Topic: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

We need some advice from teams that have experience with these engines.

Our first track day was Saturday and we experienced breather oil control problems of epic proportions. Like a pint of oil out of the breather per lap. We think it is a combination of blow-by and cornering. We plugged the breather and then the oil came out thru the PVC and flooded the air box. I asked HQ if an oil catch tank with a drain back to the pan was possible and was told NO.

Any useful suggestions would be appreciated.

I will post leak down results later this week but I actually expect them to be within spec (gut feeling).

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

We had oil in the breather in our 2.2 non turbo.  It happened when the car was being revved too high.  But the short list is easy - blow by thru the rings or the timing is advancing for some reason and the valves are not closed all the way during combustion - revving might cause this is ie the exhaust gas isn't out in time. Maybe you could fab a 4 pipe long header.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in my experience, you won't have that much blow-by unless you have internal engine problems. Even with the PCV system completely disconnected, a healthy engine won't blow nearly that much oil.

My guess is you're going to find pretty terrible leakdown results. When you do the test, pay attention to where the leaking noise is coming from. This info is just as valuable as the numerical result. If the leaking air noise is coming from the intake or exhaust, you have valve problems and might get away with a head rebuild. If it's coming from the crankcase, you have ring problems and are in for a lot more fun.

Don't worry too hard. Rebuilding an engine is a learning experience! The forums specific to your car will be your greatest ally in that fight.

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

rebuilding these engines is easy, I do it every race. We get some oil leaking, but not a lot. The old engine had a ton, but it had some crappy compression numbers. The other place you might be getting oil is from the turbo. Right now most of my oil leaking into the intake is from the turbo needing a rebuild/replacement.

Timing is easy to check. Pull the intake tubes if you have a hard time seeing the window on the bell-housing, it will idle just fine with them off. Check the timing belt too to make sure it's not off a tooth. It's a non-interference engine, so it will still run that way. Easy enough to check with the engine in the car, you just need to get the belt covers off.

Don't rev the engine past 5k. The power curve falls on it's face at 5k anyway so there's no point.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

If you don't have any tremendous leak down issues make sure to have a baffle on your breather.    A simple deflector in the inside of the valve cover to let air escape but not oil especially in the corners.

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

I suspect you've blown out your ring lands or melted a piece out of your piston.

this smoke is not from the exhaust. It's from the breather.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

Ring lands can happen. I broke a sizable piece on Cyl 3 during race #1.

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8 (edited by jrbe 2015-03-25 03:11 AM)

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

Is the pcv system in good shape? Making mods to the pcv system can make for oil control issues if something isn't jiving.
An oil swirl /catch tank is possible. The drain needs to be down hill and preferably dumps oil in well above the oil level. Otherwise it can suck oil out of the pan like some Porsches do. I had abanjo fitting on a modified oil drain plug with a Teflon braided brake hose bringing the oil down. It was too small (-3) and had the possible oil suction point about as low as possible (bad). Our new one uses good platinum catalyzed silicone (somewhat hard to find) hose that dumps into the valley pan. We use 0 oil all weekend in our Audi v8 with this setup.

If the catch can fails you have a big puddle of oil on the track or a pretty big fireball under the hood. Hq doesn't want you throwing something failure prone like this together last minute I'm sure. A gallon of engine oil has like 130,000 btu, an oil furnace in your home running constantly uses about .8 gallons an hour. That's a huge amount of energy if burned in a few seconds. (Just trying to put when oil leaks go bad into perspective of why it's a good idea to do it right/safe.)

-Killer B's (as in rally) '84 4000Q 4.2V8. Audis never win?

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

Update - Leak down on a cold engine was less than 10% on all 4 cylinders. Not bad for a 24 year old engine! A visual inspection in each cylinder showed nothing of concern.

So I'm back to my original theory that sustained cornering forces are a big contributor to the problem combined with the typical blow by associated with forced induction engines. I believe a rework of the breather system that incorporates creating negative pressure in the crankcase will be the answer.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

The stock vacuum system on those engines is also a nightmare. Clean it up. Grab a vacuum block, ditch most of the EVAP system and just run to the important things. There were a few one way check valves in the stock system that sometimes go missing through various previous owners. That can screw things up.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

One issue I've seen on the Volvo 4cyl turbo that we run is the oil drain-back tube that runs from the breather box down to the oil pan.  The oil separator (breather box) was designed to let the oil drain back down as it condenses.  But the hose runs through a hole in the top baffle of the oil pan, so what can happen is oil slosh during cornering and it gets sucked up the hose.  Typically we cut the hose off about flush with the bottom of the block where the pan bolts on, that way the oil can't slosh up to it.

After a full day of racing with a Garrett T3 on the side of our 2.3L 4cyl, we're seeing just a few ounces of oil/water mix in our catch can.  From the breather box on the block there runs a hose to the catch can, and from the can runs a hose to the pre-turbo intake pipe to pull vacuum on the crankcase via the catchcan.  If you have some oil control issue with the rings, or some OEM PCV issue like I described above, you're likely to pull a lot of oil out during track driving.  Happens on my autocross car that's got some blowby....fine for autocross, but fills a catch can in one ~20min session on track.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

I asked HQ about running a catch tank and Jay said:

"Wishful thinking aside, a catch system is a total nonstarter here, and we'd never okay it."

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13 (edited by Omnilith 2015-03-31 06:37 PM)

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

Make sure the air/oil separator bolted inside the valve cover still has a decent RTV seal. It does a pretty good job of keeping cornering oil out of the PCV. We run the turbo valve cover on our non-turbo cars for that reason.

It is also my experience from my turbo mopars that you must have a little bit of negative pressure on the PCV system while at full throttle... which means running to the intake tube behind the filter but before the throttle body. On my Charger, I get oil out of all sorts of places without that connected properly.

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14

Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

I got to thinking... I always had issues with my Mercedes 240D loading up oil in the breather when the valves were getting a little too tight.  I had to adjust them every year or so or the engine would start blowing oil out of the top.  It too had an oil/air separator.  Didn't matter. -


So that is where my money is, your valves aren't closing on time.

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

Omnilith wrote:

Make sure the air/oil separator bolted inside the valve cover still has a decent RTV seal. It does a pretty good job of keeping cornering oil out of the PCV. We run the turbo valve cover on our non-turbo cars for that reason.

It is also my experience from my turbo mopars that you must have a little bit of negative pressure on the PCV system while at full throttle... which means running to the intake tube behind the filter but before the throttle body. On my Charger, I get oil out of all sorts of places without that connected properly.

I assume you mean before the turbo? Isn't there virtually no vacuum at WOT when vacuum is needed most? What about contaminating the intake with oil vapor gunk?

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Re: Chrysler 2.2 Turbo Advice

mhrir wrote:
Omnilith wrote:

Make sure the air/oil separator bolted inside the valve cover still has a decent RTV seal. It does a pretty good job of keeping cornering oil out of the PCV. We run the turbo valve cover on our non-turbo cars for that reason.

It is also my experience from my turbo mopars that you must have a little bit of negative pressure on the PCV system while at full throttle... which means running to the intake tube behind the filter but before the throttle body. On my Charger, I get oil out of all sorts of places without that connected properly.

I assume you mean before the turbo? Isn't there virtually no vacuum at WOT when vacuum is needed most? What about contaminating the intake with oil vapor gunk?

If you run the tube before the turbo you'll still have vacuum since that part isn't pressurized. Between the filter and turbo acts the same as the intake on an NA car.

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