I may have spoke too soon about my chinese GT45. I took the car out today for a short trip to my buddies shop and after parking it for alittle I noticed oil on the ground. Long story short, I pulled the elbow right at the turbo and it is full of oil. I thought maybe my drain it backing it up into the compressor but It leaves the turbo in a 180 fitting and falls about 2in. to the fuel pump block off where it dumps and is 5/8 hose all the way. Could the seals be bad already? Is my drain insufficient?

A 180 degree fitting? As in "oil going in any direction but down?" You cant have any loops or sags in the return line. If the oil isn't going down hill all the time, it will backup like that. Correct the routing and you shouldn't have any problems. Continuing to use it that way will carbon up the seals on the turbine side though.

I comes out of the turbo and goes straight down and 180's under the turbo like a U but it is downhill the whole way. I pulled my blockoff plate at the fuel pump and the gasket was partially blocking the hole so I fixed that. It may have been the problem but you do have me concerned about my 180 fitting coming out

If it goes down and then does a 180* U meaning it starts trying to flow upward...that's horrible. That would have ruined seals in a cheap chinese ebay turbo or a high dollar precision unit, it doesn't matter. You can't do that.

Geeez,
here we go with the "Cheap" chinese thing again!!

First question is,
Did you put the oil restrictor in your feed line??? I purchased the fitting with the restictor cast in it. Your turbo is probably getting too much oil pressure and pushing oil past the seals. As stated above, the oil return must have a straight shot to the oil pan....

Here is the "Restricted" oil feed that I am talking about,

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TURBO-OIL...=item43a40d1c74

Yes it has an oil restrictor, no it doesn't "U" back uphill. See attachment maybe it will clear up the confusion

From the drawing you posted the oil drain is coming out of the side of the turbo instead of out the bottom....a very big problem if that is the case.

Your turbo is probably fine, for now. Keep running it and it'll be carboned up.

Oil should enter through a restrictor. I run restrictors off Mazda RX-7s. Other guys shove .040" Holley jets in their lines.

There are no positive oil seals (like a wheel bearing seal) on a turbo. They spin waaaay too fast for that kind of thing. The drag from the seal would kill the response and once it did get up to speed the turbo would melt the seal. They spin more than 100,000 rpm in many installations.

Do you have any idea what happens to oil when it's sprayed on a shaft spinning 100,000 rpm? Foam happens. Think of shaving cream. How do you drain shaving cream? Quick answer: you don't.

The oil returns to the engine by the magic of gravity. Your feed line is a tiny little thing and the return is a big fat hose (1/2" minimum, 5/8" is great). For gravity to do it's job the hose has to be down hill all the way. If there's anything remotely close to a horizontal part of that line the shaving cream will sit there and not drain. it backs up the return line and makes a mess by finding leaks to escape or flooding the turbo. If it gets past those not-really-a-seal shaft seals your car will smoke like a Cheech and Chong movie.

One of my return lines got tweaked into a near horizontal position. The engine would pump out a smoke screen that would drift across an intersection until the oil was up to temperature.

Oil in is always restricted and always on top.

Oil out is always big and fat going downhill all the way.

If you can't reroute the oil line into a downhill position you have two options:
1) Put it into the oil pan ABOVE the level of the oil in the pan.
2) Install a small reservoir to catch the oil and a pump to push it out.


Live and learn. You've done pretty well so far. One little detail got past you. Fix it and move on.

Ok so I reclocked the housing so the drain would face my return point instead of horizontal and Now I've got about 4" of fall at a 45o angle going down. I drove it alittle bit this morning and it seems to have cleared up but I think I will tap the pan soon anyway just in case.

If it's working, don't mess with it. Leave it alone.

from what I've seen on tmf, the prevailing thought now is to try no restrictors and only if you smoke put them in. I did not put them in mine, though I do have the fittings should I need them.