I blew out an oil seal a little while back which took out much of the functionality of my secondary turbo (peak @ 7 psi after the seal was gone) and of course my turbos became noisy and smokey. This prompted me to pick up a set of used twins, they came from a great and trusted seller, they have less the 40k on them and look great. My hang-up is the hotside has been modded for non-sequential, which is not a direction i want to go at this point, the flapper for the secondary has been welded open. So before I go and start pulling the sets apart for a refurb (not rebuild) I had a few questions.

Are the turbo's bearings housed with the compressor side, and in swapping the compressors from the new(used) twins onto my existing manifold/hotside, will they no longer be properly balanced?

When installing a new set of twins how do I "prime" the turbos so that they don't spin up dry?

Aside from media blasting what other cleaning processes would you all recommend?

Thanks All

 

why not just use one of the CHRA's from the new set? both CHRA's are the same and interchangeable.

that's what i did when my rear turbo went bad. now both of my turbos are boostin' like a mofugga

 

That's what i was thinking, after examining them for a while. I was hoping you'd chime in cause i know you've been dicking around with your twins for a while.

Did you just pour a lil oil into the feed supply before starting them up or did you just slap it on and go?

 

no i did not prime the turbos and i did not have any problem. it would be pretty difficult to do so because any oil you pour into them is just going to go straight out the bottom and back into the block...unless you're doing this without draining your oil, but i don't see how that would be a good idea.

i'm trying to find pictures of what i did but i can't seem to this minute...

---edit---

here's a pic of mine after i put them back together (but before i went non-seq)

as you can see, the CHRA on the left side (from the new set) is a different color from the CHRA on the right side (from my set). just make sure you clock everything correctly otherwise you'll have alignment issues when bolting the turbos back up and connecting the coolant/oil lines.

 

sweet bringin the heat with pics, that enough inspiration for me, looks like i've got some work to do this weekend

 

yeah but seriously i cant stress enough, make sure you clock everything correctly. mark everything before you take it apart and make sure to line up the new CHRA the same as the old one. even having them off by 1degree can make the oil/coolant lines not line up.

have fun, let us know the results

 

Make sure you use new copper crush washer for the oil feed and coolant feed/return banjo bolts, as well as new gaskets for the oil return lines. Also, use high-temp anti-seize on all the bolts when reinstalling.

 

ah yes i forgot to mention that. good call.

 

Thanks Rich, I'm working on my shopping list right now, will I need specific part numbers when ordering gaskets from Ray, or can i wing it from a description? Once I buy my house, you'll be seeing me for a rebuild. Are you stopping off in NoVa on your way to DGRR again this year?

What places/pieces did you mark? The compressor wheel, compressor housing, center rotational housing, anywhere else?:

 

i just marked everywhere that two pieces line up, just like the parts you mentioned. make sure the marks are clearly visible, and make sure you don't clean them off if you clean the parts while you have the turbos apart!