legacycentral bbs

Well I have a few questions. First off, I have never driven a turbo car before, but this didnt impress me much, it was very slow off the line and when I floored it while crusing (around 45mph) I didnt feel much more kick then would be made by a normal downshift (it's an automatic) secondly this car definitly has an oil leak... I drove it less than 3 miles, when we got back I popped the hood and saw smoke rising from the passenger side of the engine and could hear sizzling... he said it was prolly an oil leak dripping on the exhaust I circled the part that looked like it was leaking (it was covered in oil, i dont know my way around a car just yet) the arrows indicate were the smoke was coming from, down below the black box... it wasnt huge amounts, but def. noticable. So what is up with this car?



reminder: this is a 1991 awd turbo automatic with 93k

When I bought my car it didn't feel very quick either, remember, stock this is a 16 second car at best. My car also leaks oil from that area, most likely a valve cover gasket...

Did you go over 4 grand at all? Cause you will feel a big difference between a normal legacy and a turbo legacy. As for the white smoke. Whenever you work a turbo hard, you will get some white smoke under the hood. Mine does it, and every other known turbo does it. Mind you not plumes of smoke or anything like that.

Mark,

I've never gotten white smoke from pushing either of my Turbo Legacies hard.

It's not too uncommon for the wastegate control solenoid to fail, giving you only about 6psi of boost instead of 8psi, and also making the boost build more slowly. Especially if you didn't push the engine hard, it wouldn't feel nearly as fast as it should in that case. I don't know of any good sources for that solenoid or a drop-in replacement, but an aftermarket boost controller can take its place.

Before boost, the EJ22T is slower than the naturally aspirated EJ22, since its compression ratio is lower.

Leaky valve cover gaskets aren't that uncommon, and can easily leak directly onto the exhaust manifold, where the oil burns. It's not harmful to the engine (as long as you make sure the oil level stays safe), but of course looks and smells terrible and is bad for the environment. These gaskets aren't all that hard to replace.

I think this post fits better in this forum.....

thanks for the tips.. I am did take it over 4000, when i floored it it popped up to 5K, I doubt seriously that the smoke was from the turbo- after the car was parked i could hear the oil sizzling and after each sizzle noticable (but not plum-like) amounts of stinky white-gray smoke rise. If these dont sound like problems that warrent serious reservations about purchasing this car for $2000 then I am going to go for it. I might whine and moan and try to talk him down more still cuz of the 'funny smoke' but it sounds like you guys dont think this is so serious a problem that it cant be worked thru

Also make sure the tranny shifts good, mine had a soft 2-3 shift when I got it, and it only got worse until 6 months later the tranny was dead.

The valve-cover gasket leaking is very common because after all it sits sideways and is under pressure along with gravity. And the fact that it drops right on the exhaust is annoying at best. My gasket leaked so little that it wouldn't even change the oil level noticeably, but you sure could smell it when it hit that hot pipe.

so if and when I do get this car, who do I talk to about a step by step guide to replacing this gasket. Keeping in mind my knowledge of cars in general is limited. Thanks much for all the help.

Fear not, they sound nasty, but they're actually quite simple. I'm certain most of us have replaced ours, so you're talking to the right bunch of people right now. Pop a question, we'll be glad to answer it.

We are always proud to see a new person step up to the plate to learn new things. I speak from experience: I feel that I am the "Most Improved Player" around this forum. My knowledge growth from when I first got here compared to what I know now (which still is limited in many ways) is what I feel to be bigger than anyone else's knowledge growth on this forum. What do you guys think? Do I seem that way?

Anyway, remember that this is the most technical Subaru forum on the Internet, any questions about your BC-BF are welcome here.

A pic of a VW, let's see...those valve covers have some internal baffling that gets clogged with crud, and is unable to vent crankcase gasses effectively. And it's a VW So when i replace the gasket, I'd soak the V/C in some carb cleaner or something and clean it out real good.