I just acquired a slicktop TT project with a smoking habit. The turbos were re-manufactured by a company called Turbo Concepts and had zero miles on them, but after initial start up the car began burning oil. I primed the turbos and even played with them for a bit and found nothing wrong with them that would've thrown up any red flags. The car was only smoking on deceleration when warm(never when at first start), but last time it was driven seemed to smoke even at cruising and idle. Before I ship these back is there a was to find out if they are in fact bad? Although I have the engine pull down to 3 hours now, I really don't want to make any more work for me by pulling the engine again or the turbo shop by working on turbos that are still good. I pulled the turbos and found lots of soot inside them, but no obvious signs of bearing damage. Some shaft play but I've seen much worse from non smoking turbos. Engine compression is good except for one cylinder is at 120 while all the rest are around 140-160, leakdown I can hear pressure in the crankcase on all cylinders but plugs are clean and beautiful. Engine pulls really hard and builds boost as expected. The engine was not smoking before the new turbos so I really don't think it's the valve guides either. Any help is appreciated, I'm just getting my "touch" back after taking on other responsibilities that caused me to get away from working on cars and of course because I'm getting old.
Follow Ups
Diagnosing bad turbo bearings? - silvawolfe19:32:06 08/21/11
