you will be missed. 2005-2011. turvonetics, here I come! :)

Holy smokes! Got enough adapter fittings for the oil feed, batman? :p

Smokes is right :P, glad your finally doing this Mikey, one step closer to tune time :D

im gettn there, slowly but surely! if you notice on the 1" hole (where the external gate goes), look closely and you can see a small pool of oil puddling up. I had the turbo tilted back a little bit during the test and when i was done, i tilted it forward and oil poured out. lol

but hey you gotta admit, over 6 yrs life from a knock-off, chinese, mass-produced, lack of quality control, out of measurement turbo - that's pretty damn good lol.

Originally posted by CODE4
Holy smokes! Got enough adapter fittings for the oil feed, batman? :p

dave, the reason you see the stack of fittings is an inline restrictor (.40). I know you're not supposed to install these on journal bearing turbos, but my oil pressures were higher than the turbo liked (morning = 60-80psi) and (afternoon/warmed up = 20-60psi). The afternoon was normal, but the seals didn't like the pressure in the morning over time. The seals began to give way, smoke started to appear on decel, so I wanted to squeeze a couple more months out of her. A few months ago, I installed a restrictor and the smoke out the tailpipe went away but then after a little while, it returned (meaning the seals were REALLY gone).

I remedied the smoke from the seals being totally gone by installing a bigger one-way check valve up top (instead of normal PCV valve) to pull additional vaccum through the turbo easier (lots of crankcase vacuum). The car didn't smoke but my idle was around 1.5K because of the excess vacuum coming from the valve cover nipple breather that I left open to the atmosphere. Basically I was cheating the system by releiving pressure off the oil seals and holding off for a tiny bit longer before I could shop for a replacement and find the time to replace it too.

OH funny story, the reason I figured it was REALLY time to replace it was when I did a pull merging onto the highway... well at 4K, i heard some really unpleasant metal-to-metal clanking sounds. First thought was "oh shit, thats the compressor turbine smacking the housing" LOL. I let off the throttle and at that point i figured it'd be any day now that it'd grenade itself, i'd contaminate my oil and possibly blow my damn motor. i thought ok, it's time to replace and verify this smoke issue that it is in fact the turbo and NOT the valve seals, so that's what I did last night.

Here's a pic of the test. I got the idea from supra forums for the test (about half way down the thread) -> http://tinyurl.com/63mafpu



Until I get my baby that i'm about to order in about 15 mins from turvonetics, i'll be grandma'ing the car to/from work.

Poor poor turvo.. you'll be missed.. maybe.. hehehe

That's actually a really good idea for diagnosis. I'm surprised you actually looked it up and did it yourself, Mikey.

Good job.