So I took the car to the track for the first time last night, and ran a 14.9. No problem. But on the way home, a Maxima wanted to race on the highway, so he and I were playing around, and we gunned it for about a mile at about 100mph (it was late, and no one was around at the time). Anyway, he exited the highway and we gave each other the thumbs up, but as I started back driving my car normally, I noticed a whistling sound along with the normal turbo sound when boosting. It did that all the way home, so I figured I'd created a boost leak, and would check it today.

Now this is a FP-BigT28 that I've had less than a month, so it is brand new. Well, this morning, I checked all my vacuum lines, and UICP couplers, and didn't see any leaks, and took it for a drive. I went on the highway, and the whistling was still there. Also, the car would only boost to about 10lbs, then drop. All of a sudden, the car stopped boosting all together, and I started to smell a lot of oil. The car boosts now, but the turbo only whistles, there is no boost sound AT ALL now. Also, I stopped in fron of my house, turned the car off, then back on again, and a lot of blue smoke came out the back.

So I panicked, and took off and checked all FMIC IC couplers, and tighted them up. I did notice that one of the couplers is ripped almost all the way through, but there is a thin layer of rubber still left. My friend is coming over with another coupler this evening to test it.

Do you think it is possible that I somehow blew this brand new turbo. I checked under the car, and saw a drop of oil leaking from one of the bolts, on the exhaust wheel side of it. I checked for play, and there isn't any. I also took off the intake, and looked to make sure the turbo is spinning freely, and it is. Any other suggestions? Or do you think I'm going to have to talk to the manufacturer this week about warranty work?

Edit: Boost was set to 18lbs at the time.

Where did you purchase the turbo from?

Forced Performance.com

It was in perfect condition when I got it, and its been running fine.

Check for intake leaks. Mine did that, it just turns out I blew the old corroded gasket on the compressor outlet.

Check the BOV and the gasket between the BOV an flange.... especially if you are running a greddy Type S or a 1G BOV. Last year on the red car we had a whistle that we couldnt track down and we were beginning to think it was the turbo. Then with a pressure tester we found the gasket had failed between the BOV and flange.

jeff

Damn. My friend and I looked at it this evening. Looks like the turbo is fried. Why? I have no idea. New OEM oil line, turbo perfectly installed, been running perfectly since the 5th of June, and its dead by the 2nd of July. I'm calling the company on Monday about warranty. We checked everything for boost leaks then took it for a drive, and the turbo whines/whistles and thats only when you floor it, followed by a HUGE BLUE CLOUD of smoke out the tailpipe and the choking smell of oil. I have no idea what happened to this turbo, but their gonna have to replace it cause its not even a month old, and it was installed correctly. We even cranked the engine when it was first installed to get oil into the turbo so it wouldn't have premature wear. Oh well. Thanks for the help though guys.

if it has no shaft play the turbo is probably still good... they don't HAVE TO warrenty anything, its up to thier disgression

It has a little bit of shaft play now. The turbo comes with a 1 year warranty, and considering everything was done right for installation, I don't see why they shouldn't warranty it. I know its up to their discretion, but it would make people nervous as hell to spend so much money to have a product break so easily when it was installed properly. I'll have to see what they say.

if it wasnt installed by a professional, how do they know it was " installed correctly" ?

good luck with that one

They may want to look at the turbo to determine warranty coverage. Here's the standard turbo warranty coverage info link (from RRE but still good info).

Good luck with the turbo... the guys at FP are usually pretty cool with customers

lowridin2g said:

if it wasnt installed by a professional, how do they know it was " installed correctly" ?

good luck with that one

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My friend who installed it is a mechanic. He has switched out turbos in his 1st gens Talon TSI's with no problems. He just did the work as a side job from his main job working on engines. My guess is that they might screw me on this one. I'm hoping they don't. Like I said the turbo was running perfectly all month til I ran it hard on the highway the other night, which wasn't the first time I'd done that. So I'm baffled as to what happened. Thanks again for the info though. I sent the company an email, and will see what they say on Tuesday.

so he and I were playing around, and we gunned it for about a mile at about 100mph

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And of course you will include this little tidbit of info when you speak to them, right? Sure would hate to hear "I don't know why the turbo died. I was just cruising down the street."

everyone knows why vendors sell turbos. If people bought turbo's just to cruise around the street, we wouldnt bother paying top dollar for higher performance ones. If the install was done correctly, the turbo should not have failed.

