Where's the oil coming from?

[Pergatory]

So I recently got my Sileighty back from a repair shop, and suddenly it idles rough (stumbles) and spits plumes of smoke whenever I get on the accelerator. More recently, it has also been pushing a little bit of smoke out the exhaust at idle but not so much at speed. I haven't got up on the accelerator since the first time I saw it spitting smoke when I did that, but it was a LOT of smoke. Greyish maybe with a bit of blue.

For some background, I have an S13 SR20DET blacktop (from '95 180) with S15 turbo. It's running at safety boost (0.5 bar), the shop I had it at told me it was because of 2 nozzles on the passenger-side of the engine bay which have been bypassed (some sort of sensor I'm guessing?). This was done by the previous owner I guess, and I've been doing work on it since then so I haven't even had the slightest interest in resolving that issue to get it up to full boost. Odds are it was running safety for a reason and I didn't want to find out why until after I got it running well at safety boost at least. It has an SARD intake, Greddy FMIC, Greddy intake manifold, HKS downpipe, RS-R cat-back, Mine's ECU, Koyo alum rad, Flex-a-lite dual fans.

I took a look at the engine bay, and the area around my blow-off valve has a fine layer of oil around it. It's worth mentioning that my BOV is in my fender well all by itself, so the oil had to come from the BOV there's no other way it could get there. I took the intake off to get at the turbo, thinking perhaps it was dying on me. Sure enough, the pipe leading to the compressor inlet had a pool of oil in it. However, there was very little shaft play, about 1mm. I was able to move it a very slight amount, but I've heard if the bearing seals are going out it would be rather obvious... so what are your opinions? Please give me another suspect besides the turbo, I know these S15 turbos are highly sought after and won't be cheap to replace. Thanks much!

[reverend_sean]

kind of sounds like your blow-by hose is not corrected. I am pretty sure that would dump oil in to the turbo and cause a bunch of smoke. I recentlyu installed one of Peperoni's intakes on my car and instead of reconnecting the blow-by hose to the intake, I just blocked it off. I blew smoke for a day or two until I realized what it was. Hope this helps.

[Pergatory]

Hmm, blow-by is the hose that runs from the valve cover to intake? There is a filter installed there, venting to open air. You know those silly little filters people put on the valve cover. I assume the other end is just plugged as you mentioned. I assumed it wouldn't do any harm to leave it there, and it never caused problems until recently. Although it's pretty black, could be clogged... How could this lead to oil in the turbo, though? And where exactly is the nozzle that I should rig up to the valve cover in order to get it back to stock configuration?

Sure hope that's it, you can't hope for a cheaper fix than a chunk of hose.

[Pergatory]

Ok I took some pictures of all the suspect areas of the engine bay. I'm hoping someone more familiar with the SR20DET can help me identify some of these oddities.

Here you see the sensor that I was told is causing the engine to run at safety boost level on the left. It's got 2 nipples which are not connected to anything (bypassed?). Behind it is another one which only has 1/2 nipples connected, and the top one appears to be squirting a little bit of oil out, which is concerning. I have no idea what either of these sensors does, please help me identify them.


Next up, I'm guessing this is where the hose running out of the PCV is supposed to connect, which is now just plugged with a bolt. Please let me know if this is correct. I've ordered a new PCV valve in case it's failed, and I intend to remove the breather and reconnect the hose the way it was intended so if this is not where the hose should go please help me find the correct place. (Yes, the intake piping is disconnected from the turbo in this pic)


Next up, is a very suspect severed hose behind the engine. Could this be the A/C piping from the original engine? I sure hope so. Please confirm, sorry for the darkness, my batteries were low and I had no power for flash. The metal pipe it's attached to runs behind the firewall.


Those are the extremely suspect areas, but there are still a few other things which concern me. For example, what the hell is this hose doing that bypasses the MAF?


And lastly... another strange hose, running from the intake manifold to the intaking piping just before the throttle body.


Anyone who can explain some of these strange artifacts in this engine that I'm not yet very familiar with, I would VERY much appreciate it!! Thank you!