I overheated my NA last month, and since I finally have enough money to do it, I am doing a full turbo swap. I already have the engine, transmission, diff, and driveshaft, and understand everything about the swap. My question is about the turbo itself. It is an s4 motor, for reference.

I checked the turbo and it appears to be in good condition visually, but has shaft play. On the intake side there is a small amount of shaft side-to-side shaft play and no in-and-out shaft play. On the exhaust side the is a noticeable amount of side-to-side shaft play and no in-and-out shaft play. There is no evidence of oil leaking from the turbo.
My problem is that I don't know how much shaft play is acceptable. Does this sound like the turbo needs to be rebuilt?

 

has the compressor wheel made contact with the compressor housing yet? how close is it when you shift the wheel towards the wall?

 

No, it hasn't contacted anything yet. There appears to be a fairly good gap between wheel and the housing. I would say more than half of the distance versus when it is centered.

 

SOME side to side play is acceptable, if you are worried you should send it off to be rebuilt, or order a rebuild kit and do it yourself.

 

Ok, thats what I was looking for. Since this is technically a junkyard engine, I'm going to just drop the engine in and get it running. Once I establish whether the engine is good or I need to rebuild I will figure out what to do with the turbo. I'll probably end up getting a BNR hybrid of some sort.

 

gpopshop.com has a rebuild kit for 90 or so, they rebuilt mine with no issues at all.

Just offering a cheap option, you probably are better off going the bnr route though.

john ny