and min. From there you can dial in a restrictor that reduces flow. You have to be careful when doing this, because you don't want to reduce flow at RPM to a level where it will be below the minimum at idle. Sounds scary and not all that common, but it has been done.

Okay ill try that, Im using the stock pump that comes with the EJ207 (I know its a bit bigger than the US engines but blouch says that shouldnt be an issue and the restrictor supplied will work just fine, but ill get those numbers from blouch and see whats up