Stem seal discussions should come with a warning! People banter the term around and it always seems to pop up when talking about a touch of blue smoke from your exhaust. Is it turbos? Is it stem seals? Panic! Well… I’ve had both now.

18months ago after a night of hard driving on and off boost on country roads the next day my turbos sounded like **** and I pondered the worst. Took the car for a gentle drive and it was down on power for sure. Left to idle and sure enough it was James Bond time and the blue smoke of death appeared out of the exhaust.

FFWD to last summer and during my weekender again blue smoke appears – now with hybrid turbos installed this really shouldn’t be happening however this time the smoke appeared differently. As the car was in gear and coming down the rev range, off throttle, the car gave a nice PUFF. Sometimes small. Sometimes less so. On discussion with most they said stem seals and therefore I began plans to do it.

What frustrated me was the replies from some “ah it’s ok, wait for it to get worse, nothing to worry about” etc… were common. No. Do get worried. Don’t drive the car and do get it sorted! Take a watch of the video and look at the damage to my stem seals, bearing in mind once broken these are bouncing up and down under the valve spring on the valve stem! Never a good thing.
I hope this helps others find the confidence to do it, take your time, read up.

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