New rebuilt turbo with external wastegate and no boost?

[Dominator]

Like the title says, Just rebuilt an Evo 3 Big 16g turbo and bought a 2g manifold that had a flange on it for a 38mm Tial sport wastegate. So I put the turbo, manifold, wastegate on last night and the car is not creating an ounce of boost????? What the hell did I do wrong or what is causing this. I brake boosted the car didn't get any boost what so ever, ran a line from the j pipe nipple straight to the wastegate to run wastegate pressure, tried a manual boost controller in between the two and still no boost. I didn't mess with any of the intercooler lines while doing the install, and the turbo before this one boosted fine so I am totally stumped. i took apart the wastegate today and it seemed fine, the piston seemed to move ok and nothing major stuck out to me. Any help would be great thanks.

 

[drewboi]

what did you do with the internal gate?

 

[Dominator]

It is welded shut, the turbo came that way from the guy i bought it from.

 

[turbo98eclipse]

Did you do a boost leak test just to VERIFY everything is sealed properly?

 

[Dominator]

Haven't done a boost leak test. I torqued everything down to spec drove it and retorqued. I figure I'm having a massive boost leak somewhere but it just doesn't make sense. I can't hear anything out of normal and the car doesn't hesitate like before when I've had boost leaks. Car drives fine its just slow as hell .

 

[turbo98eclipse]

Are all the additional holes on the WG plugged? I know some WGs have ports which can be used to run other lines and what not. Brand new they are supposed to come with plugs that screw into them.

 

[Dominator]

Yeah this wastegate has two ports. One on top and one on bottom, the way the schematic shows to hook it up is run the reference boost to the lower and leave the upper port to vent. So maybe that's where I'm going wrong possibly? The wastegate is a Tial Sport 38mm.

One thing I did think about was there are no crush washers on the lower nipple for the wastegate that help seal them, The nipple is tight and I'm doubting that it is the problem?

 

[turbo98eclipse]

No sounds like you have it connected properly-- I would honestly just do a BLT and see what that shows.

 

[Dominator]

Ok sounds good, will do, if anyone else has ideas let me know, thanks guys

 

[Dert]

Boost leak, pre turbo Exhaust leak, shot springs in the wastegate, first, do a boost leak test, a small leak at low psi will be a huge leak at higher psi, second, make sure you dont have an exhaust leak, just because you torqued and re-torqued doesnt mean its sealed, if both those tests check out, pop the top off your wastegate and check the springs, when a spring fails it generaly happens when it is compressed and has alot of heat on it, this will cause the spring to remain in a slightly compressed state when it cools wich in turn makes it weaker and have less "spring tension" wich in turn will make the valve on your wastegate open at low boost levels. I just recently had a "no boost" issue and it turned out my springs in my brand new Tial mvs were shot, they had compressed from heat like i stated above.

 

[turbo98eclipse]

The above post made me think-- If its mounted on the manifold, most likely that means you are dumping to the ATM... If this is the case, when you drive, do you hear the sound of a dumped WG or is it still quiet? This will tell you if the WG is failing and opening prematurely ...

 

[Dert]

Do you know what spring you have in your wastegate? If so and you have an air compressor, set the compressure pressure to 2 or 3 psi higher than what your wastegate spring is rated for. Hook it up to the nipple on your wastegate and give it a quick blast, you will be able to hear the valve of your wastegate opening, then try lowering the pressure and see if it is opening below the spring pressure, it will let you know if your springs are shot. I had the 17.40 psi springs in mine and I could open the valve by blowing on it with my mouth, it was opening at 1 or 2 psi, so basically ANY boost my turbo generated the gate would open and dump all the exhaust gas basically making the turbo not spool at all.

