hi... a friend of mine with a recently purchased `93 (40k miles) says that the shop he had it checked up at told him the 'turbo hose' is 'bulging' under load.

they recommended to replace it, but also told him that it probably means that he may need to replace the turbos in the near future...

anyone ever hear anything like this? i have a fc3s n/a, so i don't know what to tell him.

can this cause problems with the turbo or are they being overly cautious?

tia.

 

bludging? well, what turbo hose and what type of buldge?
First tell him to go to a reputable rotary shop that knows what they are doing and what they are talking about. and the FD turbo system WILL buldge when it is boosting, if youve ever seen a turbo car on the dyno the engine seems to lift itself up, this is from the flexibility of the couplers holding the pressurized engine parts together. it will buldge a little bit but nothing that should cost labor or anything, it just happens.
Like when you blow up a ballon, it "buldges". Kinda hard to explain but i hope you get the picture. This shouldnt cause any problems towrads a rebuild on the turbos though. Tell your buddy too look arround, check nfo on the web, cuase if he got this car cuase its on F&F and it looks fast and it is fast and he drives it like a maniac everday, than he wont have a FD for long. And will only add to our already bad reputation I hope
help this helped some.
Huy

 

thanks. yeah... part of the problem is his story getting passed on to me second hand thru him... i don't know how accurately he is telling me what they told him.

my impression is that it's one of the hoses attached to the turbo that expands (like a balloon) under boost... but i'm not so familiar with how the turbos behave, so i can't tell him whether it's normal or not...

but the shop is supposed to be a mazda specialty shop... i don't know much about them tho.

thx again.

 

This sounds like normal operation to me, that is exactly what a turbocharger is supposed to do. The exhaust gas velocity spools up the turbine, which in turn compresses the intake air.. the intake air travels out of the turbo, through the rubber hose on the passenger side, through the intercooler, back through another rubber hose, and then past the TB into the manifold. The balloon is a great analogy, when you blow up a balloon you are creating a pressure difference between the outside atmosphere, and what is inside the balloon. Same thing happens with a turbo, only the rubber hoses don't expand quite as much as a balloon.

Matt
93 touring