turbo bolt/stud options... torn up turbine housing

[mike96]

OK so now i find myself at a dilemma that needs a solution... luckily my car isn't a DD right now so i really am not to worried about it and it doesn't need to be done right away but... currently i have a 96 talon that i put my built 7bolt from my eclipse into, i am nearing the resurrection but now have stumbled upon a problem. while removing the E316G from the engine for the third time in an hour everything went bad. i had put the turbo on the engine about two weeks ago so that i could try to start fabing an exhaust but then this last weekend before getting started i had pulled the turbo to try fixing a couple of things (i didn't like the way the coolant lines ran). so i pulled it snagged the lines tried putting it back on (didn't fit with the lines i had on), pulled it again fixed the lines then put it back on again. so i got 3 of the 4 bolts in and while getting the last bolt in it froze about half way in. stopped turning compleatly..... this was with light hand pressure using a wrench mind you, no gorilla torque, i was anticipating having to pull the turbo again any way just not for this. so i Pb blasted the bolt best i could (driver side closest to the head) and started working on pulling the other 3 bolts while it sat........ driver side front bolt locked up after 2 turns. any way that was yesterday and after a few shots of Pb blast and sitting overnight one bolt striped loose and the other broke off. so long story short (sorry to late) i am going to take the turbine housing to a machine shop to have the remainder of the bolt removed because i honestly don't feel like dealing with it.

now my question is this..... 3 of the 4 bolt holes on the turbine housing are really messed up 2 of them look like this and the 3rd still has a bolt stuck in it. i don't really want to put another set of factory bolts in it for fear of having this happen again but i don't think a thread repair kit will do the job. with the exception of making it easier to replace gaskets with all bolts i was considering using all studs, this way if they locked them selfs into the turbine housing who cares, until i break a stud. or i was thinking of may be drilling the holes out and replacing the factory bolts with something a little bigger, 12mm or SAE perhaps. short of buying a new turbine housing, are there really any other options? i know moving up in bolt size will more than likely mean i will need to enlarge the manifold bolt holes as well......

if i go up in size something along the lines of these....

$12 VW Diesel Cylinder Head Bolts Set of 10 - Size m11 x 95mm VW Diesel TDI

they should keep the turbo in check and they more than likely are hardened......

 

[fulanititoo8198]

I've used studs on my housing and it worked just fine. In fact I liked it a bit more because I could tighten it down more than with the bolts. I used a stud off of a BMW for temporary use, but I ended up leaving it on there it worked great. Just make sure you can access it depending on your manifold.