Burning oil, but where is it going???

I

im2bad4ya

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Contributor
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MAZDASPEED Protege 2K3.5 #882
Okay, I've posted before on this but I still can't figure it out. I have ZERO leaks, or at least it appears that way, but for the amount of oil I'm loosing, leaks are not my issue. I replaced my valve seals not too long ago and this did help my issue with white smoke on cold starts. But I was still loosing oil. I replaced my turbo because I thought I had bad oil seals, but even with my new turbo I'm STILL loosing oil. When I drain the oil, it comes out completely black, but not frothy or brownish like I had a blown head gasket. My anti-freeze is a little dirty but again, no mix of oil, so I have no reason to believe I have a blown head gasket or cracked block or anything. Compression last time I checked was great across the cylinders, 180 except for 175 on cylinder 3, still within tolerance.

After I diagnosed the turbo as bad (and I could be wrong on this meaning my turbo is still good), I drove NA for about a month until I got my new turbo. When I drained the oil, most of it was still there, it was still coming out black but I had about 3.5 - 4 quarts come out.

So just to recap:
-It seems I burn oil only when I'm in boost.
-New valve seals
-New Turbo
-No external leaks
-NO oil/coolant mix in engine
-Good engine compression

In a last ditch attempt, I'm gonna try modding my valve cover like this:http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123806386-The-REAL-reason-why-the-FS-burns-oil

Other than that, I can't think of what else to do. Anyone else have any ideas??
 
EVERY engine is gonna burn some type of oil to a certain degree. literally when you go into boost the oil inside the bearings of the turbo are being cooked to a certain degree. the turbine is spinning at 100,000+rpms to create boost. my car has always burned oil about a half a quart between oil changes since i got it at 72k miles as a mod virgin MSP. i PERSONALLY wouldnt worry about it. as long as its not burning through over a quart of oil between changes. hondas do the same thing. when they go into vtec the cams are oil pressure operated and at high rpms 5000 until redline the oil is being stressed essentially from all the heat the engine is produsing at high rpms. at least this has been my understanding of it. same thing for a boosted car. you have excess pressure going into the engine and a turbine spooling that is oil fed. the turbo creates harsh enviornments for the oil. oil is not HEAT proof. it is designed to help lubricate and cool somewhat. hope this makes sense.
 
Let me clarify.

I did a fresh oil change after I put in my new turbo. I didn't have the wastegate set properly and had no time to fix it until the next weekend. So I drove for a week with 4psi. I had to take the whole setup (exhaust manifold to J-pipe) off to get to the waste gate rod to adjust it, and in the process, drain my fluids.

After only 1 week of driving, I managed to drain only 1 quart of black oil.

If I was leaking it, my oil would still by syrup brown. This is a burning issue, A BAD ONE.
 
one quart of oil left in the engine in only one week???????? do u not have blue smoke coming out of your tail pipe??? my oil has always been super dark brown almost black when draining, again the joys of a boosted car. but for only one quart of oil to be left in the engine after a week.... thats.... unheard of for me, unless POSSIBLY you didnt add the correct amount of oil when you reinstalled your turbo. but other than that that is crazy. if it was burning youd be able to see the clouds of smoke behind you
 
c'mon now, this isn't my first time walking around the park. I added 4 quarts of oil, no question. I don't have blue smoke but I have white smoke, from the oil burning. If it was blue it'd be a blown head gasket, compression would be all off and my engine would probably be misfiring. My engine itself is healthy except I have to add oil as often as I add gas. I burn oil is the moral of the story, I just don't know from where.
 
White smoke is coolant... More than likely a head gasket which can cause dozens of symptoms. If it went through 3 quarts In a week it's either leaking or burning badly
 
I might do an engine flush, but I just baffle modded a spare valve cover I had, I'll slap it on tomorrow and see the results. I'm pretty much convinced this is my issue. We'll see
 
im2bad4ya said:
c'mon now, this isn't my first time walking around the park. I added 4 quarts of oil, no question. I don't have blue smoke but I have white smoke, from the oil burning. If it was blue it'd be a blown head gasket, compression would be all off and my engine would probably be misfiring. My engine itself is healthy except I have to add oil as often as I add gas. I burn oil is the moral of the story, I just don't know from where.
Click to expand...

dont take it offensively. im just saying it happens. and like tweety said, white smoke is coolant, blue smoke is oil, black smoke is excess fuel.
 
