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Dead FP-BigT28 Diagnosed (follow-up)

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Lord Khan

20+ Year Contributor
174
0
Aug 23, 2002
Baltimore, Maryland
Follow-up of repaired installation is further down in this thread


It seems that I ruined the turbo from extreme exhaust gas temps cooking the oil and seizing up. Here is the original thread

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131509

Here's the diagnosis:

"The failure mode was a coaked turbine side journal bearing. The bearing became coaked in place and could no longer float in the bearing housing. With the bearing not spinning, all the rotation was between the shaft and the ID of the bearing instead of 50% bearing OD/Bearing housing and 50% bearing ID/shaft. Whenever a bearing coaks in place failure inevitably follows, as all the rotational velocity is intended to be shared by both surfaces, not just one of them. With time the ID of the coaked bearing eventually no longer receives any oil at all, without oil supply to the bearing ID/shaft OD surface material begins to wear off the softer bearing and transfer onto the shaft, increasing the freeplay of the shaft to the point where the blades begin rubbing the housings. At this stage of the failure repair is still possible, at the first sign of noise.



Proceeding beyond this point results in massive blade damage and fragmentation as seen in your turbo. Repair is no longer possible, the entire CHRA must be replaced.



The coaking occurs due to excessive EGT. I have reviewed the mods listed to your car and the manner of operation of the car. You indicate that you are running 17psi on stock injectors and fuel pump with a host of airflow improvements in place on the car, the most significant of which is your increase in turbo flow rate from 370cfm with your T25 to 550cfm with your FPBig28.



My assessment of this situation is that you are leaner that Olsen twin that just went into rehab. Your excessive EGT’s resulted in coaked and choked off bearings within the turbo. Sustained 120mph driving was the straw that broke your camels back, and I am surprised that you have no engine damage as a result of operating your car in this manner, and you may actually have engine damage that you are not aware of. The only thing that probably saved you from blowing a head gasket or melting a piston was the fact that your knock sensor was pulling all your timing in a vain attempt to keep you from destroying your engine. I’ll also point out that a 2G in full knock retard can elevated it’s EGT’s by several hundred degree F just as a result of the retarded timing."



Good news is that although I had to pay a couple of dollars for a rebuild, the turbo is being fixed and shipped out this week. So I should be back on the road by next week. I had bought an Autometer A/F guage with this turbo, but didn't learn til the day the turbo died that without a wide-band 02 sensor, the A/F guage is highly innacurate. Which is why I didn't know I was running lean on 17lbs of boost. Even when at wot the A/F guage still showed running rich.

All I can say to you guys that don't know like I didn't is to take it easy on your cars til you get your fuel mods done, or you will cause damage. If you upgrade your turbo first, keep the boost down at least to 14 until you do the fuel, or you will cook stuff and cause yourself uneeded stress.
 
Well that sucks, at least they gave you an explanation of what happened, some places would have just told you it broke and they weren't going to cover it. I'm a little perplexed as to this lean thing though? I ran 15 psi on a 16g with stock injectors for a long time and never had a problem, why would the T28 be any different? Wait I just read that you are still on the stock pump, that could be the reason since it starts to die out in the upper RPM ranges. One thing I did was replace the pump at the same time as my turbo upgrade. Sorry to hear about your situation and good luck getting it running again!!
 
Yeah, my complete fuel system is stock. I've done almost all of Stage 1 except fuel, and tuning at this point. So I was leaning with that boost. Like the guy said, it's a good thing I didn't damage the engine. After I get the turbo back in, I'll drive it for a while and then do a compression test after a few months just for a checkup. After paying for the turbo, and then the rebuild, I'm out of money for any extra mods now, so I'm just going to leave it at 14lbs, and take it easy til I get my fuel done. I haven't even done the rewire yet.
 
big green said:
I also have a fb big 28 with out any support mods, I keep it down to stock boost levels until I get more mods


You still prbobably wouldn't do as much damage on your turbo as I did, considering I have an FMIC also, which increased my airflow bigtime causing me to lean out badly. But your definately doing right by keeping your boost down.
 
It's always a good idea to keep the boost level down to a conservative level until you have some kind of logging equipment to see exactly what is going on inside your engine. I just logged my car last night with dsmlink only to find i'm pretty much maxing my stock 450 injectors (about 95% IDC between 6-7K) out with the mods listed in my profile. (14b 16psi, 255HP and AFPR)

Keep it safe till you know what's going on for sure. :thumb:

-Steve
 
Yeah its a good idea to know WTF you are doing before you just start slapping things on your car. :thumbdown

Turbo upgrades+upped boost-fuel mods= Owned by ignorance.
 
