Write-up: Secondary to Primary Turbo Swap!
 

Well I just completed a swap from a blown primary turbo to a good secondary.

I thought I would try and document it after I finished it.
So the write up is really rough.
But it gives the basic idea and how to perform this.

Pleases let me know what I can do to clean this up.
And any other suggestions would be appreciated.

The write-up can be viewed Here: http://www.umsl.edu/~tch9gd/s2pswap.htm

Xcelir8.

Xcelit8.
Thanks for the information, It will come in handy. I am probably going to rebuild my turbo that was working however it was leaking oil in the duct.
Jimbo

I am in the process of doing this too. Good info.

Thanks

BC

I hope it helps you out. Good Luck.

Great! I had also pondered this same deal. Infact I made a pm to Dale Clark some time ago to ask a few question about it. Basically told me it was possible, but had never done it. I decided to stay with my used turbos as is, because they were in decent shape. I do have another set in the wings just waiting with a bad manifold. When the time comes this will be handy!!

If anyone wants to do this swap, make sure you un-tight the 6 M10 bolts that hold the turbo to the exhaust flange carefully. I did snap off one of the bolt head due to a seized fastener. Luckily I know this will happen so I was doing this disassemble practice on the bad turbo. Maybe PB Blaster would help this problem.

BC

You totally have to SOAK the turbine housings in PB Blaster for those bolts to come free nicely.

Also, a real biggie - the trickiest part is getting everything to line up. The center section, turbine housing, and compressor housing can rotate with regards to each other. If you get things out of alignment, the water and oil lines won't line up properly and you'll have leaks, banjo bolts that won't install, etc. Best bet is to scribe a line on each part to keep reference points that you can line up. You have to scribe - paint or something will come off with all the PB Blaster and whatnot.

Also, the snap rings that hold the compressor housing on are HUGE. I found two orange handle snap ring pliers that are massive at Harbor Freight - that's the only way I've found to properly remove that sucker. The snap ring is under high tension, too, so good luck with any other tool idea :).

If you're uncomfortable with doing the swap, I'm sure a turbo shop would be happy to do it for a reasonable fee. I've even thought about making a jig for proper reassembly.

BTW, removing the turbing housing is a good thing to know. I bought my car with a just-installed Mazda reman at 68,000 miles, and by 80,000 miles I got smoking problems. The previous motor had an apex seal that went through the secondary turbo, chewing up the blades. This eventually led to enough of an imbalance that the oil seals failed, making smoke. Just looking at the turbo showed it to be fine - you could only see the damage with the turbine housing off. So, that's worth checking if you lose an apex seal - it's not hard to damage the turbos.

Dale

Thanks for adding Dale.

I used an impact gun on the 10mm bolts that hold on the exhaust housing.

As for lining up everything after reassembly I used the y-pipe and oil/coolant lines to line everything up.