2004 Baja Turbo - Burning Oil

[Jamie_SF]

Hi -

I just bought a '04 Baja Turbo, and while I'm loving my little truck, I'm having some trials and tribulations with it
and was hoping to get some advice.

It's an '04 Turbo, factory stock with 118k on it. I've owned it for about a month/few hundred miles. A couple of
days ago I noticed a puff of smoke when I pulled away from the curb, and over the course of 48 hours, it's become
a full blown plume of burning oil out of my tailpipe - white-ish/blue, doesn't smell sweet like anti-freeze.

It's ok when sitting at idle for a while, but as soon as there's any acceleration/load, it's billowing out. It doesn't
do it on startup or while the engine is cold.

The background on it is that the previous owner replaced the oil pump/pan/intake and the turbo at 100k (carfax)
About 2 days after I brought it home, the check engine light came on and it started idling like crap. I brought it back
to the dealer where I bought it, and they found low compression in the #2 cylinder and offered to pay a bit over 1/2
of the cost for doing a valve job.

During the work, they found that in addition to a burnt valve, the piston rings were bad as well, and replaced them.
The 'Subaru specialist' they brought in to do the work suggested that when the oil intake failed, a bit of the ring broke
off, flew through/damaged the valve, and then trashed the turbo.

I can't tell if it's the new valves/stems/seals, the new rings, or if it's in a different cylinder. I idles fine, and there's no trouble
codes present.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jamie

[Alpha Wolf]

Well if they replaced the oil pump and pan I suspect your poor baja has been abused a lot. That indicates that the previous owner smashed the bottom of the engine on something. That usually causes a massive oil leak and resulting engine damage can be major enough to require a full rebuild.

But with turbos it can be odd little things. I know cars like my CX7 have been known to blow clouds of smoke behind them. First thought was blown turbo seals. Turned out to be bad PVC valves causing this. My car has not done it knock on wood but a new PVC valve and it is solved. So it could be something as just your turbo's seals going bad. Or it could be oil rings, valve, valve guides or cracked heads etc....

I would run a leak down test on all cylinders. Note whether the leaks are by the rings or by the valves. This will tell you where your problem is. If all cylinders and heads hold pressure then I would look toward your turbo or intake track as the source for the oil.

If there are any Suby tuner shops near you that would be another good place to go to find out what is happening.

[Jamie_SF]

I took it in to a shop here in SF that specializes in Subaru's (123 Automotive in SOMA) and they
pegged it as a blown turbo in two seconds. It looks like when the previous owner had the turbo replaced,
the #$@!!! shop that did the work didn't bother to replace the in-line filter (inside the banjo bolt I think) and
it was very much plugged up.

I had them do a full work over on it, and they tuned it up and said the rest of the engine and transmission was in perfect
shape, so I'm hoping I'm good for a long while.

Just got it back today and took a bit of a test ride, and feels/sounds spot on.