Epic2112

Hopefully someone can make sense of this....

I just finished installing a new head gasket a few days ago. The car had been sitting for about 6 weeks since it blew. Before that I was burning 1 quart of oil every 800 - 1000 miles. Now I'm burning a quart around every 200 - 300 miles, and there is a significant amount of oil in my IC pipes and intake manifold. I can also see a puff of smoke when I get on boost hard. What changed?

No work was done to the head other than shaving it, but it was out of the car for about 2 weeks( nothing was diasassembled). Nothing below the head was touched other than cleaning the mating surface of the block with a little sandpaper. The turbocharger has under 10k miles on it. The new gasket is a cometic MLS, I reused the factory studs, and follwed the service manual's instructions for torquing. The cylinder walls looked decent, not fatastic but certainly not terrible, there were some small scratches/marks that I could see, but I couldn't feel them with my fingernail.

The reasons for the consumption that I can think of are these, none of them really make a lot of sense to me but maybe they will to someone else:

1- Turbo blowing oil. The turbo is under 10k miles like I said above, and the big jump in consumption seems to extreme to be the turbo blowing oil, unless a big seal somewhere went bad all of a sudden.

The oil is mobil 1 10W-30.

2- Rings. Again, I don't know why they would have went bad all of a sudden like that, since thety weren't touched.

3- Valve seals. Maybe they dried out and/or shrank while the head was out of the car? Seems unlikely, it's not like I left the head sitting exposed to the elements for a year.

4- Did I do something wrong installing the head gasket.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm starting to get frustrated with this car

Epic2112

B U M P

Porsche-O-Phile

Most likely the turbo seals

fast951

Do a leakdown test, this will indicate the condtion of the rings. If rings are bad, there will be smoke and elevated crankcase pressure. With the crankcase pressure the turbo will not drain properly and will flood causing oil in the intake etc... Also, crankcase pressure will send oil vapor to the J-pipe...

I doubt the valve seals are causing the problem, as you have oil in the intake/IC...valve seals will not cause this.

I'm thinking the turbo is the culprit. But too soon and not enough data to be 100% sure.

adrial

It's not really possible for a bad install of the gasket to cause this, if that makes you feel any better.

I would agree on the leakdown test...I have a gauge if you want to borrow it. It's home made and never been used, but it seemed to work well putting my finger over the hole and whatnot....

Epic2112

I'd already made an appointment at RPM to do a leakdown test on Monday before I posted this, but thanks none the less.

I guess I can't say I hope the results are good news, because it doesn't seem like there could possibly be a "good" (meaning relatively easy and/or cheap repair) explanation. I'm just about out of money, I have a feeling I'll be putting this car away for a while. I guess I either have to replace the turbo or the rings. Whoop de doo. I just finished putting the damn thing back together on Saturday. I have a feeling I'll be puting this car in a corner for a while and forgetting about it.

Anyone have any ideas what could have caused the rings or the turbo to go bad all of a sudden like this?