Post-Track Day Trouble Shooting (A little smoke)

[rpallen85]

Hi all, new to the forum. Have used it on previous audi for help diagnosing and DIY stuff.

Disclaimer - I did some searches, have a somewhat unique situation, i think...

I bought an 01 S4 in April that had been through a build roughly 12k miles ago. Motor honed to 2.8, IE rods, JE pistons, head work, new valve train, k04, rs4 intercoolers, rs4 clutch, H&R coilovers and so on. I bought this car to occasionally be driven on the street, but mostly to have a blast on the track. (& I did this weekend!)

This past weekend I drove it from KY up to MI. About an hour from home, A/F read rich and I couldn't get it to accelerate. Dropped in to a local shop, I explained it was most likely a boost hose popped off. They got it up, found it and fixed. Mechanic told me thre was some oil in the intercooler and the pipes. Hose that popped off was between driver side intercooler & turbo. I figure usual k04 turbo oil leak from CHRA.

Fast forward to after 2nd or 3rd track run. Normal cool down procedure (Hood up, fan on it, engine at idle & parking brake not on, unless you like chiseling). There was a noticeable amount of smoke coming up from driver side, near the turbo. Not a big cloud, just a faint stream of smoke. Perhaps from the hose pop off some oil was sprayed all over the turbo, exhaust and / or other hot stuff? Also, a little smoke coming from tail pipe (which felt dry, just sooty). Once the temps got back down to normal operating range, the smoke stopped and all was good.

On the drive back to KY about halfway, I get a CEL & the AEM A/F does a weird 1.11, 2.22, 3.33 etc I'm guessing because of no signal. Pulled over, VCDS, i get P1116. So my thought is the oil in the intake track and subsequently into exhaust system messed up B1S1 Wideband (or maybe the turbine side of turbo is leaking) . Upon inspection at home, the PCV has a little oil around it's inboard outlet?/ inlet? Also, the boot around its in rough shape. The track was not kind to older rubber / silicone components.

The questions are: Is it plausible that a damaged PCV combined with track driving / high coolant and oil temps could cause oil to leak from seals? Or is it more likely just the oil from the hose pop off? Or am I missing some other possibilities?

BTW the car is great fun at the track. A little heavy & rubber a little thin but those are fixable.

[erykv1]

Cant explain the AEM gauge restarting itself, but I have the similar issue with smoke emanating from the turbo area (except the passenger side)

If you're having PCV issues (be it clogged, faulty check valve etc) it can cause the cam seals / cam plugs to slightly leak and then drip onto the exhaust manifold / dp's / turbos causing them to burn off.
Not 100% if this is your issue, but a likely possibility. Takes a few mins to poke around back there with a flashlight. Good Luck.

[rpallen85]

Cant explain the AEM gauge restarting itself, but I have the similar issue with smoke emanating from the turbo area (except the passenger side)

If you're having PCV issues (be it clogged, faulty check valve etc) it can cause the cam seals / cam plugs to slightly leak and then drip onto the exhaust manifold / dp's / turbos causing them to burn off.
Not 100% if this is your issue, but a likely possibility. Takes a few mins to poke around back there with a flashlight. Good Luck.

I'll get my mirror out and check the cam seal plugs & go ahead and replace the PCV. Will probably buy the tougher 034 one. Thanks for the reply.

BTW here is some cam footage from my cousin's WRX. The lighter weight and wider tires proves oh so valuable on the track. 4:30 mark or so is when the action begins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVOIsxcUCR4

[frankwizzle]

You may want to look into a catch can setup, that will pretty much eliminate any oil blow-by.

Also, glad to see someone else from the derby city! Not sure what shop you use, but stay away from tachyon. I'm still getting stuff fixed from my f21 install (albeit somewhere else).


Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[rpallen85]

You may want to look into a catch can setup, that will pretty much eliminate any oil blow-by.

