Smoking Turbo? Help!

[kingtut]

I always have, yes. But strangely, this time it idled for 10 minutes or so, then got shut down. Then started, drove for maybe a minute, the idled and started to smoke.

Fook- not that I was hoping for you not to have "turbo-timed it" (by any means) but it sucks that this happened to you (and you did):huh:

[mOOsE]

Stealth, Make sure that the dealer replaces the the entire turbo. My turbo smoked and had to fight tooth and nail to get the dealer to replace the entire assembly, that is the only solution. There is no other fix and you might have to show them the smoke. The best way to get it to smoke is to get the car warmed up and the engage is some spirited driving to get the turbo hot and then just let the car idle. At idle there is not enough back pressure to hold the seals in place and allows a small amount of oil into the turbo causing it to smoke. Once the dealer sees it billow out clouds of white smoke, they have no choice but to replace the turbo. I think the new turbos have some sort of fix, mine has not smoked since.

Would be nice if they were indeed fixed. I know there was speculation or some info from mazda stating the MS3's should have different seals from 08+...hopefully that holds true.

[roninsoldier83]

Ok turbo guys, you should all know to let your turbo cars cool down before turning them off. For two reasons; to get fresh oil into the turbo and to let the exhaust temps cool so you don't get warped exhaust valves. The life of your turbo depends on fresh oil getting into the bearing and taking away some of the heat so the seals don't crack. Speedydad hit on the head. That's why they invented the turbo timer.

Now, I agree with the idea of letting your car cool down after driving, it's good practice regardless of if it's turbocharged or not.

Back in the day, a turbo timer was a sound investment for people who didn't want to let their car idle down, however on modern turbo cars, it's almost a waste. Most older turbochargers were oil cooled only, whereas most modern turbos are both oil & water cooled, water/coolant is routed through the turbo even after you shut down the engine.

Which is why if you look at the owner's manual of an older turbo car, like let's say a turbo DSM, it will mention letting the car idle for a few minutes after a hard drive, whereas on a newer car with water & oil cooled turbo, most owners manuals will mention no such thing.

Don't get me wrong, it's never a bad idea to let your car idle down after a long drive (I idle my car down daily), but on a water cooled turbo, a turbo timer is not necessary, and for the most part, somewhat of a waste.

Regardless of if you own a Subaru or not, water cooled turbos still work the same way, for anyone curious, take a peek over here:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=465156

[coloskydiver]

Let us know what the dealer says. And I'm going back to stock because I'm selling

THREAD JACK!!!!

Rich- Why are you selling and what are you going to buy???

[Rich]

Reasons I'm selling:

A) Not smart to mod a daily driver to the level I want to. These motors are known to fail with a turbo upgrade, and I can't have my DD down for such a repair. Plus, the cost to prevent such a failure is out of my range.
B ) Cost:Performance ratio is much too high. Parts are very expensive for minimal gains.
C) I've paid ~$20k in payments on this car already, and I still owe $20.5k.
D) The problems I've had with my current level of mods......my car hasn't been fun to drive since September of last year.


So, I will pay my loan down to a level that I could possibly sell it to a private party. Once I sell, I'll buy a Jeep and carry no negative equity with me from the Speed 6. The Jeep will be useful in the mountains during all seasons.

By around next summer I'll start looking for my next project car......a 1960s VW Bug. I will build it for the strip, targeting mid-high 12s on an N/A motor. After I've had fun with that, I'll turbo it with a water/meth injection for a bigger kick.

Why a 1960s VW Bug? I can remove the motor, by myself, in ~20 minutes. There is NO ECU to fight with. Tuning is accomplished with a timing light, a turn of the distributor, and a carb flow gauge. I will actually build the engine myself, minus machining (if needed). There are a ton of aftermarket parts available. A forged rod/piston combo is around $500....instead of $1200 for the Speed 6. It's a light car that will put down ~200hp (N/A), giving it an excellent power:weight ratio. It's a fun, easy, and relatively cheap car that I can have a blast in.

Plus, my first car was a 1964 VW Bug

[coloskydiver]

Reasons I'm selling:

A) Not smart to mod a daily driver to the level I want to. These motors are known to fail with a turbo upgrade, and I can't have my DD down for such a repair. Plus, the cost to prevent such a failure is out of my range.
B ) Cost:Performance ratio is much too high. Parts are very expensive for minimal gains.
C) I've paid ~$20k in payments on this car already, and I still owe $20.5k.
D) The problems I've had with my current level of mods......my car hasn't been fun to drive since September of last year.


