AVO Turbo Kit Owners Topic

[Flasher]

Hey guys, I've a huge issue with the kit. I was driving the car hard the other day and when I stopped by at a gas station I opened the hood. I saw, that there is oil all over the place and started to search for the source when I got home.

It seems, that the oil is coming from the intercooler piping so I took of the silicone hose which is connecting the piping with the throttle body: There was oil everwhere. This means: the whole intercooler and it's piping is contaminated with engine oil.

But where is it coming from and what should I do?

[industrial]

Sad to say, that much oil is probably a bad turbo oil seal. This is fixable by replacing the turbo. I'd remove your inter cooler and clean that out too. There is probably a nice puddle of oil in there. You can try cleaning everything really well and adding a catch can to see if it's really a seal or just a ton of blow by but the amount of oil your seeing sounds like a bad turbo.

[Flasher]

Called the shop an hour ago - they said it's probably due to an overfilled oil-reservoir. They assume, that it is not being sucked out fast enough and gets overfilled under hard driving condition.

How exactly does the oil circuit work? The only thing I know, is that the Turbo is supplied with oil by the small oilpump in the back of the engine, above the overpipe.

[JP]

the oil is fed to the engine from the pressure side of the oil gallery on the engine, the pump on the back is to drain the turbo's oil sump.


Do you have a catch can installed?
Is the PCV system routed correctly so you're not spewing oil out the breathers under boost?
Is the drain line from the turbo sump to oil return pump restricted/kinked?


It's easy enough to clean the pipework and intercooler core out, just remove them and flush with petrol or wax and grease remover then air dry.


It's not uncommon to get a turbo filled with oil on WRX's with a lot of blowby eg:

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Flasher

Called the shop an hour ago - they said it's probably due to an overfilled oil-reservoir. They assume, that it is not being sucked out fast enough and gets overfilled under hard driving condition.

How exactly does the oil circuit work? The only thing I know, is that the Turbo is supplied with oil by the small oilpump in the back of the engine, above the overpipe.

The pump sucks the oil out of the reservoir and back into the engine. The other line is the oil feed for the reservoir.

It is a mechanical pump that will "suck" more oil per RPM as it is moved quicker by the cam. It would be weird for that pump to fail. Without it failing, I don't see how the reservoir could overfill. Obviously the shop has the car on their hands so their diagnosis is better than anyone else's. I still think give the fact I doubt the mechanical pump has failed (and assuming the Pump line is good and you are not producing extreme amounts of blowby), I'd believe it is the turbo seal.

[Flasher]

Originally Posted by JP

the oil is fed to the engine from the pressure side of the oil gallery on the engine, the pump on the back is to drain the turbo's oil sump.


Do you have a catch can installed?
Is the PCV system routed correctly so you're not spewing oil out the breathers under boost?
Is the drain line from the turbo sump to oil return pump restricted/kinked?


It's easy enough to clean the pipework and intercooler core out, just remove them and flush with petrol or wax and grease remover then air dry.


It's not uncommon to get a turbo filled with oil on WRX's with a lot of blowby eg:

I purchased a catch can already a few weeks ago and was waiting for the delivery. But until now: no catch can yet. The shop mechanic told me, that a catch can would fix the issue. Even if it does: intercooler and piping needs to be removed and cleaned.

Originally Posted by Sportsguy83

The pump sucks the oil out of the reservoir and back into the engine. The other line is the oil feed for the reservoir.

It is a mechanical pump that will "suck" more oil per RPM as it is moved quicker by the cam. It would be weird for that pump to fail. Without it failing, I don't see how the reservoir could overfill. Obviously the shop has the car on their hands so their diagnosis is better than anyone else's. I still think give the fact I doubt the mechanical pump has failed (and assuming the Pump line is good and you are not producing extreme amounts of blowby), I'd believe it is the turbo seal.

Thanks for the explanation:

As far as I understood, the oil reservoir overfilled due to hard driving condition. So in other words: while driving for a longer period of time on high rpm levels, the mechanical pump in the back of the engine didn't make it to get all the oil out of the reservoir.

I will bring in the car to the shop this evening. Which adverse effects are possible when driving with this much "blow-by" ?

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Flasher

I will bring in the car to the shop this evening. Which adverse effects are possible when driving with this much "blow-by" ?

How far away are you from shop? Excessive blow by will cause your AFR to be wrong. Keeping feeding the engine more excessive oil will also increase the chance your pistons get a permanent coat of oil which again is bad for your gas mixture.

