in dire need of some advice

[Skurneha]

Hey all, it’s been a very long time since I posted anything here, so this may not be the right place. I need some advice for how to move forward with this project of mine, anything would be great. I’ll go into the story here and what I need, but if you want to skip ahead there will be a TLDR at the bottom.

About 3 years ago my turbo blew so I had it sent to a rebuild shop and put back in the car by a local shop. They drove it a bit and said it was good to go, but 5 minutes into driving home the turbo blew up again so I had to rebuild that one too. The local shop didn’t look into what may have caused the first one to blow and just put the second turbo in assuming I had overboosted the first. The rebuild shop said both turbos had been oil starved, and when the local shop looked into it they found that I had insane blowby and figured the piston rings were ****** so badly the oil just couldn’t make it back to the turbo in time. They also could no longer work on it for the reason of moving locations and unable to store the car so they gave it back to me in pretty rough shape and with the third newly rebuilt turbo in the box. Having sunk thousands of dollars into this thing over the years for various jobs like fixing the a/c system and turbo just to have several shops in my area fail my car and literally ban it for being too hard to work on essentially just taking my money to **** my car up and leave, I’ve decided to take it upon myself to either unfuck it or **** it up in a way that I understand. Several weeks ago I started following the shop manual I bought for it and started doing the tear down so I could reach the piston rings and assess the cylinders and go from there. I didn’t want to pull the motor though because this isn’t my first time really getting this involved in a project like this, so I elected to leave it in the car for this project.

NOW is the part I’m stuck on asking for help. I’ve made it up to the point of needing to remove the intake manifold and good lord... I’ve seen from another thread here that it’s possible with the engine in the car but a massive pain. I’ve been stuck here for a while now and I’m starting to get burnt out despite being so close to actually being able to pull the motor apart. Is it worth it at this point trying to continue, or should I consider putting the engine hangers back on and going through the process to pull the motor instead? I have a bit of a deadline for needing to put it outside to make room for other vehicles once snow hits and I’d rather not put it back outside in the state that it’s in and make it even harder to get road worthy after 3 years of not running. Has anyone here taken off the intake manifold without removing the engine that would have advice on specific tools or methods that would make this job easier?

TLDR; I need to remove the head to get at the pistons and such, but I’m getting burnt out trying to take the intake manifold off while the engine is in the car because of the confined space. Should I switch courses and try pulling the motor instead, or do I stick to taking the manifold off while in the car, and if so what methods or tools could make this job easier?

The picture is the current state of the project right now. Any help would be huge

 

[SLC Punk]

Are you sure the shop correctly diagnosed the blow by? I’d suggest you do a compression test before tearing the head off.

 

[underscore]

I'm confused as to what you're trying to achieve. How are you going to check the rings with just the head off and what are you expecting to do after that? If you just want to get eyes on the cylinders get a scope, pull the plugs and take a look.nDon't pull your entire engine apart based on a guess from a shop that never did proper diagnostics.

If blowby is the issue then if you were running things the way they are in the picture then that catch can going to atmosphere is going to cause problems, you need the end of that hose to go to the intake before the turbo like it came from the factory.

 

[Skurneha]

I'm confused as to what you're trying to achieve. How are you going to check the rings with just the head off and what are you expecting to do after that? If you just want to get eyes on the cylinders get a scope, pull the plugs and take a look.nDon't pull your entire engine apart based on a guess from a shop that never did proper diagnostics.

If blowby is the issue then if you were running things the way they are in the picture then that catch can going to atmosphere is going to cause problems, you need the end of that hose to go to the intake before the turbo like it came from the factory.

The shop stuck the catch can on to see if it would help the blowby for some reason but yeah it’s another one of those things that they left a mess when they gave it back that I didn’t really know where to go from, but no I was not running that catch can

As far as the rings go I was thinking I’ll just replace them anyway to eliminate a potential source of issues and check the condition of the con rods and wrist pins while I was at it, and then obviously the cylinders would be open to seen and potentially restored with something like a ball hone so I was takin the head off so I could push the pistons out from the bottom after disconnecting them from the crank

 

[simple]

Doing a rebuild as preventative maintenance? Yeah pull the engine. It sounds like you are committed to your long term project. Sounds like everyone else is sick of it. So either prove everyone wrong and fix it with the level of detail it requires. Or walk away and let it go.

 

[underscore]

As far as the rings go I was thinking I’ll just replace them anyway to eliminate a potential source of issues and check the condition of the con rods and wrist pins while I was at it, and then obviously the cylinders would be open to seen and potentially restored with something like a ball hone so I was takin the head off so I could push the pistons out from the bottom after disconnecting them from the crank

You're going to be way better off just pulling the engine and taking it apart normally. Then you can have an actual machine shop check things over and actually measure it all.

 

[Roreri]

The shop stuck the catch can on to see if it would help the blowby for some reason but yeah it’s another one of those things that they left a mess when they gave it back that I didn’t really know where to go from, but no I was not running that catch can

As far as the rings go I was thinking I’ll just replace them anyway to eliminate a potential source of issues and check the condition of the con rods and wrist pins while I was at it, and then obviously the cylinders would be open to seen and potentially restored with something like a ball hone so I was takin the head off so I could push the pistons out from the bottom after disconnecting them from the crank

Damn, sir… It’s interesting. There’s some things I think you might have tried before opening the motor. TL;DR at the bottom. I’m just gonna blather on here.