So, I will pay my loan down to a level that I could possibly sell it to a private party. Once I sell, I'll buy a Jeep and carry no negative equity with me from the Speed 6. The Jeep will be useful in the mountains during all seasons.

By around next summer I'll start looking for my next project car......a 1960s VW Bug. I will build it for the strip, targeting mid-high 12s on an N/A motor. After I've had fun with that, I'll turbo it with a water/meth injection for a bigger kick.

Why a 1960s VW Bug? I can remove the motor, by myself, in ~20 minutes. There is NO ECU to fight with. Tuning is accomplished with a timing light, a turn of the distributor, and a carb flow gauge. I will actually build the engine myself, minus machining (if needed). There are a ton of aftermarket parts available. A forged rod/piston combo is around $500....instead of $1200 for the Speed 6. It's a light car that will put down ~200hp (N/A), giving it an excellent power:weight ratio. It's a fun, easy, and relatively cheap car that I can have a blast in.

Plus, my first car was a 1964 VW Bug

All very good reasons and I totally understand. It sucks sinking a ton of money into a car that you drive everyday and ultimately does not give what you want of it. What type of Jeep are you looking for? Wrangler or a Cherokee? Jeeps are fun in themselves. Bugs are awesome too. Before I started the monster, a buddy and I were wanting to build a bug to run in Baja. Like you said, bugs are great because they are cheap, easy to work on and there are tons of parts for them. Best of luck.

[Stealth01]

That's why I am not modding the MS6. I got it to be a fun daily driver, not a hobby car or a track fiend. If I was going to get something to play with, it would probably be a 93-94 Stealth R/T TT or an older muscle car. Since I'm mechanically challenged, modding a car isn't in my best interest anyway.

[AIM WO4]

Good idea! I have a project in the garage. I'd think a new turbo would be the #1 choice mod on the MS6.

That's why I am not modding the MS6. I got it to be a fun daily driver, not a hobby car or a track fiend. If I was going to get something to play with, it would probably be a 93-94 Stealth R/T TT or an older muscle car. Since I'm mechanically challenged, modding a car isn't in my best interest anyway.

[roninsoldier83]

Reasons I'm selling:

A) Not smart to mod a daily driver to the level I want to. These motors are known to fail with a turbo upgrade, and I can't have my DD down for such a repair. Plus, the cost to prevent such a failure is out of my range.
B ) Cost:Performance ratio is much too high. Parts are very expensive for minimal gains.
C) I've paid ~$20k in payments on this car already, and I still owe $20.5k.
D) The problems I've had with my current level of mods......my car hasn't been fun to drive since September of last year.


So, I will pay my loan down to a level that I could possibly sell it to a private party. Once I sell, I'll buy a Jeep and carry no negative equity with me from the Speed 6. The Jeep will be useful in the mountains during all seasons.

By around next summer I'll start looking for my next project car......a 1960s VW Bug. I will build it for the strip, targeting mid-high 12s on an N/A motor. After I've had fun with that, I'll turbo it with a water/meth injection for a bigger kick.

Why a 1960s VW Bug? I can remove the motor, by myself, in ~20 minutes. There is NO ECU to fight with. Tuning is accomplished with a timing light, a turn of the distributor, and a carb flow gauge. I will actually build the engine myself, minus machining (if needed). There are a ton of aftermarket parts available. A forged rod/piston combo is around $500....instead of $1200 for the Speed 6. It's a light car that will put down ~200hp (N/A), giving it an excellent power:weight ratio. It's a fun, easy, and relatively cheap car that I can have a blast in.

Plus, my first car was a 1964 VW Bug

I completely understand. Good luck with your future ventures.

You won't be the first person to trade your Speed6 in on a Jeep on this board... I do wish I heard from Lee more often

You're also not the first to trade your Speed6 in due to frustrations with the ECU. As a matter of fact, I saw a thread about people trading their MS6's in not too long ago over on mazda6club, I'm almost never there, but every few months I stop by to see how things are over there, thought it was interesting:
http://forum.mazda6club.com/index.php?showtopic=107472

^^^I thought it was funny to see a lot of the cars people traded their MS6 in on: STI(only me lol), quite a few EVO's, R32, 335i's, RS4, DSM ect. I noticed a bit of a trend in the "type" of cars people went to.

