lotta oil in the intake?

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:58 am

went to check the oil today and WHOA, a whole quart is missing

! all that cant be going through my intake can it?? thats in like, id say since last weekend. at that time it was leaking from the front cam seal so i thought it was that. so i fixed that problem, but now i guess this was contributing to it as well? the turbo to throttle body boot came off during boost and when i went to fix that i noticed all the oil in there... is this from the PCV valve? should i get a new one? also, im running Mobil 1 synthetic extended performance... damn things are expensive and i dont want to have to keep putting 2 quarts of the stuff every week........ any ideas?? thanks

Don

professor · Post by **professor** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:48 pm

turbo seal on the compressor side ?

If so you should see plenty of blue-white smoke on deceleration - when suction from the engine pulls it though the seals, and not so much on extended acceleration, when boost keeps it from coming through

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:03 pm

FWIW, I also have a ton of oil in all my intake tubing. I have heard that most people have oil in there. Also, the intercooler Blackbart sent me from a junkyard Saab was also full of oil. I am guessing it is somewhat normal, although I don't know that for a fact. ....At least, maybe it's normal for a 15 year old turbo car with it's fair share of leaks and wear and tear.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:52 pm

i dont see any smoke on deceleration... theres not that much smoke at all except when i drive real hard. and thats more like darker smoke not bluish oil smoke. i thought it mite have been the PCV valve system or somethin like that that plumbs back into the intake system. i also heard about other people having these problems with the synthetic oils.

are you using synthetic too rallysam?

maybe i should check what happens behind me on deceleration because i normally dont look back there... ill try that out. thanks guys

Don

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:32 pm

Yeah, I'm using synthetic oil. But, there was just as much oil in the intake when I bought the car and I doubt the previous guy was using synthetic. My dipstick says that I'm not really losing much oil.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:17 am

ahh ic. weird. maybe im burning a lot of oil? it doesnt look like it too much except maybe on startups sometimes. which is pretty weird. i dunno. its bugging me that i have to keep throwin in the damn synthetic about once a week. im gonna check the level again tomorrow and see where its at. guessing no one else has any clues eh?

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:46 am

Old motor + boost = possibly bad bad bad rings.

Once you start getting blowby, it increases the pressure INSIDE the engine. This forces exessive oil into the crankcase breathers, then into the intake. Trust me, I know.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 9:08 am

im not running the crankcase breathers back into the intake though.

professor · Post by **professor** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 3:12 pm

>>im not running the crankcase breathers back into the intake though.

maybe that is the problem, what are you doing with the PCV system ? if plugged you could be getting pretty high crankcase pressures which does all kinds of bad stuff

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 3:24 pm

Project_Legacy wrote:im not running the crankcase breathers back into the intake though.

Hmmmm.... was this a misunderstanding? By "crankcase breathers" he means the PCV valve. Unless you disconnected it, it normally goes into the intake. Or did you really disconnect it?

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:01 pm

crankcase breathers are the ones that come out of the valve covers. im not running those back into the intake. basically its just venting. i am running the PCV valve back into there and i think that mite be the problem about the oil. im not sure though. i will probably be changing that out soon.

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:03 pm

I checked my intake and intercooler today and was amazed to find no oil.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:31 am

hmm. are you using synthetic oil DZX?

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 6:40 am

No, when i tried synthetic oil, i ended up with about a pint of oil in the intercooler and oil all over my engine bay from the bov.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:39 am

yea i believe that is what is happenin with my car as well... but how could i lose a whole quart?? maybe i was driving it too hard and a bunch of it just went thru the intake huh? cuz i do drive it hard cuz im tryin to fix all the bugs left over from the swap... but yea maybe ill change to regular now since the oil is dirty as fuck alrdy too.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:41 pm

i changed the oil and drove the car. after a couple days i check it again and its still low. should i use thicker weight oil?? such as 20 W50? ive heard of people running that before. im gonna try and swap out the PCV valve this weekend. maybe that mite help. anyone else have any other suggestions?

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:02 pm

Chances are if your losing that much oil, your rear main seal or front crank seal are leaking, perhaps both of them. It's really common on legacy's with higher miles. Front crank seal isn't too bad to fix, rear main requires removal of the transmission and flywheel or flexplate depending on what you have.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:08 am

damn. i would not wanna take that damn motor out again. it was a bitch to put it in, in the first place

i dont believe the front main seal is leaking, as i just changed the front cam seals. i didnt see any leaks from the front main. rear main seal... would you be able to see it leaking out from where the tranny and engine meet?

i changed the PCV valve and checked the line for oil but saw that it was clean as ever and didnt look like any oil went through that at all. but the other fitting that connects on that weird "F" plastic piping seems to look like there is sort of a lot of oil going into the intake through there.

i dont leave any oil stains where i park for awhile so i dont think im dripping oil... i cant be burning that much cuz i only see oil smoke when i start the car up sometimes. or rev it in neutral. i dunno its pissin me off. maybe ill let a subie specialist around here look at it. thanks for all the input everyone.

ahh this motor was "supposedly" low mileage too. you can never know these days... it also had tested good for compression before i picked it up.

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:31 am

I would think you would see a couple drops of oil under the car if it was leaking from the rear main or front cranshaft. I noticed when the front seal leaks, there is generally a buildup of black "gunk" on the timing belt cover.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:36 am

yea i havent seen any of that black gunk on the timing cover anywhere except when i changed the front cam seals. after that there was no more. but it still has dat problem. the oil is going somewhere. i have no idea. probly have a subie mechanic check it out soon. thanks for the ideas. ill probly look into the rear main seal idea.

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lotta oil in the intake?

lotta oil in the intake?