Removed Manifold and found this! What is it and where did it come from?

[Kingsta18]

I noticed my turbo wasn't spooling hardly at all maybe 2-5 psi. So we started pulling stuff apart, the first thing we removed is the manifold and we see this in the part where air goes from the manifold into the turbo (exhaust side).

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I wasn't driving the car when this happened. So i don't know exactly what went on?

The car would still run but it was blowing out a bunch of smoke and if you gave it any gas it would die! Just have to let the clutch out and it will barly move.

Any ideas what this is what can be done to fix it?

I am so CONFUSED!

Thank You to all in advance!

 

[10minutequarter]

That looks like a bearing of some kind. But I don't know how the hell that could get into your turbo.

 

[Justins99GSX]

If youre car is a 1g the factory manifold had a ring that helped align tht manifold with the turbine inlet... looks almost like what you have stuck in your turbo......

 

[dsmputz]

If youre car is a 1g the factory manifold had a ring that helped align tht manifold with the turbine inlet... looks almost like what you have stuck in your turbo......

Yeah that will be it for sure, there's no way a bearing could get in there.

 

[Kingsta18]

If youre car is a 1g the factory manifold had a ring that helped align tht manifold with the turbine inlet... looks almost like what you have stuck in your turbo......

Oh, sorry I should have been more descriptive, it's a 96 TSi AWD

BTW thanks for such quick response guys/gals!

 

[MrBoxx]

If you could, please fill out your vehicle profile. It helps everyone know where you're coming from.

In the meantime, could you take the piece out and get a better picture of it. It looks too shiny to be the alignment ring, but that's definitely a possibility. If it is, there should be another half to it stuck somewhere further in the turbine housing. If pieces of it hit the turbine blades, you can probably count on your turbo being trashed. That leads me to the following: If you can, pull the turbine housing off the center section to get a look at the condition of the turbine wheel. On a TD05 turbo, it's just a matter of unbolting the v-band clamp and separating the CHRA from the turbine housing. Don't lose the alignment pin; sometimes it falls out of either the housing or the center. On a T25, the housing is held on by several bolts, and these can be a pain to get off. My uncle had to use a torch to burn through the bolts on mine.

If possible, take the piece that you can see and put it where the alignment ring is supposed to go to see if the curve lines up. If it does, it's a good chance that's what it is, and your next step is to see how much damage the rest of the pieces did to your turbo.

 

[92awddsm]

It reminds me of a time when I found a stock 6cm 14b ring inside of a 7cm evo3 turbine housing. Is that the stock turbo? I cant tell from the pic.

 

[Kingsta18]

If you could, please fill out your vehicle profile. It helps everyone know where you're coming from.

Sure, sorry didn't know there was a spot to do that. I'm doing it now

It reminds me of a time when I found a stock 6cm 14b ring inside of a 7cm evo3 turbine housing. Is that the stock turbo? I cant tell from the pic.

Yes, it's the stock turbo . . T-25 (I think)

 

[steve]

It's still the seal ring. It fits in the step between the turbo exhaust housing the the exhaust manifold collector. It could have easily fallen in when you took the turbo apart. Since it isn't coated in carbon I'd bet it was inplace up to when you took everything apart and then fell down.

 

[Kingsta18]

It's still the seal ring. It fits in the step between the turbo exhaust housing the the exhaust manifold collector. It could have easily fallen in when you took the turbo apart. Since it isn't coated in carbon I'd bet it was inplace up to when you took everything apart and then fell down.

But that wouldn't explain why the turbo stopped boosting, and it isn't a perfect circle, it is bent, and it was jammed in there. It was everything we could do to get it back out, we had to pry on it from both sides with 2 screw drivers until it finally came out.

This is a "paint picture" of what it looks like, I'll have to take a pic tomorrow if i get home in time.



It looks like it was a perfect circle with one cut, but it was forced so hard that bothedges folded in (if that makes any sense at all)

 

[95talon_in_ma]

I think I got it....

 

[steve]

Ok. It has been there for a while since the place where it should have been is coated with exhaust. I don't know why the ring isn't, but it is the seal ring. Just grab onto it and pull it out.

Steve

 

[kenamond]

You're gonna have to drop the turbo to find out whether or not Lady Luck likes you. I suspect the turbo's toast given the smoking you're seeing, but you'll know soon enough.