Also, glad to see someone else from the derby city! Not sure what shop you use, but stay away from tachyon. I'm still getting stuff fixed from my f21 install (albeit somewhere else).


Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Yeah catch can is an inevitability with the kind of abuse this thing will see. Track days are brutal on the car - but fun beyond words.

I've been doing my own work to this point. Sorry to hear they messed up your turbo install. I'll remember to stay away from them.

[rpallen85]

Inspected the Crankcase ventilation system; it's very goopy. My thoughts are the increased sustained boost & high temps overwhelmed the stock system causing oil to seep out various seals. I'll replace the PCV, upgrade the hoses to silicone 034 kit & install a catch can.

Question: Does the catch can go between the y-pipe and the PRV?

[james 408]

My guess is the smoke was from oil that had seeped out of your leaky pipe, and was just burning off -- happens all the time. Silicone hoses pop off even easier and in my experience fail just as fast or faster. Not sure there is any real problem with your existing setup. Oil seeps into those pre-intercooler pipes all the friggen time. You might be fixing something that isn't broken. Your problem, if any, might be elsewhere. Smoke out the exhaust is a good indicator you're burning a bit of oil (unless it smells sweet) -- this could just be cause your turbos are hot and are burning a bit of oil, or it could be the seal on the exhaust side is going and oil is seeping out and in your cat. It could also be the car running rich trying to cool it, or new cats getting their guts melted a bit. Really hard to say, and with this type of thing sometimes the issue is more in the head of the driver/owner -- some are convinced their turbos are gonna explode the next time they touch the gas even though I'd rally the crap out of it for years before they'll let go.

I'd advise doing nothing and do more diagnosis/testing. Catch can might be a good idea but this won't independently cause any issues or symptoms using the stock system (at least not in any short time frame). I know dozens of stage 3s beating the crap out of em on the stock PCV setup way more than the street princessses on here with catch cans. No issues.

There are a few ways of setting up the catch cans, some better than others. Personally i'd just vent the crap to the atmosphere if I was gonna bother, or take it to someone who's built and tested the system you're looking at. Many of the catch can setups have their downfalls too -- many just don't work at all cause of the airflow inside the can being inefficient at separating the goup from the air.

[james 408]

also nice vid. FYI he's not faster cause of his wider tires or anything, it's the lines. You're several feet wide of apex most of the time, and you need to do more late braking (meaning a slower release of the brake pedal, not a later initiation of it). Sometimes it looks like you're just driving dead center on the track regardless of the racing line and just sitting neutral throttle. Your buddy's pretty good, guessing he does this a bit more =D. He needs to work on his shifting (super slow) and smoothing out the off-throttle oversteer so he's not scrubbing so much at/after apex.

See the 7:30 mark, you brake too late, miss the apex completely as you scrub speed post apex and offline, and lose about a second as a result.
See the 8:00 mark, you brake too early, actually accelerate into the second apex (or single apex if you're baller), and exit slow because you missed the apex by a full car width and by about 30 yards from an inflection point of gas/brake perspective (he actually lifts so he doesn't pass you on exit, and is just cruising on entry).

[rpallen85]

My guess is the smoke was from oil that had seeped out of your leaky pipe, and was just burning off -- happens all the time. Silicone hoses pop off even easier and in my experience fail just as fast or faster. Not sure there is any real problem with your existing setup. Oil seeps into those pre-intercooler pipes all the friggen time. You might be fixing something that isn't broken. Your problem, if any, might be elsewhere. Smoke out the exhaust is a good indicator you're burning a bit of oil (unless it smells sweet) -- this could just be cause your turbos are hot and are burning a bit of oil, or it could be the seal on the exhaust side is going and oil is seeping out and in your cat. It could also be the car running rich trying to cool it, or new cats getting their guts melted a bit. Really hard to say, and with this type of thing sometimes the issue is more in the head of the driver/owner -- some are convinced their turbos are gonna explode the next time they touch the gas even though I'd rally the crap out of it for years before they'll let go.

