I'm sorry I have to ask this, but I just put my KDRotary rebuilt turbo’s back on my car and took it for a test drive. I have babied the hell out of the car and never took it above 4700 rpm. Both the primary and secondary turbo have a whine to them. It's very loud. It doesn't sound like the whoosh of compressed air it really just sounds like a whining sound, you can tell this it's the primary and you can hear the secondary pre spool and come online. I'm taking everything back apart, but it all looks good. I have a 10% doubt in the y-pipe I put a new o ring in there and it didn’t feel 100% it felt very tight.
All the gaskets are new. Also I stripped out a stud in the manifold so I had to take the manifold off of the engine block. Then I ran into a problem with one of the studs on the block, half the threads got stripped out. I put a new stud in there and everything seemed ok Although I didn't 100% torque it to the spec as I was afraid I would break the stud. But I did make it very very tight just not 45 lbs on the torque wrench.

Has anyone out there have any experience with this.
Please any comments???
TIA

Matt Snoby

 

1/2 turn past snug is fine man.
I never torque mine to spec and I never had a problem

 

Oh and how many miles on the turbos?
Do they have any shaft play. Lots of times if they strat whistling really loud its a sign that the cartridge is rubbing against the snail.
If thaat makes sense.

 

wouldn't KDR check the end play if he kust had his turbos rebuilt? If I understand the question properly he just had them rebuilt. Are they getting oil? Try cracking the oil feed line loose and see if oil is flowing. What type of boost do you have?

 

Completely Stock Turbo's just rebuilt. Stock 10 psi but I never got anywhere higher than 1 psi if that. I will check the oil feed line. Thanks for the info about the nuts being snug. THat's what I always thought. THank you so much for responding!

 

Just checked and yes there is oil in the oil feed line.

 

Well if there is oil, coolant, and everything seems tight. Try a good boost run and see what happens... Is there any kind of warranty on the turbos?What does it include?(how long) See what kind of boost you get and maybe you'll find that it IS a leak in the system.(intake air) Did they give you any break-in procedures with the turbos?

 

No break in procedures, but I like I said I was extremely careful with the car. I never pushed it and I never got on it beyond a quarter throttle. I will contact KD in the morning, but I wouldn't think that they would make that much noise! When you put new turbo's in did they make any load whining noises at all?

 

I had mine rebuilt by KDR, and I have no whine at all. KDR doesn't actually do the rebuild themselves though. They send the turbos out to a rebuilder, so they may not have much info for you right away.

All I hear is the turbo spooling sound, which is I guess somewhere between a whooooosh and a wistle.

 

me too!! All i hear is the whooosh/whistle and boom....blastoff!!!Only really heard this AFTER the DP went on.

 

I'm not sure which stud you are talking about, but make sure the spec is ft-lbs and not inch-pounds. You wouldn't be the first one to get torque units wrong and break a stud.

-Max

 

My Nightmare is that their is something wrong with these rebuilds. Which I'm leaning too... I'm sure that I torqued the hell out of those bolds so I really don't think it is a leak\, but I'm going to take it all the way down and try again.

By the way Max, thanks for such a great website, I have used your pillow bushing web page a few times, Maybe when this thing is all over I will do a write up on turbo replacements, lord knows I took a ton of pictures!
Matt

 

Yep the more and more I hear from people about this the more and more I think that KD's turbo rebuilders did some thing wrong. I won't get into details, but this has been the worst project ever. I replaced the motor and the transmission myself and this turbo problem has by far been the worst!

 

Mine had a whine before I rebulit them. The whine started on a trip from STL to Phoenix and back. It got much worse when I got home then the shaft in the secondary turbo broke, the noise was the turbine grinding into the turbo casting. I would pull them and tear em down. If the wrong parts rub you could ruin that motor.
Ned

 

That's great advice, I checked and I didn't feel any wiggle in any of the shafts, but I am tearing them down. I was using this car as my daily driver... but 6 weeks without a car and renting a rental car has become crazy. I think I'm going to try and buy a daily driver around 1700 bucks. Maybe a ford tarus or something.
Matt

 

Turbos that are out of balance will often whine.

 

Well duboiser was pretty close to right. I took the turbo's out and the primary turbo's front compressor "fan" can be whiggled probably 4mm, up and down.
So for anyone searching this was a bad rebuild and I'm sending them back.

Matt

 

4mm up and down is damn a lot....hopefully KD will honor the warranty with no problems or headaches. Let us know what they do.

Also, get your *** out to one of the Atlanta meets again when the cars back together. Haven't seen ya in quite a while.

Tim

 

So to those of U that actually changed your turbo's did you prime the engine at all when you did your rebuilds? Meaning did you crank the motor with out the fuel pump fuse in so you could prime the turbo's with oil the first time? I didn't...
I just shipped the broken turbo's back to them and they said on the phone (before seeing them) that it sounded like the turbo's didn't get any oil.
However I didn't change anything. I changed the oil before cranking the car up and the last turbo's just leaked a bit of oil and had an exhaust leak it wasn't anything oil related to their failure.
Matt

 

you checked that feed line!!! I remember asking you and you said you checked and it had/has oil in it. Stick to your ground!! It had oil going to them. the few seconds it will take for the oil system to become primed, SHOULD not harm the turbos to the extent that you have 4mm of shaft/wheel movement!! Make them honor their warranty !! If not , Hire a lawyer! DON'T get bent over! My girl went to law school in atalnta, maybe she knows someone in the area.

 

Yeah I agree I don't think that I did anything wrong. I'm not going to jump to any conclusions until I hear back from them. So I'm only upset that the rebuild didn't go right, I'm not upset with them... yet. These things happen I understand, but we just have to see what they say. BigIslandSevens, thank you so much for your support. Hopefully it will not come to that.

When I undid the oil supply line a little bit of oil did drip out and that was after the car was sitting for a day or two, although amost no oil came out of the oil return lines. That scares me a bit. We will just have to see.

I will keep ya'll posted.

Thanks
matt

 

did you happen to test the feed line under pressure?(Car ruuning.) That would have been a good test to see if it was pumping to it. Although since there was some there after a couple of days I would lean towards it was working. I agree give them a chance, they sound pretty reputable, I've just had it happen to me with other shops and busines's so it doesn't hurt to think/plan for the hard fight. Did your oil preesure gauge show pressure? What if it did?@ idle? @ under throttle load?

 

don't fell too bad it happens. my turbos had to be sent back four times. im not going to say who did them but it wasnt KD or BNR. they guy would tell me they were fine the 3rd time so i had an rx7 performance shop that install my engine take care of the issue for me. after they came back there was turbo whirl, apparently they messed them up again and the blades were hitting the housing above 4k rpm. the issue was finally fixed, but the turbos started puffing. i have a new set on now though. apparenlty most hitachi cores cant be rebuilt and most shops cant tell why.