Potential Damage With Blown Turbos

[RB26TTVL]

I blew the ceramic turbo's on my R33 RB26, and have since replaced them with hi flowed steel wheel jobbies. However, since i've gotten it all back together, have noticed some severe side effects.

(1) Well down on power despite producing solid boost. Also producing white smoke.

(2) Getting a fair bit of crap out of the exhaust, which we assume to be the cat converter. Will have it on a hoist later today to check that out. Maybe it's choked up the exhaust.

(3) After breaking the exhaust wheel off, there was oil through the intake system. Was running 12psi on the stock turbos, computer and internals.

It was only driven a very short distance (1-2km) after the turbo went, and was running fine before that. The fuel system is a bosch 044 with a surge tank, so it shouldn't have run lean and done ring damage should it?

Once we get the exhaust off it might solve a lot of mysteries, but I'm interested in people's past experiences. I did do a search but couldn't get anything as specific as i'd like.

Cheers.

[R31Nismoid]

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...id=2900892&

I think that sticky will answer a lot of questions

RB26 turbo failures are very well documented here on SAU.

Basically more often than not, when the turbo lets go... which usually is the rear one aswell just for the fact of accuracy

Then your likely to have ingested a bit of ceramic dust/particles which could have caused internal damaged.

A leakdown/comp test will soon tell you the story.

LD/CT should have been done before putting on the new turbos.

Good luck with it, hopefully you have not lunched a motor

[RB26TTVL]

You're right, it was the rear one.

So, even if the compressor wheel is/was still attached there is a chance that dust and crap got through??

Thanks, also, the sticky link leads to a metal fabrication thread, but i'll get into that section and search around too.

Cheers!

[R31Nismoid]

Ceramic = the rear.

Nothing to do with the comp wheel *most* of the time

Whops... try this one:

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...showtopic=46581

I've been doing a few things today, copied the wrong link

[RB26TTVL]

Never mind, found a thread now that explains a fair bit, fingers crossed theres no internal damage, but I have a deep feeling of dread within my wallet.

[wrxhoon]

You're right, it was the rear one.

So, even if the compressor wheel is/was still attached there is a chance that dust and crap got through??

Thanks, also, the sticky link leads to a metal fabrication thread, but i'll get into that section and search around too.

Cheers!

It is the exhaust wheel that causes the damage to the engine( ceramic) , not the compressor wheel.

A compression and leakdown test will confirm if there is damage or not, you could be lucky ???

This is what could happen:

[RB26TTVL]

It is the exhaust wheel that causes the damage to the engine( ceramic) , not the compressor wheel.

A compression and leakdown test will confirm if there is damage or not, you could be lucky ???

This is what could happen:

I've read through a few of the posts about this kind of damage, but I still can't picture how the ceramic dust gets through to the cylinder, obviously it does somehow???

[R31Nismoid]

People have gone over the theories as to it all... there was a bit thread about it. End of the day, it happens

Not sure what section though.

Might have been this one

[RB26TTVL]

Cheers for the direction guys. I'll keep you posted. fingers crossed.

On the bright side, it'll probaly lead to a RB26/30 build!...eventually!

[rb26s13]

It is the exhaust wheel that causes the damage to the engine( ceramic) , not the compressor wheel.

A compression and leakdown test will confirm if there is damage or not, you could be lucky ???

This is what could happen:

wat just wondering how the compression test went on that one after the turbo blew..

i blew my rear turbo and managed to maintain a even 165 or 175psi across all of them (cant remember which but it was exactly the same across all 6)

Edited February 13, 2007 by rb26s13

[wrxhoon]

wat just wondering how the compression test went on that one after the turbo blew..

i blew my rear turbo and managed to maintain a even 165 or 175psi across all of them (cant remember which but it was exactly the same across all 6)

Have a good look at the 3 pistons dude, can you see the scoremarks in the pic? They are totaly stuffed on the other hand the 3 front ones were very slightly scored. but because a lot of stuff was sucked in in that engine , the pistons and the head has pits and ceramic stuff stuck in them .

Compression on the 3 rears wa svery low, I cant remember of hand but around the 40-60 psi mark. There was no need to do a comp test in that engine, I just did it to see the resaults, the front 3 had normal comp at about 165 but if I did a leakdown even they would have had plenty loss.

