Got an opinion question for you.

Recently, my '95 PEP FD3S (only 39K miles) developed an intake leak. The dealership said that they couldn't find the problem, but said it wasn't much to worry about. Well, it was. The unmetered air caused the O2 sensor to read the mixture as lean, and increase the fuel quantity. The extra fuel caused the turbo and cats to run extra hot, and after awhile, the turbo and cats have now been officially "cooked". I tried to pass DEQ, but failed miserably. I went back to the shop, and they did a lot of digging to find the actual problems.

Anyways, after around $1500 in gasket repairs and fixing vacuum hoses, etc., they had to order new cats (thankfully, those are still under the factory warrantee on emissions equipment). However, the turbo, while still operational, shows signs of heat damage (cracks to the manifold on the hot side, esp. the flange). It's still working, but if I can afford it, I'd like to put a replacement in. Affordable defined as a few hundred bucks.

Do you have any suggestions?

Rob from Pineapple thinks that putting in a thermally-shielded downpipe in place of the precat, putting in some new coolant from EvansCooling.com and a new turbo would solve the issue once and for all (the overheating tendency). I'm tempted to just throw the old turbo back on and wait until it dies a year or two from now and deal with it then, understanding it will cost around $500-800 just to rip the car apart again. But, that will be then.

What's your advice? Who sells the best downpipes? Any advice on Evans Coolant? Any sources for quality used or rebuilt turbochargers?

Thanks for your input -

Rob

 

the cracks on the manifold are pretty normal. But getting a DP will help decrease the heat in the engine bay, which is very important.

evans is good coolant, i have it in my car.

get a boost guage and make sure u have 10-8-10 boost patterns, this will tell u if ur turbines are really dead.