Should I Scrap Her?

[TSiWarrior]

Looked in the mouth of my big 16g today, noticed the fins were ate up. It almost looks like she ate a rock, rough estimate is 15% of the fins are chewed up. Although I notice no shaft play at all, no oil burning, and no unusual vibrations.

How do the turbos get chewed up? I have a filter...

 

[psychlow]

Foreign objects getting stuck in the rotating wheels and/or trashed bearings allowing wheel/housing contact are the two reasons wheels can get chewed up. It could have been something as simple as a small piece of rubber or plastic, and it will still chew up the wheels due to the speed at which they rotate.

If the shaft isn't bent and the bearings are in good shape, you could probably talk to some DSM turbo vendors about getting a new compressor wheel. Slap it on and get it balanced (might throw a rebuild kit on while you're at it) and you're up and running again.

You can run it without replacing the wheel, but you take the chance of trashing your bearing since your turbo is now out of balance, plus it's not going to be as efficient as it was when new.