Sorry for the poor quality photos. I took some better photos with my camera, but I don't have them uploaded, and I don't have the ability to upload them on my laptop at home, I have to upload them on my PC at my parents house. Anyway, I only have access to my shitty cell phone photos for now. Thanks for your help.

 

i had this sputtering problem last week with my mk3 after racing a corvette. i was thinking my alternator took a shit on me, but no it wasn't that. will i started rewiring my can sensor and when i was done, i said to myself i'll change the old vac hoses to silicon hose and while doing that i found the problem by mistake lol! the main big vacuum line from the front of the intake directly behind the fuel regulator cracked and it was leaking bad. changed that and the car was pulling like a champ again! 17344C was the one that crack for me!!!

long story short check the vacuum lines first!

 

sounds like a boost leak. though i agree the turbo is shot. as for the spun bearing problem, thats not a problem with the 7m, it s aproblem with owners driving around with a blown headgasket and water getting in the oil. if you shut it off as soon as it blows, and repair it, and drop the pan to clean all the crap out like you should, bearings arnt a problem. with 300k on it i bet it has had the hg changed at least once or the engine fully rebuilt. i think i saw your car sunday at home depot on florida ave. i was on the way home from lkq as i had to pull a head for my ls400.

if you plan to mod it at all, first thing id do after replacing the turbo, is get a megasquirt 2 and build a new engine harness. then you can get rid of the maf, ignitor, and most the crap under the hood. then you can do the dp/exhaust and fmic with vented bov, bosch 044 fuel pump, etc.. and no worries. youll also get rid of the popping at idle that is so common with the pos multiplex ignitor. plus since youll be on a standalone, you can keep the stock injectors to over 400rwhp.

 

Well, unfortunately my car is fucked up again. I had my exhaust all ready to put in my car, and I drove to USF to pick up a set of jack stands I had lent to someone. On the way there, the car drove fine. On the way back, it drove like shit, and it was barely boosting. I parked it in my driveway and let it cool off before I put in the downpipe and exhaust, and then I got to work. When I finished the downpipe, I drove it just on the downpipe to see how it would run. It ran like shit, and it was smoking all over the damn place. I put my catback on, and it still runs like shit, and it still smokes. It's a white smoke, and it usually comes on whenever I downshift, or let go off the gas and start pressing on it again. It smells like oil sometimes, and sometimes it smells like something else completely. I can't figure out if I blew my new turbo, or if I blew my damn headgasket, or if something else happened.

I'm going to do a compression test as soon as I can, but then again, I doubt my compression was up to spec to begin with, so I have no before/after data to compare to.

Any suggestions?

 

Couldn't have been me. I work on Sundays, and I haven't been to a Home Depot in a year.

 

well, sounds like a hg. i cant beleive you drove it withut even a dp, that had to be extreamly loud. white smoe is usually coolant. if your seeing alot of it, check the fluid level in the radiator. its possible you blew the seals on your turbo, but i dont see how no dp/exhaust caused it. are there any engine codes?

 

I drove it with a downpipe, dude. You misunderstood. And I'm seeing a shitload of smoke. It's getting progressively worse. There are no codes being thrown at this time, but strangely enough, every time I take a sharp LEFT turn, the coolant light pops up for a second. The coolant level in the reservoir was just above "full," but I overfilled it close to the top just incase. And I also checked the coolant level in the radiator, it's fine. Thermostat reads below half every time and despite this, I have never seen my E-fans activate.

What it all comes down to is that:
- I'm feeling an obvious loss of power, gaining RPMs is significantly slower than it used to be, across the entire power band.
- There are a shit ton of embarrassingly thick clouds of white smoke shooting out of my exhaust, but it's not constant. It comes out selectively. It usually starts as soon as I downshift or slow down. Once you produce a load on the motor and then take it away, the smoke comes out. And it'll pour out for a short time idling afterwords.
- The exhaust coming out is abnormally hot.

I doubt that the exhaust has anything to do with this. Keep in mind, this complete exhaust (including the downpipe) had been sitting outside for a couple of months, and I've exercised the possibility that residue on the exhaust is simply burning off, but that doesn't at all explain my lack of performance, and my crippled boost.

It's possible that the smoke is just the pipes burning off residue, and it's completely unrelated to my lack of performance. Two completely different problems. I once heard about a guy who drive his car after having it sit in hurricane weather for a couple of months, and that it took him three weeks to burn out all the residue. I'd like for this to be the case, 'cause then I could just blame it on a boost leak or something, but it just doesn't seem to be the case. The car's performance is getting worse and worse as I drive it (I should stop driving it, but I really need to get to work, and this is currently my only RUNNING car).

Also, I do have a boost leak, and I have been aware of it from the beginning. The pipes are garbage, and I did what I could to patch them up 'till I could afford some hard pipes, but it wasn't too bad.

 

Does your car idle fine? Does the motor shake/jerk/or have a rough idle? If not then you should assume it is the turbo seals after you do a compression test on the engine.

 

Since I fixed the vacuum leaks, it idles fine. A bit high, but it idles at a solid 1k. Although, it's a bit rough at the higher RPMS. If I'm going 60mph-80mph, it's kinda rough and shaky.

Oh, something else I just thought of... This exhaust has a hollowed catalytic converter. Is it possible that the catalytic converter on the stock exhaust was holding back a lot of the smoke, and It just made the problem less visible before the switch?