BRM burning lots of oil after top end rebuild

TLDR: new top end and turbo cartridge, smokes a LOT still. Ideas?

My 2014's replacement TDI has become a long term project and now a PITA.
I bought a '06 with a bad cam, everything else seemed fine and it came with a stack of dealership service records from the original owner.

Full top end rebuild:
New guides, all exhaust valves, all guides, reground intake valves, valve job, a few minutes of porting to clean up the short turn radius on the exhaust, Frank06 cam, bearings and black lifters, 2.5" downpipe, EGR delete.

After reassembly I fired it up and broke in the cam I drove it up and down the driveway a few times since it wasn't registered. Everything seemed fine. Came back in a few weeks to finish putting the front end back together and clean it up a bit and it started smoking (blue smoke) pretty heavily. Thought it may have just been burning some crud out from sitting or assembly but it kept on huffing smoke. I disconnected the downpipe and saw the hot side wheel was soaked in oil with a small puddle still in there. Consensus among a few friends who deal with turbos and turbodiesels regularly said it was likely the hot side oil seal.

Replacement turbo cartridge from xsboostturbochargers came in (british manufacturer that I cannot recall the name of at the moment.) All looked good so I swapped the parts over and reinstalled the turbo. The intake and exhaust ports on the cylinder head looked nice and clean when I got back there with an inspection mirror.

Brought it back out of the garage today with a bit of smoke which I figured was just the oil that had made it into the exhaust system burning off. Turns out I was wrong and it belched out about the same amount of smoke for the next 15 miles or so until I could swap it out for my current DD.

Lower itercooler hose was nice and clean, just a hint of oil if you wipe a paper towel in there.
Only check engine was for the EGR.
Power and boost felt good while driving it


What else do you think could have gone wrong or broken on me during this rebuild?

Did you replace the valve stem seals? I had this happen on a chevy 305 rebuild.

narongc73 said:

Did you replace the valve stem seals? I had this happen on a chevy 305 rebuild.

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Valve stem seals are new. My old boss at the machine shop said he has seen valve stem seals walk off if they aren’t seated down perfect, especially on smaller stem and OHC engines.

Unfortunately it probably is something like that and i’ll have to pull the cam back off and replace the seals.

Tonight i’ll pull the glow plugs to see if any are different looking ie: oily or dry to see if oil is getting into the chambers. If there was this much oil getting into the cylinders i’d expect It to diesel away a bit at shut down but maybe the ASV is chokeing it off enough.

-Alex

Check the turbo oil return pipe is not blocked. Ive come accross that before which caused the turbo to essentially flood with oil and leak past the seal into the exhaust side.

Looks like it was just the oil remaining in the exhaust pipe burning off. 2 vacuum lines were also reversed causing it to go into limp mode when I got onto it hard. Just a small puff of smoke when taking off after sitting at a light or warming up in my driveway at the moment and the oil level has been stable.

I am getting an emissions CEL now even though my EGR is still plugged in. I've heard that a bad O2 sensor could cause this CEL as well. Could all the oil being spewed onto the sensor and heat cycles have baked too much crud onto it and it needs to be replaced?

I did check the oil return last time I had it off the car to swap cartridges and it was clear as well as the bolt and drilled hole back into the block. That would certainly cause some headaches if it was plugged.

Thanks for the input.

You need to hook vcds up...don't guess.

narongc73 said:

You need to hook vcds up...don't guess.

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Yep, its on my list of things to buy for this car. I found out that the old KEY-COM cable I have does not communicate with this car and may have caused my airbag light to go on as well.

Now I need to decide which license level to purchase with the HEX cable.

-Alex