My 2004 sti has been eating oil like crazy so took off the intercooler and found oil all over. The oil was in the turbo outlet tube to the intercool and is all over the inside of the intake. Does any one know what that means??

 

Not good. How many miles on the car, what year, how long have you owned it? Is the engine modded? How much oil do you have to add and how often? Do you have a hugely over-oiled K&N air filter? At high miles, intercoolers will often have oily deposits inside, but it's easily flushed out.

 

when i upgraded my ic hoses i had a little oil residue in the stock hoses. i asked my dealer about this and they said it was normal. the problem occures when your car starts to smoke, thats when you know your burning oil, basically your turbo would be bad. if your having to put oil in the car often, i would say NOT GOOD! have it checked out dude.

 

AFAIK, the only sources of oil in your intercooler would be blow-by that comes out through the breather (a little bit is normal, a lot indicates a possible cracked piston ring) or from the turbo (which is oil cooled, and which would need a SERIOUS failure in order to get oil into the intake charge air). Remember, the intercooler is between the turbo outlet and the intake manifold, there's not very many places you find oil before that point.