turbo dead- whining, no boost most of the time, still safe to drive???

[driver70]

Basically, I've been chasing this whining sound for the past few days, thinking that it was from one of my repairs: re-aligned the lower timing belt cover to eliminate a rubbing ps belt, put on a new ps belt, and put on a new damper pulley. Last night I took off the ps belt to eliminate that, still whined. Spent the rest of the night trying to properly tension the wp/alt belt.

Today on the way to work noticed that it'll go from vacuum to 0 while whining, but if it stops whining positive boost pressure starts buillding. So, figuring the turbo was on it's last legs, I tried taking off the wp/alt belt to eliminate that as the culprit of the whine... Took it around the block Real quick knowing there was no wp, and sure enough, still whined and built no boost while whining.

Sooo, my question is- How safe is it to drive the car with a dead/dying turbo? Can the turbo grenade itself and kill the engine in the process by sucking in turbo remnants? Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'm a noob so I hope this is in the right section...

Rommel

 

[DSMhelex]

have you checked for shaft play at all? When the car is running, is there any exhaust coming out from the turbo/bottom of the engine? what color smoke? white is water and blue is oil.

these are symtoms of a blown turbo.

if you have a blown turbo, i'm pretty sure you'll loose compression and your car wont run for shit. As for the turbo coming apart, i doubt it, you'll loose all your compression through the cracked bearings so there wont be a load on the compressor wheel. If your still worried, remember, you have an intercooler for it to through too.

 

[Talesin]

Had a GS-T with a kentucky fried turbo, they DO run like crap without it, but ARE still drivable (assuming the housing is still on). Just that it never will go above 0 on the boost gauge. Try driving around a little like that, just to get a feel for it, in case it *does* go out.
You'll pretty much just lose any hope of real accelleration until it's fixed.

 

[Thomas91169]

umm the turbo does not affect compression in the cylinders.

a dead turbo will not produce any positive boost. it is basically a exhaust restriction, an intake restriction, and youre now a non turbo. so basically youre slower than piss. id park it just in case the turbo decides to send a few blades into the intake, but if not i havent heard of it happening as of yet. if its necessary to drive it, baby it and try not to go balls to the wall in your new gs/rs.

 

[Limegrntaln]

I had a friend toast a turbo on the way home from the track, and when the exhaust seal blew it was leaking oil into the exhaust housing and out the exhaust, it smoked like a steam train, no kidding you couldnt seen the car or drive 200 feet behind him, it looked like the car was on fire, well he went through 3 quarts of oil in about 5 miles and decided to have it towed.

I would be very careful with how much you drive it with a blown turbo, the more you gas the car, the more that turbo is going to try to spin and its going to only get worse, until its dumping oil into the exhaust and out the back.

 

[driver70]

Thanks for all the help guys! Bought a used rebuilt Big 16g on the classifieds yesterday to replace my dead 130k 14b. Hope that install goes well.

I feel better about driving it now too, I tried to figure out how to "Disable" the turbo so that the whine would be tolerable and safeguard against an imploding turbo. I figured that if I can somehow get the wastegate to open whenever it wants so the exhaust bypasses the turbine wheel then I should be good. So, I just disconnected the wastegate actuator arm and the whine is A LOT quieter! So for now, I'm babying my sloooow AWD n/t but still have transportation from point A to point B.

Thanks again!

Rommel

 

[DurangoGS-T]

at least your guys' turbos are just blown to the point where they don't work and that's all. mines blown and not only can i not boost for crap and it passes a ton of oil, there is so much shaftplay that the blades hit the inside of the housing. sounds like rice krispies under the hood. metal ones.

 

[DSMhelex]

umm the turbo does not affect compression in the cylinders.

a dead turbo will not produce any positive boost. it is basically a exhaust restriction, an intake restriction, and youre now a non turbo. so basically youre slower than piss. id park it just in case the turbo decides to send a few blades into the intake, but if not i havent heard of it happening as of yet. if its necessary to drive it, baby it and try not to go balls to the wall in your new gs/rs.

Right. i forgot about that. I was thinking more of intercooler piping compression.
If the turbo seals are cracked enough, your car wont even move. I had this problem with my 91 awd. It felt like it was in neutral and all the exhaust came out the turbo. It really is a hunk of shit with a blown turbo. i couldnt believe it.

 

[nuggets]

umm, i have a brand new turbo and I hear a whining noise until positive manifold pressure. my car runs fine, doesnt leak or burn and builds boost pulls hard. explain that one..

 

[driver70]

umm, i have a brand new turbo and I hear a whining noise until positive manifold pressure. my car runs fine, doesnt leak or burn and builds boost pulls hard. explain that one..

Hmmm, my car was like that but kinda the other way around, it wouldn't build positive pressure until the whining Stopped; sometimes it would stop whining and build boost, other times it would just whine. Before I finally disconnected the wastegate actuator arm it was only whining and wouldn't boost at all. Mine didn't leak or burn any oil and still doesn't, but it's definitely dead.

In any case, I wouldn't think Any whining was "normal" for a brand new turbo, and I wouldn't sleep easy until I knew what was causing it. Wish I were knowledgeable enough to point you in the right direction, but I've only been working on cars for like 2 months now. Turbo swap should be fun though... I remember just a few weeks ago I was scared of changing my fuel filter!

Good luck troubleshooting.

Rommel

 

[96GSTSTT]

im new but ive had boost leaks and you would hear the turbo whine. ive blown many turbos cause i get greedy but right now im wishing i just had not blown one of them so my car would be running. one of the seals is bad and its burning alot of oil and blowing smoke. so im waiting on a 2g install kit to put the 14b i had from my 1st gen in. when i had my compressor... any time i hered weird noises i did a boost leak test and most of the time i would find one and it would lead me to the noise. best test in the world on a turbo car is the boost leak test!

 

[nuggets]

i believe i might be hearing the whining noise from my UNBOLTABLE downpipe. (exhaust leak)

I've owned that downpipe for... 6 months and i still have never been able to seal it completely. it's annoying.

 

[Talesin]

Why not grab a 7mm o2->dp gasket from RRE? It'd probably help things, at least.