You had nearly the same issue I did. My turbo went, and I was burning so much oil it was like James Bond 007 smoke screen bad. I replaced my turbo rather than having it rebuilt. Though I still see excessive oil consumption and occasional white (blue?) smoke my replacement turbo didn’t blow and if it was gonna blow it was gonna blow in the 3800 miles I put on it immediately.

I checked oil to the turbo by pulling the oil feed line and seeing it pour out while the motor was running.

I checked oil return to the sump by pulling the oil return line and seeing it pour out while the motor was running.

So, oil flow to and from the turbo checked out. As for quantity of oil to the turbo that’s an open question but 4000 miles now after replacement, and no problems so I’m calling it good.

I checked compression, and all cylinders are good at 168psi sea level equivalent (135psi at 7200 feet elevation). So I know it isn’t piston rings. Maybe valve seals but I’m trying some AT205 Re-Seal to try and re-condition them.

In addition to that, I am trying to get after the oil consumption by reducing crankcase pressure. I have installed a high performance M/E Wagner PCV valve. Also, I have routed the valve cover breather to the air intake per oem design. It was previously just the oem Gen 5 breather condenser box (basically a ****** catch can routed back to the valve cover), with a breather filter off of it venting crankcase vapors into the engine bay. That breather filter was wet saturated with oil.

I have a (excessively large and flashy af) Saikou Michi catch can with witness tube that I’m going to put after that oem Gen 5 breather condenser box in line to the air intake to catch any excess oil vapor before it continues to bathe my turbo and intercooler with oil. The PCV valve line is going to get a smaller Saikou Michi unit. I could route both of these to the sump so I could periodically drain the oil back into the system. My hope is that by properly venting the crankcase pressure I can fix the problem.

TL;DR: But **** now that you have it open, pull the motor so you can really get at it. I am very sorry that your shops have done you wrong. These cars are not on the dropdown menu for fixes and require skilled attention. At least you have the opportunity for a rebuild.

I do not know if money is or is not an object, but sending it to ATS to have it rebuilt with uprated components would be in my thoughts were I in your position with my wallet.

 

[Skurneha]

Damn, sir… It’s interesting. There’s some things I think you might have tried before opening the motor. TL;DR at the bottom. I’m just gonna blather on here.

You had nearly the same issue I did. My turbo went, and I was burning so much oil it was like James Bond 007 smoke screen bad. I replaced my turbo rather than having it rebuilt. Though I still see excessive oil consumption and occasional white (blue?) smoke my replacement turbo didn’t blow and if it was gonna blow it was gonna blow in the 3800 miles I put on it immediately.

I checked oil to the turbo by pulling the oil feed line and seeing it pour out while the motor was running.

I checked oil return to the sump by pulling the oil return line and seeing it pour out while the motor was running.

So, oil flow to and from the turbo checked out. As for quantity of oil to the turbo that’s an open question but 4000 miles now after replacement, and no problems so I’m calling it good.

I checked compression, and all cylinders are good at 168psi sea level equivalent (135psi at 7200 feet elevation). So I know it isn’t piston rings. Maybe valve seals but I’m trying some AT205 Re-Seal to try and re-condition them.

In addition to that, I am trying to get after the oil consumption by reducing crankcase pressure. I have installed a high performance M/E Wagner PCV valve. Also, I have routed the valve cover breather to the air intake per oem design. It was previously just the oem Gen 5 breather condenser box (basically a ****** catch can routed back to the valve cover), with a breather filter off of it venting crankcase vapors into the engine bay. That breather filter was wet saturated with oil.

I have a (excessively large and flashy af) Saikou Michi catch can with witness tube that I’m going to put after that oem Gen 5 breather condenser box in line to the air intake to catch any excess oil vapor before it continues to bathe my turbo and intercooler with oil. The PCV valve line is going to get a smaller Saikou Michi unit. I could route both of these to the sump so I could periodically drain the oil back into the system. My hope is that by properly venting the crankcase pressure I can fix the problem.

TL;DR: But **** now that you have it open, pull the motor so you can really get at it. I am very sorry that your shops have done you wrong. These cars are not on the dropdown menu for fixes and require skilled attention. At least you have the opportunity for a rebuild.

I do not know if money is or is not an object, but sending it to ATS to have it rebuilt with uprated components would be in my thoughts were I in your position with my wallet.

Unfortunately money is an issue for me right now so I really can't send it anywhere once I do pull it, at least for the time being. I appreciate your response though, it's very frustrating when something is constantly failing but it seems like it shouldn't be, and while I've got the engine pulled I might as well check or upgrade the pcv as well since you've got a similar issue. At this point I've had it not running about as long or longer than I've had it running lol

 

[Monakopushisu]

A couple things I have gathered that could help;

Apparently dropping the motor through the bottom will be easier. If you can when you drop it, do any seals you can but prioritize rear seals as they're hard to get to when its in.

Most "shops" I have found are frankly terrified of this car, and as such (and you have experienced) refuse to work on it. All of us here can say, these cars are hard to work on but far from impossible (ever try to work on a FWD v6? WRX? IMO its worse). The main reason I have found is this car being 'refuse' is because it requires experience. My mechanic worked on these guys when they were new. My recommendation is to stay away from shops if possible, find yourself a rather well equipped Viet man with a backyard shop and doesnt mind you getting your hands dirty with them. In this respect you know what's happening to the car and hopefully you generate a good friend in the process.

PCV system, looks like you have a gen2, as such the "PCV" system is just that one line leaving the valve cover to the intake. Most you can do is catch can it. As underscore said, it does need to route back.

As for the turbo, a good test is to hand crank the motor with the turbo lines removed and watch if oil comes through before you dive into the whole rabbit hole that is.