Killed the 20G!!!!!!!

[Mirage]

If anyone was following my post on the unhealthy 20G I had installed, well, this is the first of a few posts about it. I knew that this turbo wasn't going to last long because it had so much thrust play in the shaft (over .030"). Well, I finally killed it tonight (Sorry Quinn!!!). I'm boosting 12 lbs just to try to keep it alive long enough until I can get the Hahn Super 20g ordered and installed. I get onto I-225 south from Mississippi to take a friend home and the turbo wouldn't spool or make anything over 6 psi(wastegate is 10 psi). GREAT! Just what I need, another boost leak. I get to my friend's house and let the car just idle there (and it idled perfectly). I hear a metal scraping in the turbo area. PERFECT. Of course she doesn't have tools (nor do I stupidly). I limp it home and pull the intake off. At this point I started to burn oil at idle. The nut on the shaft spun off. I'm guessing that with all of the shaft play that it finally just caught the compressor housing and stopped the wheel spinning the nut off. Oh well. I guess my turbo swap plans just got kicked into high gear. More to come as I let it cool and actually start to tear into it. I'll try to get a few pics posted also.

Marcus Martinez

[ph3r3d]

is it safe to run your car with a bad turbo like that?

[Mirage]

Not for long. After a while I started to leave a cloud of smoke while driving and it wouldn't build any boost. As long as it isn't dumping oil or coolant onto the ground or into the pipes, it would be o.k. to limp home (IMO of course). I couldn't even pull the wastegate pin to try to keep it from spinning too much. Every time I pulled up to a light I could hear the wheel hitting the housing. Damn. I have yet to tear into it as I have other projects that have a higher priority at the moment. Oh well. I guess I had it coming.

Marcus Martinez

[XakEp]

dammit dammit DAMMIT

[Mirage]

Well, finally got a chance to tear it apart. some thinngs were not nearly as bad as what I though they'd be. Start from the compressor side. The retaining nut spun itself off. The comp wheel is chewed around the inducer major diameter. The comp housing is scored and rubbed where the comp. wheel made contact (pics soon to come). The comp. wheel didn't make any contact with the backing plate which makes me believe that this turbo was never built right in the first place. Oil seals were blown judging by the oil smoke cloud that I was leaving. Turbine wheel has some rub marks from the turbine housing, but no real apparent damage. Turbine housing has a couple of galling marks from the turbine wheel. It may actually be rebuildable :rolleyes: . I'm going to T.E.C. tomorrow to exchange a reducer coupling and to get opinions on this turbo. We'll see. This trip will probably be more for grins than anything, but it won't be wasted.

Marcus Martinez

[XakEp]

lemme know what they tell you d00d