Burning oil on boost

[atarimike]

So I've got most problems fixed on the SVO, but it's losing oil somewhere. Everything's pretty clean, and there's never a stain under the car. It's probably burning about 2 quarts a tank?

Someone who was following me said it was burning oil while I was on full boost.

What should I start looking at to fix that? I put a new PCV valve in a while ago. I think I put it in right side up. I put a new head in a while ago, and that seems to have cut down the oil consumption a bit (old one was cracked). When I had the head off, the cylinder walls looked really good (no scoring).

[svslow]

Could be a turbo seal, or a bad fuel pressure regulator depending on your gas milage.

[atarimike]

Could be a turbo seal, or a bad fuel pressure regulator depending on your gas milage.

I had the turbo off when I changed the head. What seal is it? I replaced the turbo to manifold one.

Would a bad pressure regulator make it burn oil?

[svslow]

Bad turbo seal inside of the turbo, Likely the rear seal where the exhaust comes out . Did you see any wet oil in the exhaust side of the turbo?

*If you're getting bad gas milage and burning oil it could be a fuel pressure regulator. When it goes bad in some cases it makes the engine run really rich. When it runs so rich the fuel is washing the oil off of the cylinder walls causing the oil to burn during the combustion. BUUUUT I just read you said its on full boost right? If it were a fuel pressure regulator it would burn at idle too. (This happened to me) IM LEANING MORE on the bad seal in the turbo exhaust side. Try to get more opinions too because there are people here who know a lot more than I do

[svono50]

Is your intake tract dry or wet with oil? If it is wet then you are pressurizing the crankcase and likely pushing oil out the valve cover breather and into the turbo inlet. A couple main sources for crankcase pressure are PCV, cylinders, valve stem seals. If your intercooler/intake are dry then check the exhaust side of life for oil. That most likely would be an oil seal on the turbo or a blocked oil drain line. Check into it and let us know.

[MIKESVO]

Oil drain tube gasket

If you're getting oil on the ground under the car, the oil drain tube gasket at the turbo might be leaking and you're burning oil when the oil drips on the exhaust. When the car cools down it drips on the exhaust and then on the floor.

[atarimike]

Is your intake tract dry or wet with oil? If it is wet then you are pressurizing the crankcase and likely pushing oil out the valve cover breather and into the turbo inlet. A couple main sources for crankcase pressure are PCV, cylinders, valve stem seals. If your intercooler/intake are dry then check the exhaust side of life for oil. That most likely would be an oil seal on the turbo or a blocked oil drain line. Check into it and let us know.

What part of the intake tract? Like right next to the intercooler? I think there was a little oil there, but not too much.

The floor under the car is dry. I'm thinking its the turbo seals. How hard are they to replace? I assume I have to completely remove the turbo (again).

[atarimike]

What part of the intake tract? Like right next to the intercooler? I think there was a little oil there, but not too much.

The floor under the car is dry. I'm thinking its the turbo seals. How hard are they to replace? I assume I have to completely remove the turbo (again).

Anyone?

[svono50]

Look at the inside of the accordian tube, turbo inlet elbow, inside the intercooler tubing and throttle body, basically wherever you have easy access to looking into it by pulling your accordian tube and intercooler. The valve cover breather feeds into the turbo inlet elbow, so oil coming from the valve cover will coat pretty much everything from the VAM to the valves. If you don't have excessive oil there, it has to be coming from the cylinders or turbo.

My 86 has always seemed to pressurize my crankcase, regardless of how many Motorcraft PCV valves I have tried, so I was familar with an oil slicked tract. I now run a home-made secondary oil separator that has kept my tract dry for many years now. I will be posting info on it in my 'project' thread at some point.

[fastsvo]

My 86 has always seemed to pressurize my crankcase, regardless of how many Motorcraft PCV valves I have tried, so I was familar with an oil slicked tract. I now run a home-made secondary oil separator that has kept my tract dry for many years now. I will be posting info on it in my 'project' thread at some point.

sounds like my '86 too. Clean in the intercooler and the TB butterfly that faces it, but on the other side it's oily. I run a motorcraft PCV and the infamous Mazda brass one way valve plumbed between the PCV and upper intake vacuum hose (I have the end marked "engine" pointed towards the upper intake). Which btw, I need to replace that molded hose. Is this still available?