I'd advise doing nothing and do more diagnosis/testing. Catch can might be a good idea but this won't independently cause any issues or symptoms using the stock system (at least not in any short time frame). I know dozens of stage 3s beating the crap out of em on the stock PCV setup way more than the street princessses on here with catch cans. No issues.

There are a few ways of setting up the catch cans, some better than others. Personally i'd just vent the crap to the atmosphere if I was gonna bother, or take it to someone who's built and tested the system you're looking at. Many of the catch can setups have their downfalls too -- many just don't work at all cause of the airflow inside the can being inefficient at separating the goup from the air.

Oddly enough paranoia of a turbo going belly up only makes me ponder "what turbo's will have a compressor map efficiency island suitable to the tracks i frequent". Anyhow, I am in the "wail on them till the break" group. I'm sure turbine side I'm leaking oil out the CHRA, but only noticeable at extreme temps and I doubt it drops the lubrication flow enough to cause bearing damage, that's reserved for line brakes or total clogs.

When you say vent to atmosphere, do you mean the n75 solenoid valve? Or are you talking "don't even return it back into the y-pipe"?

[rpallen85]

He is good. He thinks his gear box is going though. That was my first go-round on that track, it was ugly and felt ugly. When we got back I mentioned I wasn't using the whole track, he agreed. After watching the video, i tightened it up. His go-pro battery died after that... After a couple runs I had the lines figured out and I could hang with him. Last run of that day I pushed the traction limits, hit decent lines and was pretty smooth. Corner marshal's were giving thumb up, i guess they saw the improvement. Much bigger smile after that one.

[james 408]

ah sweet. and yeah that makes sense.

I've never done it but as I understand it, rather than collecting the goup you just let it drip on the ground. I think the air itself is still routed back to the y-pipe (cause metered air or needs it to operate the can properly) but i'm not sure, haven't really researched it that thoroughly, just skim read and discussed briefly with some experts. It's racing only and not environmentally friendly. I just know a bit about it from one of the tuners developing their kits as I talked with them -- they went through several iterations getting the setup to properly separate. The end product was worlds above the off-the-shelf kits that they threw in there. It had all sorts of custom piping, welded aluminum, and looked far more complicated. Their tests showed significant differences between kits, with some bordering completely useless. I won't trash or promote anything in particular, but many of the kits in the link below were tried, tested, and tossed in the trash.

Personally I hate adding weight and complexity, plus it costs money. I'd rather spend it on tires / pads. But in a perfect world I would have the guys I know that have tested it and redesigned several times do mine... No need for me to reinvent the wheel -- would take longer for me to to learn it than it would to earn the money and pay someone. Although there are definately loads of articles on this stuff floating around, you just gotta be skeptical and know what you're reading. 5 hours of research, 2 hours of parts ordering and install, plus some potential for repurchase/reworking = imho better to pay the man (or skip it alltogether).

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...-Can-Reference
there's a few more good reads i've seen over the years, just haven't really sunk the time or money in to be able to answer your questions better.

[james 408]

Turbo sizing:
there's a thread that's got all manner of degenerative bickering about it:
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...1-K04-or-gt28r

On that course, i still hold that larger than k04 (but not much larger) would be my choice. There's enough straightaway that the larger turbo will still pay dividends. (nope, just rewatched a lap, honestly there's hardly any straight, you might be better off on the k04 size, there's like nothing in it but some consistancy)

However, in the straights your braking zones will be harder cause you'll have higher top speed. Additionally, in the twisty bits, the lag will be present -- this can cause mistakes; it requires more prediction of lag/power before you even feel the bump/tirespin. Then there's the argument of the power out of the corner initially, but I think in this case for most of these corners there isn't really much in it either way. Until the bigger turbo takes off on the straight, you're still limited by cornering speed; conversely the smaller turbo will be faster to react to your corrections, but even if it generates more power for a short while during turbo lag, you can't really put all that much down mid-corner anyway and additional speed at apex is not necessarily what you want for those longer, undulating, more complex corners.

oh and on the cost-effective side: i dunno about the cheaper turbos, but not having to throw rods into a motor saves a lot if you need a new motor. $1000 for a used motor as is, throw it in and try to blow it up. All these guys and their built engines man, it's just not cost-effective. 100k out of a motor, but what i'm telling you is, life happens -- don't break the bank on the powerplant if you can't afford to replace it.