I hear you though man, I seriously do. I was getting really frustrated when I owned my Speed6 towards the end. Even made a small list about it:
http://forum.mazda6club.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=107472&view=findpost&p=1494767

Traditionally Mazda has never been a "tuner" company. Their ECU's for the most part have always been a PITA. Don't get me wrong, I think they do a wonderful job of factory backed racing programs, a lot better than most companies, but I think they really try to encourage their owners to keep their cars stock, or at least VERY mildly modded at the most. Well, engine wise anyway, they have decent suspension bits for Miata's & such, but I'll never confuse them with lets say Nissan, with their Nismo division... Nismo not only offers full bolt-ons, they all offer fully built blocks (built for either high compression NA motors or turbo built motors, your preference), high flow heads, cams, you name it, they offer it. Same with GM, with their crate motors galore & infinite parts bin.

An old VW bug however... yeah, they have more than enough of an aftermarket to keep you entertained I have a buddy who just did something similar, bought an F-150 for a daily, and a bug that's he's building up to run baja out in San Diego, my old friend Jimmy, we were good friends back in the Army, his daughter is my goddaughter. He was just asking me a few weeks ago for my opinion on him running his bug NA vs FI... he gave me some pricing on parts, and it instantly made me sad about the prices for STI parts

Either way, good luck buddy!

[Stealth01]

I talked with Bob Penkhus' service department today. They found leakage around the turbo seals and are overnighting a new turobcharger in. I should have the car back Thursday! WOOT!

[GR-8]

Nice. Glad to see service down there is getting better. Or was it always good in the Springs?

[RX-7 Chris]

Glad it is getting fixed

[Rich]

Good to hear Stealth. Glad it's looking like a quick process for you.

[kingtut]

You're also not the first to trade your Speed6 in due to frustrations with the ECU.

A lot of interesting info on there ronin, thanks- I wasn't aware of most of that. All of that brought me back to my Audi days (which wasn't that long ago, haha). Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is every make/model of vehicle has its own quirks, don't they? I mean, all I remember about the vw/audi boards was the dreaded timing belt:eek:. Every 60k (at the earliest), you'd have to start worrying about your belt snapping and causing catastrophic damage [interferance engine]. If it broke, you were looking at $4-5k, and if it didn't, you were still out $800-1100 for the replacement. The timing chain aspect was a definite plus for me on the speed.

If it wasn't that, then oil sludge would kill your motor. Total loss- For this reason, everyone was adamant about doing $70+ oil changes every 5k. Either way, it sucked big time...and stock performance blew just as much. So regardless, if you stayed stock and were all show and no go, you still had to pay to play. Those were the two biggies- both of which compared to a smoking turbo isn't as bad (in my book). I could go on from here with inherant vw/audi problems, but everyone's heard me speak about it before. Plus anything beyond my limited mechanical knowledge, is just speculation:lol:.

Also, I do realize you were speaking more-so from a modding standpoint (and the limitations of the speed6), and not "problems" with Mazda/speed6 in general--just my random .02

I talked with Bob Penkhus' service department today. They found leakage around the turbo seals and are overnighting a new turobcharger in. I should have the car back Thursday! WOOT!

Congrats Stealth, glad to see it worked out:)

*Last* comment in regards to the actual original topic- It doesn't seem like very many people (if any) have installed an oil catch can, OR added that PCV (or two) like many are talking about. It doesn't look like a bad idea, or proactive step to take. I recall people getting together to have "timing belt days", similar to a "detail day", etc. It's a fairly inexpensive deal and would benefit to have a handful of people doing the same procedure. Would this be of interest to anyone?? Just thought I'd ask:huh:

[Stealth01]

Nice. Glad to see service down there is getting better. Or was it always good in the Springs?

For awhile, it was very good. Then there was a period when it sucked at Penkhus. Pencil-whipped inspections, "cannot recreate the problem" excuses, etc.

But the last year and a half or so, they've been great. Really proactive. Customer-friendly. They could have blown me off and said, "we couldn't replicate the issue," but they didn't. They took the turbo off, found the leak, and are replacing the turbo under warranty.

They're taking care of my wife's CX-9 very well, too. It's all about the people involved, and Joey Culbertson -- the service manager I deal with -- is EXCELLENT about this stuff.