I purchased my car almost 2 years ago. I was told it had a new Turbonetics T66. I've driven the car roughly 15k miles. I usually run 13 psi and occassionally bump it up to 20 psi when I have 100 octane. My mechanic pulled off the compressor housing and found that it was "puking" oil, has a bent fin on the compressor, and has a bit of shaft play.

How long should a turbo last? I didn't think they needed rebuilds so soon. One thing that might be significant is that I have one BOV, a Greddy Type R. I know it meant for higher boost applications, but it came with the car and never questioned it. When I apply light throttle and build 0-1 psi and release the throttle, I get a rattlesnake sound from the turbo side of the car. My understanding is that this is compressor surge. Would 15k miles of that do what I described to the turbo? Should I get a smaller BOV like a Type S and weld it to the other side of the intercooler pipes? Would this prevent the problem?

Also, my car only made 425 whp @ 20 psi with AFRs in the low 11s/high 10s. I'm getting a compression check to be sure that is ok, but assuming it is, would the turbo's condition affect that significantly? If compression checks out, I'm going to have the turbo pulled off and rebuilt; however, I would like to modify it some so that I can be "guaranteed" to make more power at the same boost level. I really was shooting for 500 whp @ 20 psi, but 475 whp would be good too. I don't have any porting done to the UIM or LIM, so that might help some. I'm planning on getting WI installed as well.

Well, thanks for reading. Please let me know your thoughts and opinions.

 

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