Holset Turbine Failures

[carbide]

This past spring I bought a BRAND NEW Holse HX40 with a BEP bolt-on Mitsu housing. About 1000 miles later, after being dyno tuned, etc, a fin off the turbine broke off. I took it to a local diesel shop, and the very knowledgeble guys there said there was no sort of oiling problem, the bushing was perfect, the shaft was perfect, looked just like the fin just broke off. I had read that this was a "common problem" on a certain batch. I swallowed, and bought another assembled genuine Holset HX40 center section, and went to town. Now months later and thousands of more miles later, the same thing just happened. Had been driving down the highway kinda hard, cruising next to my g/f, and decided for no reason to do a third gear pull. I downshifted, WOT, spooled, accelerated. Almost instantly no power, and tons of smoke. Car doesn't make boost anymore. Pics to come. Anyone else experience turbine wheel failure?

Diesel guys theory was that on my application, the turbo is spinning at possibly a lot higher RPM than it was designed for... Cold exhaust, low RPM, but high volume Diesel exhaust...

 

[JusMX141]

It happens; seems to be most common with HX40's:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/turbo-system-tech/285937-hx40.html

The odds that you could get two that would be bad from new are very, very slim.


At least it lasted longer than a brand new PTE 6152S that one of my customers ran. The Stage 5 Garrett wheel broke off after 3 miles. The indexing paint was still visible on the wheel from when it was balanced from the factory.