I did my valve cover change and NO DIFFERENCE. Still billowing white smoke. I don't know how it can be coolant when it's OIL that I'm burning. Also my coolant level always stays the same, it's the oil I have to keep adding.

So does anyone know if it's possible to have good compression but still have shot oil rings on the piston? Either way I'm gonna end up doing my valve seals (again) and the head gasket in about 2 weeks. If I still get the same result then there's no other explanation that the oil rings or a cracked block/head, but no way the engine is damaged or it would have blown up long ago.
 
Yes it is possible to have bad oil rings with good compression. The other rings on top of the oil ring may be good and tight providing good compression but the oil rings may be shot below.
 
Yup, just an update on my last post

So I may have jumped the gun and have two reasons why my car was smoking even after I installed the modded valve cover:

1. The car always blows out smoke after an oil change anyway because of the residual oil stuck in the chambers and it was just burning that off.
2. I disconnected my primary O2 and forgot to reconnect it when I turned the car on, making me throw a CEL and the car was probably in open loop and just dumping fuel. I reset the ECU to clear the code and now everything is running as it should.

After taking a 70 mile round trip today, my car almost doesn't smoke at all, just regular exhaust gas. I'll keep this updated and check my oil in a few days to see if it's still all there. If it is, then it was my valve cover this whole time (original MSP valve cover), in the breather part needs to be resealed properly. But I'm gonna keep my modded LX valve cover on, and probably powder coat it some time during the summer.
 
So if 3 qts leaked out from the valve cover, how can you not notice?

How can you blame the cover? Not exactly something that can go bad unless you're referring to the gasket which would be your fault for not replacing when you did valve seals
 
tweety2300 said:
So if 3 qts leaked out from the valve cover, how can you not notice?

How can you blame the cover? Not exactly something that can go bad unless you're referring to the gasket which would be your fault for not replacing when you did valve seals
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about the valve cover gasket, and we're not talking about a leak, I'm talking about burning oil. You gotta read my first post, I'm not leaking oil externally.

The seal I'm talking about is on the cover for the breather. When you take off the valve cover and look on the inside there is one tiny plate and another big L shaped plate. Both are held down by screws and sealant. I'm GUESSING (haven't checked it yet) that the sealant on these plates are no good. Please refer to my first post again about the mod to baffle the breather on the valve cover on a thread titled "The REAL reason why the FS burns oil". I had a spare valve cover which I modded and this seems to have helped my situation tremendously.

Obviously, the valve cover gasket is a serviceable part and I would have known if I was leaking/burning oil from there by looking for oil residue on the head. But I'm talking about the covers for the breather, which are non serviceable and had no idea could go bad and make me loose oil through the PCV valve. But either way, the mod is awesome and seems to have worked for me, and I highly recommend you at least read up on it.
 
Yes burns oil as in a qt every 1,000 miles or so. Not 3 qts in a week

You either have a leak, or you're blowing out more smoke than a diesel or your coolant has more oil than antifreeze. There is literally no other way to explain it other than someone stealing it
 
Tried to be nice about and explain this haha ^^^ there is no other explaination. even with really bad oil rings, youd see all that smoke burning off, theres no way the oil can be burning that much cuz of the vc, youd see the oil all baked and sludged up on the cams and vc when u open it up
 
I'm being nice about it too haha. But it's like you guys DON'T WANT TO BELEVE ME when I say that there's no oil in my coolant and no coolant in my oil. I HAVE GOOD COMPRESSION. Not every diagnosis is cut and dry, tried and true, one and done. We'll chalk this up to an anomaly. I know what I know, I know my car in and out. I know when I have even the smallest leak because my driveway gets nice oil spots. Even then, I checked the oil pan, put plumbers thread on every bolt that passes oil. I'm leak free. It's just you wouldn't think a valve cover could be the problem. That's why I haven't bothered to check it up to this point. I've done everything else under the sun, short of changing the piston rings. But like I said, I'll check my oil level after some more driving. I never claimed I'm not burning oil anymore, all I'm saying is I don't SMOKE anymore, and I hope that means no more oil burning as well.
 
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