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Second turbo swap, lots of white smoke.

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Ramstein
#1
Okay so today I was supposed to just button up my turbo swap job. Going from my C39 to an X47...I finish up the turbo swap as well as switching the Injen intake for a CP-E. I load up the baseline tune and my car immediately starts spitting out massive amounts of white smoke. The shop was closing for the day so I didn't have time to go back and look at it again. I had no issues last time so I was wondering if anyone could offer any help. I could have sworn I put everything back together properly. I was just as paranoid as the first time I did it.
 


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#2
White smoke is usually coolant, blue smoke is oil, but if a turbo seal is leaking it could be white, you'll have to pull off the downpipe and see if there is oil in it
 


OP
A
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Ramstein
Thread Starter #3
Yeah, burning coolant was my first thought. I was trying to imagine what I could have done wrong. Maybe coolant got into the downpipe but it just smoked so much that I figured it would have to have been more coolant than what bled out when I removed the turbo previous turbo.
 


OP
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Thread Starter #4
I'm going to be pretty upset if I switched turbos for 25whp and killed my car lol.
 


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Location
Indianapolis
#5
To be honest with you, I think you got a bad turbo. As long as you have the coolant lines connected and the oil drain connected there really isn't too much you can mess up with a hybrid turbo swap. I think it has a bad turbo seal and is allowing oil into the downpipe and it's burning it.
 


TyphoonFiST

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Rich-fizzield
#6
Man...whats the deal with every turbo having issues? Cripes can anyone catch a break here?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
 


Last edited:
OP
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Ramstein
Thread Starter #7
Is there anyway to verify bad seals? I want to be sure before I end up swapping the turbo back to the C39.

Has anyone with an X-47 had this issue before?
 


haste

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#8
You could always pop out the oxygen sensor and take a look at the sensor tip for contamination and also look inside the pipe using a borescope. This would be the easiest way to look at things without having to take too much apart.
 


BronxBomber

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#9
What does it smell like? Very distinct smells. Burning oil and burning coolant. Should be easy to tell based on the smell.
 


Ish

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Coachella
#11
White smoke from the engine bay or exhaust? If it's the engine bay, it's coolant. It's happened to me before
 


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Location
holiday
#15
My current c39 still has smoke from exhaust, very lightly and definitely not as heavy as before. This is still the second c39 seal, at least i am like 90% positive because its the same signs, and very small oil on the bottom of clamp by exhaust housing. You didnt like your c39 though?
 


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Ramstein
Thread Starter #16
My current c39 still has smoke from exhaust, very lightly and definitely not as heavy as before. This is still the second c39 seal, at least i am like 90% positive because its the same signs, and very small oil on the bottom of clamp by exhaust housing. You didnt like your c39 though?
The C39 is great...and also going back on the car lol. The data I had seen though showed the X47 being better in the two ways that matter most to me. Overall power and spool. So I switched to have the best hybrid turbo possible...and this is what happens when you get greedy lol.
 


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holiday
#17
Hmm. I may just fix mine and see how it goes. Im assuming whatever my issue is, its causing me to lose power as all my vdyno are around 250whp/260tq on e30 . I fix and wait for the new adam turbo i suppose

The C39 is great...and also going back on the car lol. The data I had seen though showed the X47 being better in the two ways that matter most to me. Overall power and spool. So I switched to have the best hybrid turbo possible...and this is what happens when you get greedy lol.
 


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Location
Peoria
#18
White smoke can mean Coolant/Water or Fuel (stuck open injector can can do that too)

If its got a slightly blueish tint it could be a turbo oil seal or valve stem seal. If the turbo oil return line is slightly blocked it can cause the turbo to smoke too as the oil pressure can't get out of the turbo faster than its coming in and then can go past the turbo shaft ring seal.

you could try a different tune (just let it idle) and see if the smoke stops, you could try to remove the oil drain tube to make sure there is no blockages.

Hard to tell by the picture, though to me if I had to guess I'd say water/fuel. When you turned your car on how long did it take for it to smoke, 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 10 minutes? Oil typically doesn't get hot enough to burn and start smoking until the turbo gets pretty hot, can take 15 minutes of idling. water and fuel can smoke pretty instantly, also the picture looks more like either water or fuel based on on bright the "white" smoke is.
 


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Location
Peoria
#20
Im making around 290 on my c39 at 26-27psi. If it ain't broke don't fix it
Was there something wrong with your stock turbo that you upgraded to c39? It better have been broke after that comment ;-) ;-) ;-) LOL
 




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