All of this problems happen to a motor over a long period of time (many years and hundreds of thousands of miles) naturally with the PCV and breather, but since you are doing it in a short period if time with a big amount of oil, the damage can be done way quicker.

I would tow it to shop if possible.

[SkAsphalt]

As everyone has already said, that is an excessive amount of oil. I would take off your oil return line and check it for flow, and ensure that the pump is running (which as Sportguy said, it is doubtful that it would fail)

Really sucks man, hopefully not a turbo seal, but with that much oil..I can only think it is that or something was installed wrong and is literally sucking oil into your system

[protpibe]

If your intercooler is filled with oil, you have problems. My first step would be to Check the breather return lines to see if they're equally coated. If not, it's probably the turbo oil seals.

Too much oil may cause that too, but it would be pushing through the breathers.

[AVOturboworld]

Originally Posted by Flasher

Called the shop an hour ago - they said it's probably due to an overfilled oil-reservoir. They assume, that it is not being sucked out fast enough and gets overfilled under hard driving condition.

How exactly does the oil circuit work? The only thing I know, is that the Turbo is supplied with oil by the small oilpump in the back of the engine, above the overpipe.

The mechanical oil pump at the back pulls the oil from the reservoir tank post turbo - the turbo is supplied the oil from the small fitting at the front. That is a high pressure oil spot, so it will push oil through the turbo even without the pump attached. We have restrictors in there so it doesn't push the oil through too fast.

The issue that can arise is when you drive at 6000+rpm for extended periods of time without an upgraded PCV, something normally only seen at the track. What will happen is that without the PCV upgrade, you'll start getting pressure buildup in the block and that will slow down the feed of oil back into it. This doesn't happen under normal street driving, but can when you are driving for extended periods of time under what I'd call track conditions. If you are planning to do that, then the breather system is a definite need to deal with that. Part of that system is an adapter for the oil filler cap that allows the reservoir to feed the excess oil straight back to the motor.

[Flasher]

Thanks to all of you, for your explanations and suggestions

Originally Posted by AVOturboworld

The mechanical oil pump at the back pulls the oil from the reservoir tank post turbo - the turbo is supplied the oil from the small fitting at the front. That is a high pressure oil spot, so it will push oil through the turbo even without the pump attached. We have restrictors in there so it doesn't push the oil through too fast.

The issue that can arise is when you drive at 6000+rpm for extended periods of time, something normally only seen at the track. That oil feed on the engine will literally supply more oil than the oil pump can pull out of the reservoir. If you are planning to do that, then the breather system is a definite need to deal with that. Part of that system is an adapter for the oil filler cap that allows the reservoir to feed the excess oil straight back to the motor.

This is kinda what the shop mechanic told me. They've seen this issue also on their shop car on the track and fixed it with a catch can/breather system with a back feed of excess oil to the engine.

I was doing a hill climb (kinda) and I'm surprised that a few moments with high revs will cause this issue. Is it really that uncommon to rev the engine after it has been FI with the avo kit?

Edit: I will have to bring in the car tomorrow to the shop, since they didn't have a spare car available. I will need to drive the car about 50 miles but the shop mechanic told me, it shouldn't be that much of an issue, as long as I'm not giving the engine to much load. Especially since the oil leakage does seem to be stopped for now - at least I don't see a lot of oil coming out of the intercooler piping.

[protpibe]

I think most people just install catch cans and not worry about it

[AVOturboworld]

Originally Posted by protpibe

If your intercooler is filled with oil, you have problems. My first step would be to Check the breather return lines to see if they're equally coated. If not, it's probably the turbo oil seals.

Just a FYI, but a front oil seal failure usually will only happen when there is a large restriction in the air fed to the turbo - we've only seen front seals fail on rally cars that are running restrictors. So if there is a seal failure, it would be at the rear and that would be going out the exhaust.

[Zenith/Nadir]

@AVOturboworld
I placed an email enquiry on your website about installing the kit with a catch can and haven't heard back. Since we're already on that topic here, I figured I'd ask again. I'm installing this kit with another company's air/oil separator (nothing against yours, just already have it) but the instructions for the kit just refer me to the AVO breather kit instructions (which I do not have) for routing the oil reservoir breather. Can you explain exactly what I should be attempting to achieve with routing this line? Or possibly post the installation instructions for the breather as a reference?

Edit:
I believe this would best be setup in the following fashion. Line from passenger side engine breather teed with turbo oil reservoir breather to can, can to check valve to intake manifold. Evap line to other can to metal pcv to turbo inlet.