VRMAN said:
Yeah its a good idea to know WTF you are doing before you just start slapping things on your car. :thumbdown

Turbo upgrades+upped boost-fuel mods= Owned by ignorance.


And all of us here ALWAYS know everything to do with our cars before upgrading? Thats what the boards are here for. I've learned a lot since I've been here, and I'm still learning as I go along. A lot of us aren't mechanics here, and we learn as much as we can when we can. Try to give some advice rather than than just being an ass.

Edit: If you weren' t trying to be than sorry, but thats the way you come off, in your post.
 
Lord Khan said:
And all of us here ALWAYS know everything to do with our cars before upgrading?

Most people research FIRST then add, not blow up then ask. Thats common sense.

Thats what the boards are here for. I've learned a lot since I've been here, and I'm still learning as I go along. A lot of us aren't mechanics here, and we learn as much as we can when we can. Try to give some advice rather than than just being an ass.

Im glad you are learning alot, knowledge is power. Just learn FIRST was my message

Edit: If you weren' t trying to be than sorry, but thats the way you come off, in your post.

I was semi-being an ass because that was retarded to boost up and lean out and then figure out how to tune. I get tired of hearing people ignorantly jump the gun mod wise.

:dsm: :talon: :laser:
 
If I put in an A/F guage, and was aware that doing so alone gave innacurate readings then I would have been more of an idiot upping my boost, but if the guage still showed me running rich, and I didn't know about wide band 02 sensors (which is what happened), it was a common mistake.

I'm going to take it easy on the new turbo. I know what you mean about learning first, but this is the first mistake I've made on my car since I've had it. And I've modded a lot, everything I learned was from here.
 
This thread should be the the ultimate sticky for people who want to put a bigger turbo on before upgrading the fuel system.

I'm not trying to knock on you, I'm just saying it's a great learning experience for other beginners.
 
L2RTSiAWD said:
This thread should be the the ultimate sticky for people who want to put a bigger turbo on before upgrading the fuel system.

I'm not trying to knock on you, I'm just saying it's a great learning experience for other beginners.


I agree. I know you guys always mean well, and I truelly have learned my lesson on this one. Thats why I kind of made this thread in the first place. So people could learn from my mistake.
 
Well, I got the repaired turbo back. It couldn't be rebuilt with the old turbine parts, so they replaced the whole center cartridge and cleaned up the turbo pretty damn good. Its just like brand new, and has no play in it or anything. They also machined all the surfaces so that everything mated up perfectly. Anyway, got the turbo back into the car last night, and after the car finished smoking the rest of the oil out of the tailpipe (had us nervous at first), the car is now back to 100% status. Driving strong and hard at a reasonable boost level now of 14lbs. I've learned my lesson, and I'm going to take it easy until my fuel mods are done. Thanks everyone for the help, and I hope others who are still learning like me will learn from my mistakes. Thanks again.


On a side note, we noticed during reinstallation that I had actually slightly melted one of the fins to the fan in front of the turbo. Talk about a HOT situation. I'm going to do a compression test within the month just to double-check to make sure the engine didn't get any damage from that much heat.
 
Did you remove your lower heat shield when you had the turbo in before? If so that is what caused your fan to melt, I've been through 2 now and I'm still looking for a lower heatshield. Anyone got one?
 
Syndicate13 said:
Did you remove your lower heat shield when you had the turbo in before? If so that is what caused your fan to melt, I've been through 2 now and I'm still looking for a lower heatshield. Anyone got one?


No, thats the thing. That turbo was soooo hot, the heat still melted the fan, even with the heat shield on. Thats why the bearing got cooked with oil, cause of extreme heat like that. Cars running 100% now. Thank God.
 
Does anyone have a clue what the CHRA part # is for this garrett assembly ?
It was stated above, that it was going to be replaced. It would be nice to know
what exactly it is your getting.


-Jaraxle
 
Syndicate13 said:
Did you remove your lower heat shield when you had the turbo in before? If so that is what caused your fan to melt, I've been through 2 now and I'm still looking for a lower heatshield. Anyone got one?


I have a spare if you want it
 
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