Already having trouble with my RX.

 

Yesterday it was fine, as with this morning... no trouble at all. This afternoon the problems started.

 

Under boost, it's burning oil. And I mean LOTS. Huge clouds of blue smoke. This just started out of the blue. Only happens under boost though, under heavy load- like climbing a mountain. Popped the oil cap, and exhaust was blowing out.

 

It's lost a little bit of power, but no rough running or anything. Still runs smooth as silk. But under boost, I get the smoke, and don't have the power I had yesterday.

 

I have a compression tester, but I'm waiting for the engine to cool before removing the plugs.

 

Could it possibly be the turbo? Or does this sound like my rings are shot?

 

 

Seller offered to put another engine in it for me, so I'm not totally screwed- but quite upset.

my guess is that the rings might be worn out, but thats just from my experiance.

 

stick with the car, it will get better, well, maybe after a few $.

it absolutly could be the turbo.

 

or it could be bad turbo and bad rings

Driver's side compression: 105 100

 

Turbo side compression: 60 60

 

I think we found the problem.

 

eew I hope the backup engine turns out better

Crazy thing is, the car was fine yesterday. I gave it some pretty hard runs to see what it could do, and it took it like a champ. Today I put over 100 miles of easy driving on it, and POOF... burning oil like crazy afterward.

could the low compression be a HG or cracked head? Don't think the worst yet.... if it is a bad motor put a 2.2 in it.

 

Matt

 

PS: Still a good score though...

if your turbo is having problems, this might interest you:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7970377623&category=33742

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7971164654&category=33742

 

may be a good idea to pick up a spare anyway

 

don't feel too bad about your luck - it is STILL a great deal - I am truely envious of it

 

!!GOOD LUCK!!

 

the EA82 is a good engine - light and powerful - WJM has done wonders with it - it should also have the late gen heads (less prone to cracking) - that car is worth keeping original

you should get the engine rebuilt, maybe get it worked over a little bit while its out. if you end up doing an engine swap, you should look into something a bit better than the 2.2, maybe wrx swap or the like.

 

just my opinion, you get all the turbo badging on the car, might as well have aturbo to back it.

My 90 Loyale Wagon did the same thing. There were some tubes that go into the Turbo, that carry oil. Low pressure oil though, I think it helps cool the Turbo. Check directly under and you may see that the tubing used by Subaru is not rated for the extreme heat.

 

The heat shielding may have worn off or been insufficent from the get go. You may need to pull the turbo comletely apart. I could be wrong about everything I said but I think that is the case. So my vote is the turbo. I would also make a plan to replace the Water Pump and all the seals in that area. Might take a couple hours but you might have bigger problems if you dont just take car of it. Thanks

Your compression test indicates its time for a rebuild, you are expierening EXACTLY what happened to my EA82-T.

 

One day I was out screwing around pushing it hard at 15psi, then my boost controller decided to go nuts and spike up above 20psi for a few seconds so I removed it and put it back to stock 7psi then later that day I stepped on it to pass a truck and all the sudden loss of power and tons of blue smoke!

 

Just got worse and worse as the day went on.

 

When I dropped the exhaust header pipe the Passenger Side Head Exhaust Port was dripping with oil!

 

When I tore it down the ringland on one of my pistons was broken off and sitting in the oil pan!

 

Good luck on the rebuild, just remember to have somone who KNOWS EA Series motors do the work for you.

 

I rebult mine myself with the aid of a 20-year SOA Tech so I learned allot. It's now running great and back on the road Now I know why I did all the engine work, they are just fun cars to drive!