Turbo!

[Oldiebut goodie]

What is the engine number? Easiest way to tell.

[brendanmusicman]

That's a good idea, where would I find the engine number? Thanks.

[Oldiebut goodie]

On the block beneath no. 3 injector area.

[brendanmusicman]

Thanks for that, I will have a look.

[HarryMann]

You may need to clean the block thoroughly to read it. Some replacement engines don't have the number.

I suspect you are slightly overfilling it but as said above you must watch for frothing and pressure drops so an oil pressure gauge is almost essential on these setups.
You cannot feed the oil return into the block on a T25 52° angled installation.
The levels between the turbo brgs and the sump oil level are critical. IMHO it's really a poor arrangement by VW once they went TD & everthing isn't new anymore.
Oil pressure can drop on lefthanders if level a bit low whilst bluemisting if its a bit high.
All turbo design books will tell you the CHRA needs to be significantly above the sump oil level... it isn't.

There are a few other factors too... I'

[HarryMann]

The sump can be fitted with a simple gasket or with the combined windage tray / gasket (using slightly longer screws)

The oil pickup can have the plastic anti-surge box fitted or not.

The former helps reduce frothing and the latter reduces surging.

I have fitted the windage tray but the surge baffles aren't that easy. Windage tray may need clearance cutting a bit some say but can't remember doing that.
Another thing I've considered is lowering the pickup the maximum to as good as touch the bottom but moving more centrally. I would say a 1/4" might be worth having and 1/2" definitely ! So you see about oil levels

I've also thought that the original VW surge baffles may also to some extent shield the pickup from the hot turbo return oil giving it a few more seconds to mix with the sump oil.

I went for 3/4" large bore oil cooler pipes and an 18 row cooler up front.
This gives me approx 7 litres oil capacity... barely a minutes worth of buffering rising oil temps when hill climbing.

If you havent an oil cooler I'd suggest the Brickwerks kit... 1/2" pipes and a 24 row Mocal cooler.

As I say IMHO everything has to be about right partic. the oil levels.
The cooler is essential once you drive on the open road more than 50 mph or in hot weather or up any incline on any motorway.
Lots have ignored this advice and some have even given up with T25s as a result....

[brendanmusicman]

WoW! That is some great advice, thank you all for taking the time to help me, unfortunately some of this has gone right over my head, how would I know if I had frothing? I am a bit thick and I don't know what IMHO, CHRA and turbo brgs mean! I think you may be correct about overfilling the engine with oil, my mechanic done the oil change, and because I do not have the correct dipstick and possible a communications problem (he is Polish) we may have missunderstood each other. Since starting this thread I have taken the turbo off and sent it back to the poeple who rebuilt it, just to get it checked, they have told me it is perfect, we have also drained some of the oil from the sump leaving the level at the bottom mark on the stick, which I read somewhere is the correct level using the JX sump and the stick from the AAZ which is what I am doing as my first mechanic broke the original stick and tube.Over the weekend I have driven about 300KM and the smoking seems to improved, so I am hoping for the best there.
I assume that fitting a gasket or windage tray would mean taking the engine out and removing the sump, you say a cooler is essential for driving on the open road more than 50 mph, why is this and what would happen without a cooler? Sorry to be a pain, once again , thanks for all your help,
Brendan.

[Oldiebut goodie]

I would drain all the oil and then measure out 4 litres and refill if the oil filter is already full, 4.3 litres if a new, empty filter. That way you know exactly the amount that is in there instead of guesstimates using a level on the dipstick which may or may not be correct. (Some say that the total should be 4.5 litres but several people use the 4.3 amount, myself included, with no ill effects)

[HarryMann]

That's good advice.. calibrate it yourself. The Wikipedia goes into lots of this stuff incl shortening the stick housing.. why are peeps not reading it. A lot of work has gone into writing these topics.. It then shortens any conversation and we get to the crux of the matter a lot quicker.

[brendanmusicman]

Thanks to everyone here for all the great advice.I think most of my smoking problems have been caused by overfilling with engine oil! I do not have a garage to work in so I have to depend on mechanics to do my work, I would be quite capable of doing these jobs myself.My AAZ conversation uses the old oil dipstick which came with the engine as the mechanic broke the original one, despite my telling him to fill the engine with 4.3 litres of oil including the filter, and because with the old dip stick this only came up to the low mark on the stick I think he filled it up to the top mark, thereby overfilling1 I took some oil out of the engine myself and let it down to the lower mark since then I have no smoke at all, the oil light only comes on when starting and everything seem to be alright, here's hoping I am right?
thanks,
Brendan Ruddy.

[HarryMann]

Good..
there are fewrr and fewer real mechanics out there. Everyone should always ask
what vehicles they have exp. with.

we need to build a network of known good mechanics.. Wiki has tried