So here's a little background story. I replaced the stock turbo with a k04r from turbo bay and drove it gently for a week while I was waiting for a new tune I developed an issue with misfire on all cylinders periodically but mostly random cylinder misfire( tried swaping packs around and plugs with no change). The day that i received my tune at work, when I got into my car i noticed some white smoke. The smoke is mostly present on shifts and a little smoke while cruising and idle. Got home got my tune installed and the misfire issue stopped but I think it was too late. I drove the car to my garage and haven't driven it since. Upon start up the car idles very very close to normal but around 100 degrees it stats falling on its face stumbling and missing... compression test showed mid 170 on 1 2 and 3 but cylinder 4 was at 70 and the plug was covered in oil. After taking off the charge piping I found oil pooled inside of the couplings that had a milky look to it.
Last night I started tearing into the car and found the pcv valve from the intake to the valve cover was literally full of oil, removed a few of the other vaccum lines that run from the intake manifold and those also had some oil in them. So I drained the oil and coolant and the oil which has maybe 400 miles on it tops is real black and smells real burnt but still feels like new oil. The coolant had no trace of oil in it what so ever, and vice versa minus inside of the couplings.. once I opened up and removed the intake a small pool of what appeared to be coolant with a hint of oil in it had run on to the floor. So far I have all that plus the valve cover off and starting on the turbo removal.

Any ideas or helpful experiences?

09 cobalt ss/tc
126000 miles
Trifecta tuned
K04r
Forge atmospheric
Zzp intercooler
Treadstone cai
Injen charge pipe
Ottp stage 2 mounts
Ottp short throw shifter

 

Well if you have 170psi on 3 and 70psi on the 4th cyl you probably broke a ring or ringland. Did you buy the R with the actuator? What boost did they tune you on and what fuel

 

Bump for others to view.

 

Head gasket, valve seals, or broken ringland on 4.

 

I'm guessing a ring or ringland because you can create a lot of boost with the actuator and i do not recommend running it on 91. With E or meth you can keep EGTs in check but it's tough on pump

 

22 lb tune 93 pump gas

I did not get the longer wastegate because I had a brand new stock one lying around and didn't plan on pushing past 23 lb until I do my build that could be coming sooner than later haha..

Now what do you mean by egts

 

Exhaust gas temperature. Basically the higher boost you run increases the flow of air through the engine which in return increases the temperature of the exhaust which also increases the intake air 2 temps which can create knock which can hurt rings and melt pistons.

 

Well on that note, what about 93 pump gas and what makes meth help? I live in North Florida and there is no e85 near me

But what about the coolant in the intake ? When I removed the intake at the turbo coolant ran out

 

Meth and water injection gets sprayed into the cold pipe before the TB cooling down the IAT and upping the fuel octane. I held 30psi on 19° timing with my R running around 800cc meth at 75% meth and 94

I was going by the compression results. Dont know where the coolant came from

 

Yeah seems like cylinder 4 rings are done with that compression number. Did you try a leak down test?

 

Well hell yea

The coolant has me to this point everything visible in the head looks great so far but I haven't gotten that far yet

 

Not trying to high jack the thread, but hey kmo so me that I got the high boost actuator you don't recommend me getting 2 different tunes one for e47 and 1 for 91?

 

I did not do a leak down test I had not thought about that until after I started the breakdown unfortunately

 

Ahhh I see well yeah I guess you will find out pretty soon if it's the rings or something else

 

Unfortunately I only have a few payments left on the car and was hoping to wait to do the build. We will see tho

 

Yeah if not I guess now is your time to do the build if you can

 

We'll be doing 2 tunes for you a good one on E and very conservative on 91

 

Cool thanks for the clarification

 

No prob

 

I'm waiting for money for a k04r

 

early this year, my old tune got updated;
I logged and sent it away to see if the new intake required a revision, and was told that it was "all good, except for a fueling error" - a week or so later #4 was burning oil.

I call foul;
I do not believe the guy who made my tune had any errors in it (I have utmost faith in him);
I have zero faith in the new guy who made the update.

Things just aren't the way they used to be...

Oh well, I just got my "extended warranty drivetrain in there, and did a couple upgrade while I was at it;
The car is running better now than it ever has.

The real downer (aside from me suspecting the last tuner was to blame for the damage) was that it took me a couple months to do the swap because of a busy family life - and it took my 'backup' car's engine throwing a rod, for me to get real serious, and get the car back together.

 

That sucks, sorry to hear about your luck. Always seems that it hits like that.

 

It's all good, it was an excuse to finally do some mods ;b

and seriously, i had a wrecked low mile tc sitting in my garage for the better part of five years - this just meant that I REALLY had to (finally) deal with it.

I just hope my original block can ve rebuilt - otherwise I'll need to buy an LDK shortblock...
This engine in my car now runs like a top, but I have this gut feeling that it won't be a long term fix.

 

It's a good turbo I've had mine on for a little while and I love it. You get a nice boost over the stock k04 and it doesn't Lose power up top. Well worth a few hundred bucks. Only bad thing I can say is trying to communicate with turbo bay sucked. Still haven't sent my core back yet and have just given up they refuse to contact me back but the turbo I reciever was good

 

I have my K04+ from mikes turbo and i am on e85. no problems been a 1 and half. cars at 90k miles now, no problems that maybe the rings agreeing wiht ^^^^ compression in cyl #4 not good sorry to hear. And also i have an SRT4 i sent my turbo to turbo bay the guy always had an excuse. If i was you keep following up if not he will probably forget about you. took a month to get my turbo for my srt4 and i almost just asked for my turbo back. My cobalt @ 28 psi with big wheel stocker e85 and cams =] no issues yet thankfully