this is spattered oily residue, but there was no sign of leaks from the tranny casing or anywhere else in the engine bay for that matter


inside the throttle body, same oily spattered residue, sorry for the crappy pics :/



has anyone ever encountered this before? i honestly have no idea what this could be or if it is potentially bad, it doesnt look good. anyone have any ideas on what could have done this?

 

wow.. blow by, or massive blown seal in ur turbo~!

 

If you have that much oil in the air going through your intercooler, you have a serious oil seal problem inside your turbo. It wouldn't be piston blow-by, because the air going through the intercooler is intake air, not exhaust.

It looks like the oil is actually pooling inside your Y-pipe when you turn the car off and then leaking out past the band clamps (the Y-pipe faces down when installed, so gravity would pull the oil out that way).

 

thats what I was thinking. no bueno..

 

thats alot of oil for sure. oil catch can and inspect for oil leaks in the intake
stream turbo etc

 

so what exactly is a blow by? i understand that a blown seal could have done this, that makes sense to me. i was planning on a turbo upgrade after christmas season (february) but i don't think i should be waiting much longer.. it sounds like a good thing but i don't have the cash right now :/ would this have done more damage to my internals or intake manifold because of the oil inside the tb? i have been getting crappy gas mileage lately, and when i get on it in 1st gear, the car kind of lunges multiple times until it gets up to about 6k and i shift to second, i thought it may be my clutch going but i guess not. any suggestions?

 

well i just realized the suby has a 35k bumper-bumper warranty, but it has a 60k powertrain, so im going to put it back together n take it in tomorrow! ill keep it updated

 

Blow-by is not oil; it is gasoline and exhaust gases blowing past the piston rings and getting gas and exhaust into your oil and crankcase. It gives you foamy oil, blue smoky exhaust and a big loss of power, and is usually caused by bad piston rings, but you can also get it with cam or crankshaft issues (anything that might misalign the piston in the cylinder).

With a blown seal your entire intake system post-turbo will be coated with oil, and your intercooler MUCH less efficient at actually cooling than before, so running at full boost will be very dangerous -- that air will be coming in a lot hotter and less dense than expected, so your A/F ratio is off and you may get more detonation or knock. You need to fix that seal and then clean out the entire intake path (turbo outlet, Y-pipe, intercooler, throttle body, manifold, valve covers) to get that oil coating out of there. I'm not sure what cleaner would be safe on all those surfaces, but someone else will know. Another solution would be to just clean what you can see and then install an oil catch can, and eventually the excess oil will vaporize and end up in the can.

Once a year I take my intercooler off and hose it down with GUNK engine cleaner internally (the aluminum-safe type) and then set it in the sun for a day; even a good turbo seal will still get some oil into the intake air on occasion, which is why people have oil catch cans.

 

i took off my stock tmic on my 02 and put on the sti tmic and there was a little oil but i dont think it was that much

 

ok, well I brought it into carlson subaru today, didn't mention what I think it may be and they shall be contacting me soon on what's up.

Thanks meilers for the detailed discription, I have heard of a blow by before jus not the word, that happened to my friends miata we turboed in his garage, hope thatsnot the case!!

 

damn good luck ! hope things turn out well.... and if need fixing.. hopefully under warranty !

 

they said the seepage was normal.................................. now im into it 140 bucks and no fix, but i guess some peace of mind???

whats up guys, what can i tell them, i dont want to come back again with the same problem after ive done some minor modding, would a tmic void the powertrain warranty? i dont want to ruin my new tmic either :/

 

just picked it up, they said seepage doesn't count on warranty work, only leaks with drips...

 

thats perfectly fine running motor oil when u accelerate your car your turbo makes boost causing the turbo inlet hose to make suction pressure and oil gets picked up from the valve covers so dont think its major work. loosen your oil filler cap while your car is running and if you feel alot of pressure then you have blowby.