Bad Turbo, Bad Oil Pump or Dumb Owner :)

[asephoner]

Okay first time posting in threads mainly because I have never needed to, I use the search for all my problems couldn’t find a decent answer for what im dealing with so here we go.

I just got a 95 gsx (sweet IMO) but never had one before first DSM was a turbo'd gs. Its completely stock aside from rims and 3" muffler it has 96,000 on it and most everything in engine has been rebuilt about a 1000 miles ago this includes (head, cams, timing, water pump, alternator, power steering, and transmission) everything else is said to be in good condition. I just did an oil change about 600 miles ago everything’s sounds good turbo is loud (a good loud) and car is "stock fast" which isn't saying much but I’m happy.
Last week it started making a sort of winding noise on acceleration the higher in rpms the louder the sound then Friday of last week in the middle of the street sound gets louder and I get a little clicking sound then bogs its way off. When it shut of I saw all little grayish black smoke poof out the left side of the engine area (my left from driver seat).

I could get it to start again but it immediately shuts off I mean like 2seconds later. RRE told me I blow my turbo Mitsu told me Turbo maybe, Oil pump maybe bring it in (yeah right) any way hope I didn't bore you too much with this long thread but I know every little bit counts.
Any advice on where to start would be appreciated.

Thanks a million

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

Very easy way to see if you blew the turbo is to take off the intake and wiggle the shaft and see if it moves in/out side/side up/down. If it has what you would consider a lot of play, 1/4'' or more, then your turbo has blown. I would not under any circumstances restart the car though because it could be something worse. Check that first and get back to us. A perfect turbo will not allow you to move the shaft at all. Hard driving and not allowing adiquite time for the turbo to spool down will cause this very fast. If this be the problem or even if it isn't everytime you drive your car hard, allow 2 minutes after you stop before you shut the car off for the turbo to spool down. 1 minute if it was regular intown driving. Or you could just go the easy route and get a turbo timer.

 

[sk8shorty01]

i would say the easiest thing would be just bring the turbo down to someone that rebuilds them in your area... they could tell you if its still good or not, also if bad they could possibly fix it, and not only that but its not that expensive... i had a turbo that i got and put on an NA talon, then about 2 months later the place that was doing the work for me (motorsports unlimited, scam dont go there) told me the turbo was bad and they charged me 1200$ to put it on and take it off.. then come to find out the turbo was perfect, i had my local turbo rebuilder check it and he said its in mint condition... so i would say thats your best start money wise, unless you just start replacing everything until you find the problem, but thats not really cost effective...

 

[asephoner]

Well I don't have a turbo timer but I do have an alarm with auto start and auto off so I just hit the button and the car cools down for a couple of minutes then I turn it off from where ever I am at the time. So from the sound of it it is more than likely the turbo than any thing else?

I will check first of course before I make any assumptions, Would a bad turbo shut the car off?

 

[asephoner]

Okay so the turbo is good little to no shaft play now what. I Noticed that the oil light comes on before the car shuts off. Thats all I have to go off of now. so what do you guys think I should do. I know changing the oil pump isn't the easy thing to do so if I can avoid that then cool.

Thanks for any advice

 

[Marc91GSX]

First off you can't be a dumb owner because you bought a DSM . You can however do dumb things like not pay attention to little signs that you car tries to give you when it is sick, but that is a different matter. Oh and the left and right sides of a car dtermined from the driver's seat, sort of a universal thing to cut down on confusion.

As for your problem we need some more information to help you. First off have you checked your oil level? Did the engine have oil pressure? The gauge is not accurate but unless it is bad it will show whether or not you have oil pressure it just will not tell you exactly how much you have. If you had oil pressure then the problem is more than likely not your oil pump. Where exactly did the noise come from and was it a tick or a knock? Without this info it will be very hard to determine what your problem is. I have allot of respect for RRE but I do not see where your symptoms were a bad turbo. I have personally seen people drive on turbos that were completely locked up until they had the chance to get it fixed so I would not have even thought that your problem was the turbo based on the information you gave us.

Edit: I just re-read your post yeah that would sort of sound like a turbo but like I said before it would still run just not well.

 

[asephoner]

Well I did have oil pressure before the car shut off wasn't much at idle however, The sound I heard was not a tick or knock I would notice that easily it was more like the sound of an exhuast leak upon acceleration it would vibrate the car a little bit then when I slowed down the sound sort of went away. It came from the (or at least sounded as if) belt's side of the car. I'm starting to think its the alternator beacause the "walmart" battery wounldn't hold a charge at all.

 

[Marc91GSX]

Well I did have oil pressure before the car shut off wasn't much at idle however, The sound I heard was not a tick or knock I would notice that easily it was more like the sound of an exhuast leak upon acceleration it would vibrate the car a little bit then when I slowed down the sound sort of went away. It came from the (or at least sounded as if) belt's side of the car. I'm starting to think its the alternator beacause the "walmart" battery wounldn't hold a charge at all.

That is a possibillity, I have seen locked up altenators cause similar problems. It is easy to test though, all you have to do is pull the belt and try to spin the alt pulley.

Before anybody says there is not a way for the Alt to cause a car to bogg le tme tell you this. I have seen a peterbuilt's generator(alt for big trucks) lock and cause the entire engine to shut down. The starter would not even spin the engine over until we removed the belt. If they can do that to a diesel engine then I have no doubts that they can cause similar probs for small displacement engines.

Like I said earlier the oe oil press gauge is not very accurate. As long as it fluctuates with engine rpm and you have oil in the pan then your pump is probably ok.

 

[asephoner]

Cool I will check it a little later on today I sure hope thats what it is. There is no reason it should be much else but now and days things don't need reasons to mess up on you.

Thanks for your help if its not the (alt) then I will come back and continue crying like a baby.

 

[asephoner]

Okay guys, so I checked it out and for the heck of it replaced my alternator and replaced the battery with a red top. Solved the prob.....................no WTF
So I start the car (I guess the old battery was completely fried I couldn't even get it to turn over) the red top does the stuff car's running and I still hear that sound but worse.
It idles fine for a while then I start to give it a little gas to warm it up and it begins to idle very low to the point of bogging. Oil pressure is cool, temp is good ,A/C Batt is good ,Gas is good ,as for boost I don't know.
Since I have know idea what the prob is I figure it maybe one of those I need a 6 bolt things.
But since I like having a 7 I need to figure out how to make it stable and move on with my life.
So is there anyone in my area who can come down and figure this out.

Thanks

 

[robs90tsi]

Just a hunch, take a look at your timing belt, see if you can see anything visibly wrong with that.

 

[asephoner]

Belt appears to be good I looked at that a "little" while I put the alternator back on. Nothing weird about it.