Here's the Cliffs Notes for a T25 turbo removal.

Check your oil level and see if it even registers on your dipstick. You probably lost a lot of oil out of the turbo seals while limping along.

Unplug and remove the AC fan (the one on the driver's side bolted to the radiator).

Drain your coolant and oil, disconnect the oil line and oil return tube (from the oil pan), unhook the coolant hoses, intake pipe, lower intercooler pipe (both on the compressor side), the BCS vaccuum lines, and pull the O2 sensor (need a special O2 sensor socket from Autozone). Unbolt the dipstick tube and pull it out of the block. Clean up all of that coolant all over the floor. Have someone support the turbo as you unbolt the downpipe from the O2 housing (so the turbo doesn't smash you in the face).

Drop the turbo. Mark a scribe line on the turbine housing and center section so you know how to align the two if (probably not) your turbo is okay and you want to put it back together "clocked" properly.

Disconnect the wastegate actuator arm from the lever on the turbine housing.

Unbolt the 4 bolts holding the two "c" washers to the turbine housing. Separate the turbine housing from the center section and brace yourself for a mangled turbine wheel that may fall off because the shaft is broken in two.

Extra credit if your turbo is totalled: If you have sir clip pliers, pull the compressor housing off and disassemble the center section. There is a how-to at www.vfaq.com. Get to the thrust bearing and see if it's in one piece. It's not a full 360*, so don't think it's broken if it's only 270* (kind of a "C" shaped flat piece of bronze (gold colored) with oil passages in it). If it isn't intact, you might want to consider dropping the oil pan and collecting the chunks of bronze that are lying down there so that they don't get pulled into the motor.

You'll probably have a quart or two of oil in your intercooler, so now's a good time to clean your intercooler and other intake piping out and straighten the IC fins.

I have no idea how that turbo-mani sealing ring got mangled like that unless you got it so hot that it got soft and deformed (possible). It just won't fit down there unless it's already bent up - it can't turn sideways, because it is pinched between the mani and turbine housing. You might have been running way lean, the ring started to soften, it blew from the backpressure (or was already cracked), then the exhaust carried it into the turbine housing. I don't see how else it would be shiney on the outer surface.

Good luck!

 

[95talon_in_ma]

Honestly, did this just "happen", or did you have it apart and when you put it back together, you noticed the issue? Unless your manifold bolts were sooo loose, I can't see how this would have happened on it's own?
You say you were not driving the car when this happened, Who was? Or did you just buy it like this?
Also, Check your exhaust manifold. I bet someone ported it out and removed the casting that holds it in place. But didn't do it on the O2 housing and still put the ring back in..... In that scenario it would go sideways and with enough heat and pressure, crush it sideways into the O2 housing....

If so, then you need to find another exhaust manifiold, or do the entire job properly...

Good luck!

 

[Kingsta18]

Honestly, did this just "happen", or did you have it apart and when you put it back together, you noticed the issue? Unless your manifold bolts were sooo loose, I can't see how this would have happened on it's own?
You say you were not driving the car when this happened, Who was? Or did you just buy it like this?
Also, Check your exhaust manifold. I bet someone ported it out and removed the casting that holds it in place. But didn't do it on the O2 housing and still put the ring back in..... In that scenario it would go sideways and with enough heat and pressure, crush it sideways into the O2 housing....

If so, then you need to find another exhaust manifiold, or do the entire job properly...

Good luck!

Okay, I didn't want to get into this because it is a LONG story but for those of you who want to read your more than welcome to.

My friend gave the car to me because he got transfered to England for 2 years. It had a BAD exhaust leak, I took it to a local exhaust shop "assuming the gasket was messed up" they told me the manifold was cracked and a stud was broken off. They would try to remove the stud without having to drill it and re-tap.

They couldn't get it out so they told me they would need to re-tap it. I ordered a Ported OEM manifold from Dejon Powerhouse (that's what the guy there recommended)

Then I took the manifold to the exhaust shop and had it put on along with 3in downpipe. It ran great for 2-3 weeks, then it stopped boosting. It would go to 2-5 psi the more throttle you gave, boost decreased.

