rhythmfunk

I pulled off my stock turbo last night and it has 2 good cracks on the hot side (divider in middle), what do you think is the best option at this point? I live in California where I need to SMOG the car...what are my replacement or repair options?

Syncro

iTrader: (1)

I dont know which turbo to recommend to you, but I'd try in the engine\performance subforums for specific help if you dont get too many replies as opposed to the general 2nd gen forum.

Be glad you got the turbo out before it messed up your engine. The way I see it, if the turbo's bad the impeller will eventually shave off metal filings of the side and shove those into your engine intake. Baaaaaad

Also, you really need to use the search function

scathcart

Ignore it. They all have it.

Digi7ech

iTrader: (1)

Cracks on the exhaust divider are fine they don't hurt anything.

Here is the crack which will eat turbines. Once the engine get's hot it will expand and the edge will protrude out and start carving away the turbine. I bought 3 hotsides before I got a good one.

rhythmfunk

Can I pull the turbo apart to view this area without interfering with balance? Thats nasty, I'd be pissed if I ruined a new rebuild for something like this.

ilike2eatricers

Yea it's easy to take off the hotside. Six 13mm bolts. Make sure to mark the hotside housing in relation to the center cartridge for reassembly or you may have difficulty with things fitting back the way they should be. No need to worry about anything else really though.

On a side note if you are planning to take off the hotside you may as well port your wg.

Digi7ech

iTrader: (1)

Yeah with the turbo off just port the wastegate. It WILL save you a lot of head aches when you boost creep and have to remove it again.

Removing the hotside is VERY easy. Although the first time is usually a bitch.

You will need to loosen the six bolts around the housing.
Once they are coming out you'll notice a couple are directly under the coolant or oil ports and there isn't enough room to actaully remove them completely.

You need to get a mallet usually and whack the hotside to make it come loose(very close tolerances and heat make it a bit hard to remove after time). Hit it around the hotside so that it loosens evenly. PB Blaster is also recommened to lossen it up.

Once it is loose you should be able to rotate it so the bolt that was under the ports can be removed.

Porting should be done with very high rpm stone tools of you have them.
It'll take forever with a Dremil.

I used a drill press and a sanding wheel. I shaved a bit of the wastegate flap off to increase it's opening angle. You'll notice that the stock flap only opens like 3/4 of an inch due to the height restriction.
I also used some gritting sanding barrels but they don't last very long.



Oh yeah. If you forget to mark the alignment of the hotside to the turbo. Don't worry.
Just line it up so the wastegate actuator rod is straight with the door lever. It'll be perfectly fine.

rhythmfunk

Actually, the WG was already ported by the person that had the car before me...not a really good job, so I might clean it up a bit. Im gonna mark things and take a look inside tonight.

Thanks for the help!