BEP housing erosion

[seattleshawn]

This is the older style housing and I cleaned up the areas that were paper thin. Is this still usable or is it a paperweight

 

[turboglenn]

Although the cracking inside worries me the rest llooks ok for use in my opinion

Due to the opening of the volute (the size) and frommy experience with off the shelf housings and machining my own for different CHRA (garrret turbine housing now holding my holset CHRA) i would say that one looks like a unit that was machined for a holset and not cast (usually the volute opening would be much smaller/narrower) and fit to the width of the turbines major diameter blade ends.

those marks (although hard to make out via picture) look to be machining marks from modifying the housing, but some ways it dfoesn't. DId an engine or turbine wheel explode in there or something?

here's some pics of my housing as I machined it for the holset center..I couldn't find the posti put them in before so i had to reuplaod, sorry about the delay

you can see how wide the volute area is, it was about half this ebfore machining and i havent seen them this wide on any stock cast turbine housing to date.. also you can see where the opening ends in my pics and after i cleaned up the "thin areas" it looks rounded and smoothed just like yours does.. If you measure i bet you'll see that the turbine's side backing plate (the metal part that's loose when you takke the CHRA out of the turbine housing) will actually extend into the volute opening blocking off what's not going tobe used by the turbine blades, this was something that wasn't like this factory and only after machining on both the stockgarrett and holset housings, the volute oipening was only wide enough to accomodate the width of the turbine blades outermost area

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the more I look at yours the more i feel it's a machined piece and not a purpose cast piece for the application which there's nothing wrong with but explains some of the errosion marks you're seeing... It makesme wonder what mine will look like when i pull it apart again

 

[seattleshawn]

Actually there is no cracking. I know that it appears that way in the pictures but there is not a crack in the housing. I picked this up used a while back and I do believe there was some sort of major turbine failure at some point. I think what you are seeing that appears to be machining marks are actually from a turbine wheel rubbing the housing. I just want to get a year out of this housing. Next year i plan on switching to the T3 housing but Im just tired of spending money right now.

 

[turboglenn]

gotcha, i understand the "looks like cracks" cause i've dealt with that before in pics of cast pieces..

anyway, i think you'll be just fine with that housing for a year or more, and there's nothing wrong with it being machined for the CHRA it uses, it's common for housings to be cast one way and machined forvarious turbine wheels fromtheir OEM. it's just when mixing brands of turbine housings and CHRA's you get a littleexcessve with machining, but i still say that unit wasn't cast as meant for the holset and was machined for it (which as i said makes no real difference) but i can go snap pics of both garret and holset turbine housings (un-molested) right now and show the difference if you'd like to see what i mean

overall i say use the housing and don't worry about it, just make sure there's a good clearance between the housing and exducer fins (there's got to be at least .018" and a comfortable .020 is common on a gas turbine (diesel specs i've recently found to bew tighter likely due to less heat and less thermal expansion of the turbine it's self needing less clearance from the get go)

just check with feeler gauges when it's assembled and while assembling make sure the "curve" ofthe turbine from exducer to inducer(major to minor diameters) has a good .020 orslightly more at the transition area in the turbine housing..this can be mneasured by sticking a feeler gauge into the opening where the manifold hooksto the turbine housing, and it seems to be where machined housings make contact from improper clearancing from everything i've seen lately of these having failures

 

[seattleshawn]

Yeah I suppose this may have originally been for the HX35 but who knows. The guy I picked it up from said he ran his HX40 in it for a year without issue. I have had my turbo in this housing and it fits fine without rubbing but ill take some measurements just to be sure. What got me wondering about this housing being junk or not was this thread. http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/turbo-system-tech/414125-hx35-compressor-housing-stuck-ideas.html
The one guy says the housing was junk but I didn't understand why. I'm not sure why he couldn't have just done what i did and remove the damaged area of the housing.

 

[turboglenn]

hecould have just used a die grinder and a carbide porting bit to remove that thin material. that was able to deform.. I ported mine until i felt i got the metal to a thick enough material at the edge that shouldn't deform under heat.

After the machining I did on my housing the edgthere was completely a sharp thin section for about a half inch that i wouldn't have trusted running on my car anyway.

I say give it a good common sense inspection and clean up anything suspicious and run it, their not that weak or vital for keeping you fromdoinga littlegrinding if needed

 

[seattleshawn]

Cool thanks for the help man!