I loaned it to a different friend, to see if he could figure out what was wrong. 3-4 days later he calls me and tells me he's broke down. He said it made a really loud noise (not sure if he mean't backfire)

I had it towed back to my house and I started it. It ran but barely, you could only let the clutch out and let it craw. When i gave it any gas it died.



Here is my next question:

Is it possible that there are two seperate problems?

Example. Maybe the ring "thingy" was already down in the turbo "as some of you said" being why it wouldn't boost,


Then the car jumped timing while my friend was driving it causing it not to run worth the shit?

 

[kenamond]

Okay, I didn't want to get into this because it is a LONG story but for those of you who want to read your more than welcome to.

My friend gave the car to me because he got transfered to England for 2 years. It had a BAD exhaust leak, I took it to a local exhaust shop "assuming the gasket was messed up" they told me the manifold was cracked and a stud was broken off. They would try to remove the stud without having to drill it and re-tap.

They couldn't get it out so they told me they would need to re-tap it. I ordered a Ported OEM manifold from Dejon Powerhouse (that's what the guy there recommended)

Then I took the manifold to the exhaust shop and had it put on along with 3in downpipe. It ran great for 2-3 weeks, then it stopped boosting. It would go to 2-5 psi the more throttle you gave, boost decreased.

I loaned it to a different friend, to see if he could figure out what was wrong. 3-4 days later he calls me and tells me he's broke down. He said it made a really loud noise (not sure if he mean't backfire)

I had it towed back to my house and I started it. It ran but barely, you could only let the clutch out and let it craw. When i gave it any gas it died.



Here is my next question:

Is it possible that there are two seperate problems?

Example. Maybe the ring "thingy" was already down in the turbo "as some of you said" being why it wouldn't boost,


Then the car jumped timing while my friend was driving it causing it not to run worth the shit?

They shouldn't have put the ring back in if you have a ported mani. If they took the step off of the mani collector, there would be nothing on the top side to hold the ring in place (like 95_talon_in_ma said). Don't know if something else happened in addition to this, but the fact that it got sucked into the turbine housing and deformed tells me that you might have sucked a piece of it through the turbine wheel and destroyed the turbo. And I still don't see how it would be shiney if it was in that position for very long. Perhaps it blocked exhaust flow so badly that you were sending a huge amount of your exhaust through leaks, the O2 sensor couldn't read a lean condition, and you fried the motor. Don't know. There's a lot for you to look at. Pull the turbo to see what condition it's in, do a compression test, check your timing to see if you jumped a tooth, etc.

 

[Kingsta18]

Pics of the "ring" anyone know what it is now? notice the one with the red circle, it actually is darker than the rest of the ring. That is the part that was sticking up. from the turbo

 

[95talon_in_ma]

I think you have it all figured out, you just need to test things and put it back together and see what happens. The ring is a stock "soft" metal gasket that goes between the stock castings of your exhaust manifold and the O2 housing. But since the exhaust manifold was ported, the ring was not being held in place as it should by lips on both sides. Only the O2 housing still had the lip.
Check your turbine for damage.
Find out what most people do when they port these pieces out. (Whether they just take the ring out entirely or use an aftermarket copper gasket...etc) Put it back together. See if it makes boost and how it runs.
There is no telling how much back pressure was created when this happened.
You may have to do some more troubleshooting once it's all back together. (Timing check, compression test, boost leak)

I had one of those rings kicking around somewhere, but it's the same exact thing you have a picture of except perfectly round.

Good Luck!

 

[Kingsta18]

I think you have it all figured out, you just need to test things and put it back together and see what happens. The ring is a stock "soft" metal gasket that goes between the stock castings of your exhaust manifold and the O2 housing. But since the exhaust manifold was ported, the ring was not being held in place as it should by lips on both sides. Only the O2 housing still had the lip.
Check your turbine for damage.
Find out what most people do when they port these pieces out. (Whether they just take the ring out entirely or use an aftermarket copper gasket...etc) Put it back together. See if it makes boost and how it runs.
There is no telling how much back pressure was created when this happened.
You may have to do some more troubleshooting once it's all back together. (Timing check, compression test, boost leak)

I had one of those rings kicking around somewhere, but it's the same exact thing you have a picture of except perfectly round.