 

[Dominator]

To turbo98eclipse the wastegate is dumped to the atmosphere and no I do not hear the wastegate dumping. As for Dert, I have the large red spring which I'm pretty sure is the 12 psi spring. When I took off the wastegate earlier I pushed the piston in with my fingers and it was a good 12 lbs of pressure, but I will take it to one of my buddies and take an air compressor to it as well to eliminate all possibilties. First thing I'm going to do tomorrow is take off all intercooler pipes and inspect and reseat them in their respective locations and go from there. I have a boost leak tester at home but I am at college now and don't have access to that at the moment so taking all the pipes off except the jpipe which I rtv'd earlier today should eliminate all intercooler pipe boost leaks hopefully. I will keep you guys updated with what I find out. Thanks for all the help!

So today took all the intercooler piping off and inspected everything, everything was fine, put it all back on. Took wastegate off again and inspected it, found nothing wrong. Took the car down to a buddies that runs a team track car evo 8, very fast by the way "Professional Awesome" is their name, anyways they had a boost leak tester, hooked the car up and help boost like a champ. We disconnected the wastegate vacuum line to see if the turbo would make any boost driving down the road it didn't. Took off the intake and the turbo spins freely when the car is on. Only thing we could think of is something got messed up during the rebuild so tomorrow I plan on taking the turbo off and going through everything and basically re-rebuilding it . Hopefully I find the problem tomorrow when tearing the turbo apart.

 

[Dominator]

EDIT: Yeah guys it was the turbo, Took it to Schied Diesel here in town and they guy didn't know a whole lot about gasoline turbos compared to the diesel turbos which personally I thought were the same thing, because we can run the hx35's and 40's on our car but thats besides the point. After further inspection he looked at the compressor wheel of my turbo and the compressor housing and at one point the wheel tore into the compressor housing grooving it pretty good. He said everything else in the turbo looked fine but seeing as maybe the tolerance between the housing and the wheel weren't the same anymore, he figured that was the reason the turbo wasn't making boost. So I put my old ebay 16g turbo back on and the turbo spools perfectly fine. Do you guys think that the wheel grinding into the housing and leaving a slight gap would cause it to not spool anymore?

 

[JusMX141]

Sounds to me like you over-torqued and bent the turbine shaft during the rebuild.

 

[evo1rice]

I would try another BOV or WG... unless your confident theyve worked before.

 

[Dominator]

Yeah im 100% confident they worked before and we tested them, both worked great. Follow up, I put old ebay turbo on and the car runs great, boosts fine. So it was the turbo. I'm just wondering if a messed up compressor wheel and a grooved housing will cause the turbo to not create any boost? I was thinking about getting an ebay 20g compressor wheel and housing and putting that on the center section and rocking that out. What do you guys think?

 

[stayflalfy]

If you had a messed up compressor housing it would cause the car not to boost at all

 

[Dominator]

Here are some pictures that I took, checked the shaft to see if it was bent, rolled it on the counter and watched for the end to move up and down and it didn't move at all so to my knowledge the shaft is not bent. Do you guys think that these marks cause the turbo not to spool?

 

[JusMX141]

Not at all. You should see some of the turbos I've rebuilt for customers that still made boost just fine when they left.

If the shaft is straight and doesn't bind, the only other thing I can think of is something was causing the wastegate flapper to hang open.

 

[butcha]

That turbo looks alot better than a few turbos i have seen with missing chunks.. it should have no problem making boost.

 

[gofer]

It sounds to me like there wasn't an o-ring between the CHRA and the compressor housing.

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[Dominator]

There was a gasket for the compressor housing. I had a problem getting the huge c clip to recess fully into the compressor housing's race when I put the housing on. I'm possibly thinking that it could of been the cause, because it didn't seal correctly and the thus produce boost. The exhaust side was ported and polished, the actuator arm hole was welded shut but not the flapper hole. Would that cause the turbo to not spool?

 

[Dert]

If you are running the gate off the manifold then you weld the flapper shut, if you run it off o2 housing you completely remove the flapper and port the hole.


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[Dominator]

I am running the wastegate off the manifold, so you're saying I need to cap the flapper hole and weld it?