Alright here's the deal-

Long story short... I had to drive about 45 minutes to my bodyshop with my turbo charge pipe disconnected to where it connects to the intercooler.

Thus, I was not boosting at all, even though the turbo was fully spooling.

First question is, the sound of the turbo without it connected to the intercooler sounded like a really really high pitched turbo spool...is this normal?

Second question is, after driving for 45 minutes, I noticed that the rubber hose that was sitting under the charge pipe had some oil on it. Not a lot, but not too little to not consider either-meaning that the turbo compressor was leaking oil. I felt the inside of the charge pipe, and it was slightly wet. I know some oil leak is normal, but how much is too much??

Third question is, on the turbo itself, the where the two pieces of the turbo connect together and swivel, it seemed a little bit wet. I'm not positive it's leaking, so is it unheard of to have that area leak oil?

Fourth question is, is it ok to drive on slightly blown seals, and will the turbo still spool up normally?


Im losing about .5 quarts every 3K miles I think


Modified by homesauce at 6:07 AM 1/18/2005

 

turbos have a really loud high pitch whine.. i believe that is normal

the oil in the charge pipe could mean the compressor side is leaking oil, or u have blow-by, it depends on how ur setup is.

oil on the compressor side can also mean leaky turbo, or again blow by

driving with blown seals is not that bad, but its a good idea to get it rebuilt, continue driving on the long run will end up causing the seals to go bad.

try to find out why the seals are going bad, its usually a bad oil return line or feed line..

its a good idea to have a oil pressure gauge to make sure things are cool

 

If your letting a turbo spool up without a load it is revving WAY too high for those bearing and could be causing a lot of wear and tear on the turbo. Check to make sure their isn't any shaft play, sorry bro but you could have really fucked up that turbo Good luck

 

I experienced the exact same thing. My car was smoking like the devil for a few weeks, my compression was still good, so I could not figure it out until the day the hose came loose and a good coating of oil formed in my engine bay.

In my case, obviously the seal was bad. In yours, if your car hasn't been smoking the seal may be okay, but could get progressively worse. I'm not sure if running the turbo without a load (ie, when the hose came loose) could've damaged it or not, but a rebuild is the safest way to go.

 

You know, it seems counterintuitive that without any load from the intercooler side, the turbo could be spinning at too high RPM's. I mean, we don't want any backpressure from there anyway right, hence the use of the BOV. Either way, it's not like i floored it while driving without it connected, it was highly unlikely that I could damage it from that...but anything is possible.

 

dont ever disconnect the charge piping and drive hard. hell it's a bad idea to disconnect the charge piping and run normal. when you do that you overspin the turbo, which is bad. also if u have oil in the pipes you probably blew your oil seals. and yes it is bad to run on blown seals. it's just gonna get worse.

 

Yea, thanks for all the replies, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions that I had brought up initially. Regardless of driving without the charge pipe connected, I think that the seals were going, because I feel like .5-1 quart every 3K miles of oil in the charge pipe is probably too much.

My car was not smoking or anything, but I guess it's better to deal with the problem before I make my engine burn oil.

I think I will just buy a turbo rebuild kit, and try to rebuild it myself...
it's a turbonetics t3/t4. Anyone know of a good place/person to get a rebuild kit from, I was thinking about getting the entire inner piece that's already assembled, any experiences? I kind of don't want to spend the 250-300 on sending it to cheapturbo.com or majesticturbo, etc.


Modified by homesauce at 5:25 PM 1/18/2005

 

Bump! I would go for the rebuild myself but as for the turbo "over-spooling", the motor has to have backpressure on the cylinders in order to work correctly. However, too much is obviously hindering. Without any pressure from the charge pipes, the turbine can spool as much as possible, its only actuated by how much gas is spooling it from the wastegate, obviously. Anyways, seals may not be good and I would check'em. Also, look into new oil line kit