-Eric

[2.3lnoob]

Look at the inside of the accordian tube, turbo inlet elbow, inside the intercooler tubing and throttle body, basically wherever you have easy access to looking into it by pulling your accordian tube and intercooler. The valve cover breather feeds into the turbo inlet elbow, so oil coming from the valve cover will coat pretty much everything from the VAM to the valves. If you don't have excessive oil there, it has to be coming from the cylinders or turbo.

My 86 has always seemed to pressurize my crankcase, regardless of how many Motorcraft PCV valves I have tried, so I was familar with an oil slicked tract. I now run a home-made secondary oil separator that has kept my tract dry for many years now. I will be posting info on it in my 'project' thread at some point.

I also have oil coming from the accordian tube (vam to turbo). But then i read a TSB that ford put out for oil on that tube and they said to switch out the valve cover to one that has a bigger hole for the oil separator with another oil separator with a grommet. I have noticed that on my xr4ti it does not have any oil on the accordian tube, and it has the newer valve cover with the grommet and the newer oil separator so im thinking that it solved the problem. If you wanted to just replace the old valve cover for the newer version one. and i believe that kragens has the oil separator. Hope i helped!
2.3lnoob

[atarimike]

Look at the inside of the accordian tube, turbo inlet elbow, inside the intercooler tubing and throttle body, basically wherever you have easy access to looking into it by pulling your accordian tube and intercooler. The valve cover breather feeds into the turbo inlet elbow, so oil coming from the valve cover will coat pretty much everything from the VAM to the valves. If you don't have excessive oil there, it has to be coming from the cylinders or turbo.

My 86 has always seemed to pressurize my crankcase, regardless of how many Motorcraft PCV valves I have tried, so I was familar with an oil slicked tract. I now run a home-made secondary oil separator that has kept my tract dry for many years now. I will be posting info on it in my 'project' thread at some point.

I finally found the time to do this, and I found the accordian tube is a little oil. Not big pools of oil, but kinda oily. Is this a sign oil's coming from the crankcase breather tube, and therefore my PCV is pressurizing the crankcase?

[svono50]

I finally found the time to do this, and I found the accordian tube is a little oil. Not big pools of oil, but kinda oily. Is this a sign oil's coming from the crankcase breather tube, and therefore my PCV is pressurizing the crankcase?

Most likely the oil is coming down from the valve cover seperator. Could be caused by a leaking PCV, leaking intake valve stem seals or piston ring blow-by, there are several sources for pressurizing your crankcase.

BTW, if my memory serves me right the XR4Ti's had the grommet style seperator as part of the stock design, no retrofit to those models. I also feel that the valve cover had a different type of baffle plate under the seperator hole that did a better job keeping oil out of seperator in the first place.

[atarimike]

Most likely the oil is coming down from the valve cover seperator. Could be caused by a leaking PCV, leaking intake valve stem seals or piston ring blow-by, there are several sources for pressurizing your crankcase.

I put a new head on this car a few months ago (burned a valve). The burning oil problem existed before that. The cylinder walls looked great, so I don't think it's ring blow-by. I put new valve stems seals on the new cylinder, so I don't think it's that either. Also, someone following me said I only looked like I was burning oil on boost. (I smoked 'em at a stoplight).

Is there a stronger PCV valve I can get? I just put the standard Ford one in a bit ago. It seemed kinda flimsy. Or is there a way to confirm it's the PCV?

[svono50]

Could still be ring blow-by, especially under boost. I can't think of a better PCV valve than the Ford/Motorcraft one. Some folks have put a check valve inline in the PCV tube to prevent boost from pushing past the PCV valve. You can do a search to find some options. The only way I could think of to identify if the PCV valve is the culprit would be to hook a vac/boost gauge to your crankcase system and run the engine through its paces while watching the gauge, then try again with the PCV blocked off and see if it changes.