Is this normal?

[20Vcqdriver]

Just swapped my refurbed turbo for a spare whilst it goes away for yet another refurb after it kept weeping oil and found the exhaust and turbo a brown colour. Anyone else have this? All cylinders the same, no loss in performance and no white smoke that I would expect if it was a head gasket letting water out. Thinking it way be condesate being pulled through from the catch tank that is fitted underneath the turbo and the outlet then travels back to the normal MAF hose point. Colour matches the sludge in the catch tank...

[avants2turbo]

wow... Thats exactly what my turbo and exhaust manifold and down pipe looked like, headgasked went, leaked water into cylinder 5, i had no white smoke either, no loss of power, wasnt loosing to much water either... Not saying your head gasket has gone, but it might have....

[20Vcqdriver]

That would be a pain especially as I only had the gasket replaced last year after a head overhaul and skim. Used the RS2 metal gasket too... Any other way of telling for sure?

[max_s2]

Not sure, but doesnt this look like running lean?

[DJones]

Doesnt look right mine is always as black as your hat..

When ever i rebuild an engine i always put a good quality pot of rad weld in it needed or not..

Done it for years.. would recommend it even more so with metal head gaskets..

Just my 2p

[europeanme]

is it dry and 'flaky'??....as it might have been there for a long while....

[mcandmar]

Nope thats not normal. Should be Black/white, on the extremes Black too rich, white too lean. Looks like water is getting mixed in somewhere. I noticed your sig says "chargecooler", is that one of those water/air coolers? ....slight leak perhaps?

[220bhp]

My guess is its the residue of rusty water from the block being sucked through the exhaust as a result of head gasket failure or cracked head.

[20Vcqdriver]

Strange how spark plugs not showing anything.... One other item is the turbo itself. Having now driven with the spare turbo, the engine spools up much quicker, does not whistle, moan, whine, smell of oil or smoke. So much for getting a quality refurb.
Could the turbo itself be to blame as looking at the inlet side of the turbine it is nowhere near as 'rusty' looking as the vanes or down pipe. Will monitor over the next week and see if the downpipe colour changes with this known good spare turbo. Fingers crossed.

[20Vcqdriver]

Nope thats not normal. Should be Black/white, on the extremes Black too rich, white too lean. Looks like water is getting mixed in somewhere. I noticed your sig says "chargecooler", is that one of those water/air coolers? ....slight leak perhaps?

Yes have charge cooler, but water level not changed in expansion tank over the last few weeks...

[DJones]

Give it a run on the new turbo and take your lambda out and have a look. Should save you taking it all apart..

[20Vcqdriver]

Getting its new exhaust on Tuesday so should see a difference by then when it all comes off... now running Pauls switchable ECU in 'stock' mode as think last turbo got goosed due to running 280+bhp through 2" exhaust?!!!
Let you know results...

[20Vcqdriver]

Give it a run on the new turbo and take your lambda out and have a look. Should save you taking it all apart..

Well one issue seems sorted as looking at downpipe during first part of exhaust upgrade and it is back to light black colour with this turbo and after pouring in radweld just in case, but now have a massive boost leak that I had before I changed the turbo. Get over .5 bar on the gauge and you can hear the massive hissing noise that seems to be behind the dash, going to have to go for another boost leak test as nothing obvious. Do these engines ever run properly for more than 6 weeks at a time because mine doesn't