Hi guys,



Great forum been looking round it for a while now.



I have just bought an FD with 40k miles on the clock. I have taken the intercooler off so I can fit my new one and in the piping there is a thin layer of oil. You cant see it but if you run your finger in the pipe it will come out greasy altho clear, Is this going to be a problem?



Also on startup the car will smoke a bit for about 5 - 10 mins then it goes away. Likewise the oil pressure gauge (standard at the moment so I know its not very accurate) will hover around 4kg/cm (50ish psi) then at wot it will flick up and down. If I come to a stop and idle it will drop almost to 0 after about 20mins of this it will suddenly shoot up to 8kg/cm (110psi) and stay there. Is this a gague problem or a more serious one?



The car seems to run fine in general, a bit low on boost but there is a tear in the intercooler pipe and a badly set up boost controller at the moment so once I get my new parts from your side of the pond I can get that sorted, I hope.

 

how much is it smoking at startup? if it is alot, you may have a problem, but if it is very little, nothing to worry about, it is normal. even new cars will do it sometimes.

 

I`d say its a little more than I`m used to but it is a 12 year old car so I guess its to be expected really. I`m more worried about the oil pressure now, especially now I know 8kg/cm = 110psi!!! onto Ebay for a gauge I think

 

When you first start it, especially this time of year, assuming its cool its gonna smoke a bit. Probably just condensation. Now if it smells like coolant you should be worried.



As far as the OP gauge, who knows. Most FDs I've been around have erratic OP gauges.

 

oil pressure gauge isn't accurate at all, you have nothing to worry about with that

 

guys, obviously this car has an oil leak in the turbos. why would you say that its normal for the car to smoke on startup for 5 or 10 minutes? thats not normal. if it was cold and was steaming it wouldnt take that long for it to stop.



remember he said theres a thin layer of oil in the intake piping

 

its normal for there to ba a lil oil in the stock pipes and intercooler...they also smoke a lil on start up cause they do inject oil.....just put a mechanical gauge in there...mine stoped working all together the day after i got it

 

theres no thin layer of oil in the fd that i work on

 

The oil pressure gauge may be fixed by cleaning the connection at the sensor on the block. Mine used to be terrible, but it rock steady now that I replaced the connection at the sensor.



The oil in the pipes and smoke at startup may be because you turbos are starting to die. A PCV line runs to the inlet of the primary turbo so it would be possible to get a bit of oil in there, but the long smoking after startup would indicate worse.



I would suggest reading through these two reference pages, you can learn a lot about your car;



http://www.rx7.org/Robinette/



http://www.fd3s.net/

 

ben, are you running or did the last owners run high boost on those stock turbos?



would be out of the ordinary for the stock twins to have problems at 40k miles