Good Luck!

AWESOME! Hopefully I can check everything and it will be okay. . I'll get back to you guys once I put everything back together . (couple of weeks. I need to get a new manifold before I put it back together. The new one I got from Dejon already cracked and they won't warranty it.

Any suggestions on a mani?

 

[95talon_in_ma]

AWESOME! Hopefully I can check everything and it will be okay. . I'll get back to you guys once I put everything back together . (couple of weeks. I need to get a new manifold before I put it back together. The new one I got from Dejon already cracked and they won't warranty it.

Any suggestions on a mani?

If it's a nice piece, have someone weld it. (Depending on where and the size of the crack...) I'd do it for ya, but it's long haul from where your at.... Then find out what other things you have to do when you port the exhaust manifold. I beleive there is a section on this in the tech articles that lays it out nicely.
Otherwise just find a stock unit with the lip still in tact. Buy a new ring and make sure everything lines up niceley while it's still outside the car.

If you have a couple weeks, you might want to do the compression test and timing mark check while your waiting. The exhaust doesn't need to be on for that.

P.S. Sometimes the stories prior to the incident are long, but as you can see, are greatly helpfull and tend to expedite things. Giving all that stuff initially is a good thing.

Hope it all works out for the best.
Duane

 

[kenamond]

If you end up with a ported manifold, you don't want to put that ring back in. If you get a ported turbine housing and ex. mani., that ring goes in the trash.

Also, if your turbo is fine and you get a ported exhaust mani, you're going to have one or two steps, each decreasing the diameter of the turbine inlet, because your turbine housing isn't ported (look at your first picture at that step just below the flange surface). The stock ex. mani. has that same step, and the ring you found rests on these steps and helps seal the joint of the two parts against backpressure. Some mani port jobs just grind out that step but leave the larger hole the same diameter. If that's what you get, then you'll have one step in the turbine housing. Other, more aggressive port jobs will make the whole ex. mani. opening larger. In that case, you'll have two steps. These steps disrupt exhaust flow into the turbine, increase spool up time, and decrease how much the turbine can flow (turbo will lose boost at higher revs). If the turbo's not gone and you want to keep it, consider porting it to match whatever exhaust manifold port job you get.

Also, the ring is sandwiched between the ex. mani. and the turbine housing, not the O2 housing

One thing you can check really easily is turbo shaft play. Disconnect your intake pipe from the compressor inlet of your turbo and reach in and wiggle the compressor wheel side-side and in-out. You should have no in-out shaft play and a small amount of side-side (even on a brand new turbo). If it moves side-side such that it hits the housing, the turbo is worn out.

Also, pull your LICP off of your intercooler with a oil catch pan under it and see if any oil comes out. If you blew the seals, you'll have A LOT of oil in your intercooler.

Those are really easy to do and will tell you a lot about your turbo's condition.

I think you'll still have to drop the turbo to check out the condition of the turbine wheel, but those simple test will tell you if you should get your hopes up before dropping the turbo. Also, if you find a quart of oil in your intercooler, you might as well start shopping for a new turbo.

 

[Kingsta18]

95talon_in_ma

kenamond

Thank you Great help!

I'll keep you updated. this is just a project car, I have a 06 S2k for my daily driver

As I go through the steps I'll let you know what I find out

 

[95talon_in_ma]

Also, the ring is sandwiched between the ex. mani. and the turbine housing, not the O2 housing
QUOTE]

Sorry bout that. Was thinking the right piece, just not saying it...

 

[MyBeatGSX]

Does the exhaust really blow out of the head hard enough to break and bend that sealing ring into a pretzel? WTF

 

[Spyder1]

Honestly, did this just "happen", or did you have it apart and when you put it back together, you noticed the issue? Unless your manifold bolts were sooo loose, I can't see how this would have happened on it's own?
You say you were not driving the car when this happened, Who was? Or did you just buy it like this?
Also, Check your exhaust manifold. I bet someone ported it out and removed the casting that holds it in place. But didn't do it on the O2 housing and still put the ring back in..... In that scenario it would go sideways and with enough heat and pressure, crush it sideways into the O2 housing....

If so, then you need to find another exhaust manifiold, or do the entire job properly...

Good luck!

Nice work Sharlock...!!