So after I took my 6 runs in the morning, yesterday, I left my car idling, accidentally. I went to shag cones and Amanda stayed on grid. She didn't notice that I had left the car running until, a couple hours later when she saw "a bunch of smoke coming out of the exhaust" and shut it down.
When I started it up and checked I did see a bit of whitish smoke coming out of the exhaust but no hint of sweet coolant smell. It just smelled like fuel...and not even all that much. BTW, don't huff exhaust at home, kids.
So I think everything's probably fine until I come off my first RNP run in the afternoon and when I park it, it's the return of the lovely reoccurring oil smoke-out-the-hood-scoop trick, although I doubt it's related to the old issue, a leaking inlet pipe (now replaced with a Perrin). When I take a look, I see hot smoke coming off the bottom of the turbo. After a couple minutes the smoke subsided and I could see fresh oil on the CV boot below the turbo, but I don't think I lost enough to make a pool on the ground or anything. Later I smelled the oil from the CV boot and it didn't smell strongly so I doubt it's oil from the gearbox filltube, but the gearbox dipstick wasn't pushed all the way in so who knows.
People commented that during my afternoon run, my car was blowing smoke out the exhaust, but I neglected to ask what color, unfortunately.
Anybody remember?
So thanks to Kevin and Nina for following me back to Reno from RFR. When I got home, there was no oil smoke. It doesn't seem like I lost very much oil yesterday, maybe third of a quart? From under the car there was a little evidence of oil leaking, but not a lot. The oil on the CV boot had lessened and was no longer wet and shiny. I checked the oil line fitting (banjo bolt?) on the top of the turbo and it was tight. I was looking at my spare stock turbo and there is a two bolt flange fitting on the bottom for oil return (I'm assuming) that could be the culprit. Maybe idling so long vibrated the bolts loose or something. But I can't get to those bolts without removing the turbo, or so it seems.
But what would cause both white exhaust and an oil leak from the turbo or are they unrelated issues or perhaps loosely connected...like oil leaking internally and externally from the turbo and when the internal oil gets burned, it causes knock, causing the white smoke somehow? I don't know.