NOSLO2PT0 said:

And of course you will include this little tidbit of info when you speak to them, right? Sure would hate to hear "I don't know why the turbo died. I was just cruising down the street."

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I sent them an email yesterday, and I told them the truth of exactly what happened. I told them I ran a 14.9 at the track just fine, and then was driving home, and gunned it on the highway at 100mph for a mile and a half, and then the turbo started making a funny noise. Before that, the turbo had been working fine all month, and even at the track. I figured why BS them when they know they make these turbos to be driven hard. I told them the truth.

Lord Khan said:

I sent them an email yesterday, and I told them the truth of exactly what happened. I told them I ran a 14.9 at the track just fine, and then was driving home, and gunned it on the highway at 100mph for a mile and a half, and then the turbo started making a funny noise. Before that, the turbo had been working fine all month, and even at the track. I figured why BS them when they know they make these turbos to be driven hard. I told them the truth.

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it just sounds like you got a bad turbo. i bet they will replace it. keep us posted.

JiveMasterT said:

it just sounds like you got a bad turbo. i bet they will replace it. keep us posted.

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Will do. My mechanic isn't going to be able to take it out til this coming weekend, and then I will send it off next week. Until then, I'm driving mom's Mercury Sable. Oh joy!

Replace the turbo yourself. Or at least have your mechanic do it while you watch. Learn how to do it, so in the future you can do it yourself.

This way, you wont have to wait for your mechanic to get in town everytime something as easy as a turbo replacement happens.

I actually watched it the first time he did it. I just would rather have him do it since he installed it. I'm in no rush, I'm just hoping the company will repair or replace it.

When you take the turbo off, make sure the oil return passage isn't blocked. If it is, that's the reason it failed. And FP will know this.

If not, they should replace it!

Going 100mph on the highway is not going to run the turbo harder than any other time. When it's making 12-15psi of boost the shaft is spinning at a particular speed regardless of gear. EGT changes sometimes as your in a higher gear but if it was too high your motor would blow up faster than damage would be done to the turbo.

You simply can not damage a turbo from doing what you did. They are not fragile enough that a 100mph run on the high way is too much for the turbo to take. If that was the case nobody would buy or run a turbocharged car.

Unless there is something your not telling us I can't see where you did anything wrong.

DSMJim said:

Going 100mph on the highway is not going to run the turbo harder than any other time. When it's making 12-15psi of boost the shaft is spinning at a particular speed regardless of gear. EGT changes sometimes as your in a higher gear but if it was too high your motor would blow up faster than damage would be done to the turbo.

You simply can not damage a turbo from doing what you did. They are not fragile enough that a 100mph run on the high way is too much for the turbo to take. If that was the case nobody would buy or run a turbocharged car.

Unless there is something your not telling us I can't see where you did anything wrong.

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word, i drive my car on the highway every day. i got the stock t25 and i drive at 100+ mph, and often flooring it and my turbo is fine. i do let it cool down quite a bit after driving though. if you told them that is what you were doing and they say thats the reason it failed, then say its bs, take you stock turbo and go get some video tape of you doing just that. an aftermarket turbo should be able to handle a lot more abuse than the stocker, for sure.

With all this talk about dying turbos, I was wondering if the noises that I hear are normal or signs of turbo wear. Sometimes when driving or even just revving the engine, I will hear a loud WHIR noise that I've always thought was the turbocharger spooling, but it doesn't make this noise very often. Thinking about it, it usually makes it right after I've started the car and began to drive it, so I assume it's just the spool up noise for the 14b. Am I wrong?

psychlow said:

When you take the turbo off, make sure the oil return passage isn't blocked. If it is, that's the reason it failed. And FP will know this.

If not, they should replace it!

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I've actually been wondering if this is what is wrong considering the car smokes like hell when you let it idle now. And the turbo does spin at idle, but when you drive it, it sounds like its struggling to spool up. Only thing though is that if this is the case, why would the line have become blocked? It was definately clean when he installed the new turbo. I did order this turbo ported. Is it possible it had debris in it or something? We added new oil after the install. And my engine at 109,000 miles is still running strong as hell so I know it didn't sling out any kind of debris in the exhaust (at least I don't think it did).

Me and a couple friends installed a fp t-28 on a 95gsx, i've done many turbo installs without a problem but about a 1.5months later the turbo started to whistle and developed some shaftplay, the whole time my friend was only running 13psi because he was on stock injectors. my .02 cents

-Damian