[amosite]

^^ do you own the pistons in the pic? If so is there any chance they can be sent to my engine builder? I would like his professional opinion on them

[wrxhoon]

^^ do you own the pistons in the pic? If so is there any chance they can be sent to my engine builder? I would like his professional opinion on them

Yes I do and as you can see they are not melted at all, you can see the little pieces spiking up . If you don't accept that just ask others in this very forum that have had it happen to them. I have my theory of how and why it happens on RB26's but I won't go in to that now .

You are the odd one out this time, when this happened to me there were heaps like you that didn't believe.

The pistons in that pic were only a few months old, if you knew anything about pistons you should be able to tell that they are 20 thou oversize. It can be clearly seen in the pic ( .50 ) on the top of the piston .

The car that engine was in was mine at the time and no I wasn't driving it , I didn't get the pleasure of blowing it up. Only got the pleasure of re-building the engine.

You are more than welcome to inspect the pistons yourself if you like but I know its not going to convice you ..

[amosite]

Err, you cant see any piston crowns in these pic's- not that it matters what size they are...

http://images.google.com/images?q=piston%2...sa=N&tab=wi

http://www.apexleisure.co.uk/pistondiagnosis.htm (burn out/blow hole)

http://www.ultralightnews.com/rotaxpiston/pistonfail2.htm

I can see the rough texture (on your other post), some of it looks like the melting like in the above link/s but the majority looks like something hard has been floating around in there. If something hard has been in there, why is it only isolated to the edges? Its interesting and now starting to bug the shit out of me!

I have actually melted a piston so badly it had a whole the size of a 20c piece (cracked intake pipe on a WRX, running 24 psi racing some guy on old winsor rd)

More often then not, most melting looks like the top of the piston has been eaten away by some sort of acid leaving pitting.

Does it sort of look like that?

[wrxhoon]

Err, you cant see any piston crowns in these pic's- not that it matters what size they are...

http://images.google.com/images?q=piston%2...sa=N&tab=wi

http://www.apexleisure.co.uk/pistondiagnosis.htm (burn out/blow hole)

http://www.ultralightnews.com/rotaxpiston/pistonfail2.htm

I can see the rough texture (on your other post), some of it looks like the melting like in the above link/s but the majority looks like something hard has been floating around in there. If something hard has been in there, why is it only isolated to the edges? Its interesting and now starting to bug the shit out of me!

I have actually melted a piston so badly it had a whole the size of a 20c piece (cracked intake pipe on a WRX, running 24 psi racing some guy on old winsor rd)

More often then not, most melting looks like the top of the piston has been eaten away by some sort of acid leaving pitting.

Does it sort of look like that?

I know I cant convince you you try to find a reason to say they are melted , I know they are not.

I told you I have seen plenty melted pistons in real life I don't need to look at pics . If you want to see waht they look like in real life just go to any outbord workshop , you will see plenty there ..

End of story .

[MANWHORE]

I remember back about 2 years ago when no one believed that the ceramic dust could go back through the engine.

Even the notorious Sydneykid didn't and still doesn't believe it (nothing against sk).

Back then, no one even suspected that this could be the problem. You'd see the odd thread like oh, blew my turbo, my engine's also gone, but no one linked it to the turbos letting go.

Sure, it seems hard to believe, but it did happen to wrxhoon.

Ever since he found that out, it's happened to many others after that. Probably 5-10 occurences that were actually documented on sau last year?

There have been a million threads with people arguing both sides e.g. how can fine dust go upstream of high velocity gas at wot. Then there is the other side ....

As wrxhoon said. It happens. That's it, end of story.

If you happen to have an engine that is still good after the turbo lets go, you have good luck.

[rb26s13]

If you happen to have an engine that is still good after the turbo lets go, you have good luck.

thank f**k mine appears to be..

so when peoples turbos have gone have they noticed and backed off or kept into it with out relising instantly(relised after 10 or so seconds)?

[IanB]

Hey dudes, has anyone ever considered that how it happens is the fins come off the compressor wheel then go through the intake, being made out of ceramics they hit the IC at high speeds, fracture then the IC makes cheese out of them, which proceeds to go through the engine?

Would be the most logical conclusion to me...

[wrxhoon]

Hey dudes, has anyone ever considered that how it happens is the fins come off the compressor wheel then go through the intake, being made out of ceramics they hit the IC at high speeds, fracture then the IC makes cheese out of them, which proceeds to go through the engine?

Would be the most logical conclusion to me...

Its the exhaust wheel that lets go, the compressor wheel is NOT ceramic.

[IanB]

ahh ok, sorry. newbie here...