[rpallen85]

I always figure most of what I read on these forums is opinions or people speaking from a position of less than authority. There is the minority however, that actually knows what they are talking about. Unfortunately it takes hours to separate the chaff from the fact. Thanks for the links.

My car as it stands has plenty of power, it's limitation is me, immediately followed by tires and brakes. The smoke coming from the engine bay at high temps is worrisome, only because there's a chance it pushed through seals because my crank case isn't properly ventilated for that kind of abuse (which I plan to do fairly frequently with that car) . I'll try something over the next couple weeks while I'm home and post the results.

[james 408]

ah one other thing, I might dial in a bit more oversteer into your car. I'm not seeing much lift off oversteer, but i can't really tell for sure without a larger sample, preferably in-car so I can see if you aren't driving around it. But it looks like you're trying to turn it in with the lift of the brakes and turn the wheel hard on entry, which is the right thing to do and should rotate the car freely; it looks like your car maybe shows glimpses of wanting to, but is mostly neutral despite your best efforts. If you look at the subie, his car, like ours, understeers on-throttle, and oversteers off-throttle; this is how most awd cars should be without some pretty substantial diff changes (safety feature and cost saver for the car companies). Watch how your buddy uses it: even post-apex he sometimes over-accelerates just so he can use the lift-off oversteer to setup for exit -- very nice way to drive around an imperfect differential setup.


and in response: it might be a bad pcv, but honestly I've never even had seals fail using the stock pcv, me and all my s4 buddies are just lucky? lot of them track theirs very hard on the regular as well. over 100k on my first motor and it was running like a top until mechanics messed up a timing belt. Turbo failures, well yeah plenty of those.

[rpallen85]

After round 2 I let a few PSI out of each front tire. It helped tremendously. The car rotated far better. With each session I got more and more aggressive with the steering inputs & really got the hang of a few of the corners I struggled with. The car is forgiving and can really take what I give it, the only limiting factor being understeer (easily corrected with throttle)

[james 408]

yeah, it's surprising how small alignment tweaks and tire pressure changes can have a big impact. A properly dialed car is a lot more than throwing some money at it (but it helps).

[rpallen85]

You mean I shouldn't put a 35 part long list of what I "plan to do on my build". $$$$ SHOOTING FOR 1000 HP......

Most people should spend 1 day at the track; they'll have a new set of priorities before they drive (hopefully) out of that gate.

[james 408]

haha. Honestly you'll find a lot of guys just enjoy working on and improving cars. They don't even wanna drive it. There's a whole industry around it called car shows and car meets. not my cup of tea. You take half of these cars out to a track and... damn it i don't wanna search for the video... the dash flys out of it

[christianb5s4]

This one? Haha

[rpallen85]

Hahaha. He didn't seem to surprised like he was well aware of his shoddy work.

[rharris]

RPallen85 - See that you're new to the forums and like track days. Hope to meet or see you around sometime. I'm in Lexington.

[james 408]

This one? Haha

lol, yes. My miata was similar poorly constructed, and from taking enough corners, all the interior pieces that were going to fly off have already flown off and either duct-taped back or removed completely. Now this is how you bullet-proof a car -- you beat the crap out of it =D

[rpallen85]

RPallen85 - See that you're new to the forums and like track days. Hope to meet or see you around sometime. I'm in Lexington.

Yeah I live in Louisville, work in Lexington a few days a month. Lived in Lexington for 27 years. Went to UK. I haven't been to NCM yet, but I may in the near future.