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I WIN! Rarest Turbo failure EVER!!

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YUPOK

Proven Member
397
29
Aug 13, 2013
Riverdale, New_Jersey
I only drove the car 50 miles. I finally got it running right on Saturday night and it's been running good since, until my ride home from work today. I was on the highway in mild traffic, wasn't romping on it or anything only doing about 50 coasting and all of a sudden I heard a flopping from the front of the engine, lost power, two engine codes popped and started smoking big time. I pulled the turbo and the dad gum turbo shaft split in half! The compressor wheels are actually fine, no bent fins or anything, the shaft split and the wheels just flopped down inside the housings. Then all the oil and coolant started dumping into the hot side causing the smoke. It's a stock T25 and I had it all apart and installed a rebuild kit prior to fire up. The shaft looked fine when I had it apart, no shaft play no obvious issues.

Any ideas what happened? Crack in the shaft finally gave up? I got the turbo used from a DSM junkyard so I took it all apart to put new bearings and seals etc. Of all the things I thought would fail this surprised me.
 
Broken shafts aren't that rare at all. It is actually somewhat common with t25 turbo's. It is possible that you over torqued it when putting it back together, or that is was so out of balance that the shaft broke from harmonics.
 
T25s are not 14bs. They just werent made that well from what ive read. Sorry to hear about it but its not a rare failure at all. At least it wasnt a 2k dollar turbo right?
 
I guess I feel a little better then. I never heard of a turbo splitting the shaft but then again I'm not real familiar with the T25's. the out of balance suggestion is very possible. I just can't believe I only got 50 miles before this thing failed.
 
I just can't believe I only got 50 miles before this thing failed.

I got the turbo used from a DSM junkyard so I took it all apart to put new bearings and seals etc. .


There's no telling what that turbo went through before you got ahold of it.

Unless you got it completely rebuilt by a professional, or know how to rebuild it yourself than you take the risk of it failing. :sosad:

At least is was a Junkyard turbo.
 
I guess I feel a little better then. I never heard of a turbo splitting the shaft but then again I'm not real familiar with the T25's. the out of balance suggestion is very possible. I just can't believe I only got 50 miles before this thing failed.

Definitely out of balance and self destructed. Only way you can pull it apart and put it back together without having it balanced is to mark the compressor wheel, shaft, and nut and reassemble with all the marks lining up again.
 
Yes I actually was extremely meticulous in marking the wheel and shaft so it went back together the way I pulled it. Anything could have happened though. Maybe it was taken apart before I got it. I didn't spend much on the turbo, just still can't believe it. I'm going to have to pull the car off the road again until I can get a turbo. I'm looking into either a 14b or 16g.
 
Just buy a new shaft and have the rotating assembly balanced, that's if the Chra is in good shape and worth it. I've snapped 2 shafts in my 16+ years of boosted cars LOL! One was at real low boost and was strange, it snapped right at the comp wheel nut. The other was trying to push to much boost thru my s16g LOL didn't like that at all haha. But I rebuilt it each time just got a new shaft and balanced the rotating assembly and its still boosting great with no issues to this day!
 
Just buy a new shaft and have the rotating assembly balanced, that's if the Chra is in good shape and worth it. I've snapped 2 shafts in my 16+ years of boosted cars LOL! One was at real low boost and was strange, it snapped right at the comp wheel nut. The other was trying to push to much boost thru my s16g LOL didn't like that at all haha. But I rebuilt it each time just got a new shaft and balanced the rotating assembly and its still boosting great with no issues to this day!

T25, not worth it... Lol
 
No... A flywheel exploding at 8000rpm taking out your turbo is a rare turbo failure when it splits the whole thing in half and cracking the center cartridge :) Don't like to claim this as a win though :/
 
Mitsu turbo are componant balanced...they don't need to be rebalanced when diassembled. Now if you overtorqued the nut (I torque mine to 70 IN-lbs), that will cause a failure.
 
To answer a couple questions,

yes it was a T25 and I have to agree I don't think it's worth rebuilding. I'll just invest in a 16G. I just can't believe I only got 50 miles out of this thing and it failed without any kind of good story behind it. I guess I win because it was the best turbo fail that could have happened. The shaft snapped clean in the center, nothing went flying into the intake tubes or engine. After the shaft snapped the compressor wheel just kinda laid there, the exhaust wheel made a flapping sound but was contained to exhaust side.

As far as when I rebuilt the turbo, I did not know at the time the T25's were prone to this issue. I just wanted the car to run right, I would spend more time and money on making it fast later. The T25 had blown seals when I got it so I just picked up a ebay kit. I spent a LOT of time taking it apart carefully, hot tank soaked the parts when it was apart, marked the alignment of the hot side to cold side and marked the shaft and compressor wheel before removal. The turbo was definately clean when I put it back together but who knows what might have been wrong with the shaft or if the thing was balanced right when I got it. If anything I undertorqued the compressor wheel nut because it's not easy to get a good grip on those triangle shaped nuts. I used a metrology vise with a V groove in it to hold the nut when I torqued it.

Oh well it will make good wall art, back to the drawing board as they say.
 
No I definitely think I still win. If I sent the impeller wheel into the throttle body then I would lose, but this is a win because it's a simple fix (new 16G on the way)and the car will be back on the road.

Yeah serves me right for trying to save some cash.
 
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