Some of you know my car, for those of you that don't...

2011 Ralliart
E85
RAD Lite
Full Bolt-Ons
Stock Motor.

Well, I'd been having some white smoke on warm starts for a bit now, but hadn't had any coolant loss. I had a bit of oil loss, but I attributed it to my leaking oil pan gasket... I just checked it before driving it every time for the past few weeks...

Anyway. Tonight on the way home from work I went to pass a slow car, and he started to speed up so I gunned it. I hit about 4th gear and the car lost power. Look out the back window and its just completely white across all 6 lanes of the road I'm on.

I haven't gotten a chance to take anything apart, but did pull the plugs and the plug in cyl #4 had gritty feeling oil on it...

 

Sorry to hear about your car man. Are you going to be doing a leak down test before you take apart the motor?

 

damn that sucks bro!! Hope you can figure out whats wrong with it!!

 

Damn sorry to hear. Who tuned it?

 

Sounds like you need new pistons/rings.

Or as Dominic Toretto would say "you and the mad scientist have to tear the whole thing apart and you blew the welds on the intake manifold"

 

I don't really see a point in wasting the money. I gotta rip apart the motor anyway to fix it, I'll see whats up with it when I do...

Bryan (razorlab). 99.999% sure it wasn't the tune. I think it was a combination of low oil from an oil pan leak and overboosting a while back on a pretty cold night. Figure that allowed it to lightly crack a ring, and then me getting on it passing that car finished the job. Just my guess, we will see. My AFR guage hadn't been reading funny or anything, wish I'd been logging when it happened.

I have lots of research to do. Gotta figure out what is considered the "best" type of motor build for a SST. Sleeved or no? 2.0 or 2.1/2.2?

And then there's the turbo stuff.

And maybe I need some new SST parts.

Yep, this is gonna get expensive.

 

"Now me and the mad scientist have to rip apart the block, and replace the piston rings you fried."

I am a F&F quote-master.

Yeah Brian is a very good tuner. I would sleeve the block personally. If you're going to build it, might as well make it bulletproof. And as for displacement, it all depends on your goals. When the time comes, I'm doing a 2.1 or 2.3 sleeved.

 

I'm thinking sleeves as well. I like the idea of more displacement. But I also know the SST doesn't like a lot of tq down low, nor does it like revving out, So I'm not sure if it makes sense to do that...

 

SSP clutch packs.

 

+1, contact me for all SSP related items and I'll help you out

 

I also have the identical issue with my car and will be rebuilding the entire head/valvetrain/HG and bonus, stage II cam.

Once it's opened, I'll see if its the Rad Lite busted (you're the third person mentioning white smoke with a Rad Lite including myself in the last 3 weeks...), or the head or the pistons/rings.

This will hopefully help everyone out as we all have the same 'white' smoke problem. And no one has loss of power either and all have oil drips/white smoke.

Very strange

 

Just a shot in the dark (rationalized, but dark none the less), but I'd guess the boost nature of the Rad might have lifted the head over time. Similar reports from e-85 stock turbos on the track.
Hell I can smell coolant when my car runs hot, no smoke though (knock on wood); I "think" mine is due to a leaking TB. Also, the head gasket/bolts aren't really meant for the boost hit (26+psi as a random number).

+1
Jason got me a great deal on SSP 500 clutches and DCT seals AND the labor to get it rebuilt. I was on the verge of parting out the car and moving up in the world, it was all dependent on the cost of getting the SST working again. Plus I LOVE my Sportback
I'll do a full review once everything is all done (300 miles into the break-in so far, each day is better than the last)

 

Hopefullu, everything goes well!

 

is the RAD LITE turbo water cooled (f'give me igna'ance here)?

If so - it would make sese that a coolant seal is bypassing in the turbo.

You really want to t/s this further before just tearing it out... Figure out exactly what did fail.

And SST too? Unless you planned to do all this work anyway on the way to 400hp... then, press on!

 

Yeah, the RAD Lite cools with coolant, it is just a stock housing ralliart turbo.

I plan to figure out the cause as best I can, but no matter what I have to pull the motor outta the car to fix the symptom, or at least what I'm assuming is the symptom, a broken piston. Ripping everything off will be much easier with the motor on a stand rather than in the car.