Garrett 2860RS Turbo Leak - Please Help !!!
 

Recently the housing on my Garrett 2860RS turbo has been slightly smoking with an oil residue on the top of the housing near the hotside. This residue is in the center housing area near the oil and water supply lines. I have replaced all water and oil supply lines and fittings and oil and water return lines. Nothing has helped. The residue gets worse, and so does the slight smoking, when I drive it harder under boost. I was reading about PCV valves being a culprit. I have a K&N filter on the valve cover to vent crankcase pressure.

Has anyone got an idea on what I can do? I'ver talked with FM and Limit Engineering and ATP Turbo and done the obvious solutions with no success. There is no oil in my intake plumbing and no oil being burnt out the exhaust. Car runs 10 lbs of boost and has no issues.

Thanks,
Dan

I dont like those 90 fittings. Dont like the teflon tape either. Hardlines, need a better picture of them. They can be trouble also.

UV dye would be a huge help here.

Thanks for the response. I do have UV dye in the coolant. I did see the fluoroescent color with my goggles and UV light around the housing. But honestly, there's a lot of that fluoroescent color in random places throughout the engine bay and I have had coolant leaks from changing the thermostat and replacing hoses. A also removed all those connections and have a barbed banjo fitting with a rubber hose now and the oil supply line going right into the threaded turbo fitting with inverted flare connection. I saw the oild connection leak after installation and had to use teflon tape to seal it. But that was obvious to see. Fresh oil was leaking. This residue happens when it can't be seen, under boost I suppose.

This is concerning for sure.

I also really advise against barbed fittings and hose clamps on 75psi oil lines. Likely you are only seeing a drop or two, thinning out and running all over. Or you dont have the correct oil restrictor..

Thanks again. Nothing has changed in the setup for 2 years. Is the oil restrictor replaceable? Can it fail?

The barbed fitting and hose is for the water supply line, a kit from FM, bag 3A. The oild line is stainless steel braided line with direct connection to turbo housing fitting. No visible leaks anywhere. I'm about to order blue UV dye. This might help narrow it down. BUt I'm almost sure this is oil residue.

The restrictor can clog up, just take your oil feed off and look inside the restrictor, should be a perfect circle

Is there any residue on the fittings? Or is it just on the turbo? Like can you tell whether it's leaving from turbo to adapter, or adapter to hose? What kind of thread is that between the 90 degree adapter and turbo on the bottom?

Just some words of wisdom. If it's not a pipe thread, it doesn't need tape or sealant. If it's a flanged seal that's leaking, fix the flange, not band-aid it. If it's a pipe thread, it needs sealant. I recommend Loctite 565. Leave the teflon tape for air fittings, you should NEVER use teflon tape for liquids, the tape will get cut by the threads, fall off on install or uninstall, and eventually end up in your turbo/oil filter/oil pickup/etc. Learned that one after having to pick small pieces of tape out of hydraulic valves.