Hi guys, so I recently went to go have the shop ct replace my valve seals due to me burning oil a lot, especially when i shifted or started the car it'd blow the usual white smoke.
Come to find out it was my seals on my precision journal bearing turbo. Jimmy being the guy that he is, investigated it further. The oil was black, very black. He removed the oil pan and there was maybe 1 piece of metal the size of a grain of salt sitting in the bottom, the rest of it looked like it had a copper thick liquid sitting on the bottom. I'm assuming it's very fine copper flakes added to the oil causing it to look that way, but it actually looks like liquid. The motor was built from the ground up 5k miles ago.

Not sure what to do here, Jimmy said he's seen worse but it's never a good sign.

It wasn't an immense amount of copper soaked oil, maybe a table spoon or less. it also came from the top part of the oil pan, not the bottom of the tub which I found odd. The bottom itself seemed fairly clean, just one tiny salt grain chunk.

What would you guy's diagnose this as? The car doesn't knock, it makes great power, perfect air fuel, compression test was 175 180 180 180 and the highest leak down was 5. I'm incredibly confused.

If anyone has experienced this before or could shed some light on this, please do.

I have searched this entire forum about looking for a "copper liquid with no chunks" and came up with nothing. they're not even flakes either.

thanks!

 

What brand bearings went into the motor when it was rebuilt?

 

So it just looked like copper-colored sludge?
The smoke you were seeing was white, not blue-ish? White usually relates to coolant, blue relates to oil.
Without tearing it down, you can just change the oil and drive it for a couple hundred miles and drain it again. Make sure it looks normal and send a sample to Blackstone Labs to have it analyzed.

 

ACL Race bearings

I'm a little color blind but I know it was oil being burned, easily could've been blue. I constantly checked my coolant level and oil level and the only thing that was disappearing abnormally fast was my oil.



Big ol 6262 gave up on me, replacing with 6266 ball bearing

 

How did you do your oil change since it was rebuilt?
Only 2 things I know in the engine that could produce copper-colored shavings are the Thrust and the Crank bearings.

 

When my DSM needed valve stem seals it smoked but it didn't look blue. I had to idle the car in a closed garage for awhile before I could see the blue haze (don't say in there if you decide to do this). Outside it was just colorless smoke.

I'd suggest checking the crank end play, and since the pan is off, checking the rod bearings.