New member with extreme oil consuption on 03 SRT4

[agallarini]

My brother recently bought a 2003 Neon SRT that had a salvage title. The company that he bought the car from is in the business of restoring the road-worthiness of salvage cars for profit. When he first started looking at the car, the company had just gotten it in, and was beginning to work on it. At first when my brother drove the car, he said there didn't seem to be any boost. There were some vacuum fittings that were damaged, which were replaced and apparently brought the turbo back in. He has also been told the the catalytic converter is stopped up.

Now the motor is losing an extreme amount of oil (3+ quarts of 5x30 in 55 miles!!), but only a small black cloud can be seen at the tail pipe when it's under boost. My 1988 Integra RS made more soot before I rebuilt the engine. I'm getting the feeling that the oil seal in the turbo is burned out, probably due to the back pressure coming from the clogged cat. I bet much of the oil is depositing in the huge intercooler behind the front bumper cover.

He's got a new Mopar performance exhaust system and is waiting for a downpipe and cat along with solving the oil problem before installing it. He hasn't had the time to check for oil in the charge pipes and intercooler yet. The bumper has to come off to get to the intercooler, so I suggested he try taking the line off at the throttle body. He also has not done a compression or leak down test to check the rings and valve seals. The motor only has about 9k on it so I'm betting the entire problem lies in the turbo oil seals. He's switched to 15w30 oil and reduced the consumption a lot (1/2 quart in 55 miles).

Does anyone have any alternative ideas about this? We're going to try to replace the exhaust on the weekend of the 11th. He should have everything, even a turbo to swap in by then.

[Jay73k20]

Before replacing the exhaust cut the cat out and drive it with just the 5" down pipe. You'll see smoke right away if the seal is gone.

Jason

[PSI Chick]

try taking a look at the cold side ic pipe. you can remove it without taking off the bumper. take it out, and see if there's a ton of oil in there. also check the tb, they too get coated with oil.

i would also check to make sure that the oil line that runs into the turbo is attached properly. this line often gets removed for work and forgotten to put back in place, or more often put in but not completly attached, so it leaks.

[agallarini]

I wish the car was at my house, I'd have looked at most of these things already. I did suggest that he try getting to the throttle body and the charge pipes to see if oil was in there. Last I heard he had taken the drivers side (cold side, right?) pipes off of the ic and found a lot of oil. The hot side did not seem to have much if any oil, though. Does that make sense?

Could the oil pool up in the intake manifold, too? I'm thinking that it could and as part of this job he should remove the manifold and make sure all of the oil gets out.

What's the best cleaner to use? Dawn dishwashing soap is what we're thinking.

Thanks guys

[flashingj]

Super Clean, but don't let aluminum sit for more than 30 miniutes at time, it will etch it.