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Help! Sick Stagea M35 2002 - Intake Issue Or Fried Turbo?

luthepa1

By luthepa1,
in Four Door Family & Wagoneers

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luthepa1 Contributor

luthepa1

Posted
Posted

Hey Guys,

Well my week before Xmas is shaping up to be worse and worse. Today its my car. It has started to make a very loud industrial sounding vacumm cleaner noise shall we say... lol. And it seems to be completely insync with when the turbo would spool. Initially I thought its a intake restriction (maybe a door/flap not opening any more) but now I am getting even more paranoid that its the turbo that has shat itself.

So my car has always made a turbo spool up noise since I bought it 2+ years ago in Aug 2010. Initially I thought "oh no... I have a fried turbo". But later I found info online that this is the normal operating noise of the VQ25DET turbo setup. I hope to this day that is true. Either way the car has always behaved well in accelerating and never missed a beat and no smoke or anything. A1. I will attach before and after sound bites I have taken. Good thing I have the "before" on hand still. My car is completely stock with exception of a HDi front mount intercooler I installed my self. I checked today the intake fitting as best I could without taking the bumper and reobar off and all looks ok. Although I did notice there is a small coolant leak on the car LHS.

So today was driving home with wife and kid. I had the aircon cranked up to max as it was 30*C outside at the time. I was on a uphill slope sitting at the traffic lights. They went green and I floored it to beat the other off the line with the car locked down into 1st gear in sequential mode. Acceleration was poor but jsut thought that's the usual for having aircon on. Then at the next set of light with only a slight uphill this time acceleration was poor once again which I thought was strange AND THEN... I hear this very loud unusual sound. Best way I can describe it is like a vacuum cleaner. Or a wurring sound but not really a siren sound. My immediate impression was that the lack of acceleration was due to a choking engine from restricted intake. If the car is rolling or not accelerating you dont hear the sound but apply a little to max gas pedal (another words make the turbo kick in) then the sound is very strong a loud to hear.

I stopped at a servo to check ECU fault codes as I had a similar thing on a subaru legacy when if I accelerated in a too higher gear like 4th uphill, the ECU would sense the turbo boost not rising quick enough and go into safe/limp home mode. To fix that I would reset the ECU and all fixed. Anyway back to the stagea and the check engine light was giving me 4 groups of 10 flashes, another words 0000 - no fault. I reset the ECU anyway while in diagnostic check mode. All this did was now make the engine run rough as shit at idle now with a tapping noise going on in the intake manifold area but got better over time. I then decided after mucking around in the engine bay for a while to limp it home very carefully (hoping I have not made things worse - but now maybe good excuse to upgrade? - lol). The limp home helped idle as the ECU seems to have relearnt the air/fuel mixture I guess.

So I am posting this for advice or help. Listen to the attached sound files of before and after and let me know what you thoughts are. Is my turbo sounding fried? Or is it something thats probably stuck shut on intake or needs reset? Love to hear any kind of feedback as tomorrow first thing now I need to get this car sorted before the Xmas period.

Thanks in advance,

Paul.

Sound bite 1 - before:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27909437/Stagea%20-%20before.wav

Sound bite 2 - Sick Stagea:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27909437/My%20Sick%20Stagea%20M35%20Turbo%202002.mp4

Note: The sound file labelled sick stagea I took on my Galaxy S3 which saves as a 3ga file which is meant to be a mp4a file according to vlc. I have renamed extension to mp4 so it can be recognised by media players. Let me know if its not working.

NickM91 Collaborator

NickM91

Posted
Posted

mine sounded very similar to the normal sound you posted for ages as well. When my turbo went it didn't quite sound like the latter clip, but it was similar. It didn't even sound as bad but when it was pulled out and apart sure enough the turbo was rooted Based on the similarity i'd be inclined to say yours has gone mate.

I'd hold tight for someone with a more mechanical back ground than myself though ;)

loymclure Proficient

loymclure

Posted
Posted

Sounds the same as mine. There was a whistle for ages then all of a suddern it went to a very low pitch whistle but loud as hell, jetwreck ( Craig ) explained it perfectly to me..... The bearing in the turbo goes to shit and it ends up causing the impeller blades to rub on the housing causing them to break off. I can only guess the low pitch drone is what's left spinning inside.... And after that happens no blades mean no boost = no power.

zei20l Grand Master

zei20l

Posted
Posted

Mine made the same noise.... DEAD

When you turn off your car can you here tr turbo fan spinning... If so turbo dead....

Search for jetwreck he was a gr8 help for me

the what spinning? the factory bush bearing turbo wont spin much after you turn off the engine. BB cores will spin for ages!

Daleo Grand Master

Daleo

Posted
Posted (edited)

no trash talking here. I love poorly made eastern European cars with reversing sensors I may or may not choose to believe when parking!

FYP. ;)

Edited by Daleo
wht510 Experienced

wht510

Posted
Posted

I had something similar happen in my car.

The car felt slower and slower and just wouldn't rev up top. No fault codes. I inpsected everything in the intake, and nothing was wrong.

Turned out the rear muffler had collapsed (mild steel inner!) and the exhaust was leaking out of a hole in the centre muffler and that's where the vacuum sounding noise was coming from!

Ripped the old muffler out, and ripped all the guts out. put it back on, and presto, nasty (as in sounding awesome) idle, and it was loud under full noise, but overall back to normal.

Ordered my fujitsubo the next day and fitted it, and now she's quiet!

How many K's have you done with your car?

Have you checked the oil level?

Daleo Grand Master

Daleo

Posted
Posted

bastard!! hahaha

true though, I did ignore them.

good pizza that night!

LOL, very good night indeed.

And back on topic, that cruise was pretty much the final hurrah for my OEM turbo...

gldwgn Enthusiast

gldwgn

Posted
Posted

my c34 made a similar sound to what you describe when i blew the turbo to manifold gasket, i was originally thinking an intake restriction before i found it as well, also had a distinct lack of power as well, replaced the gasket and all was good.

Might be worth looking into before condeming the turbo.

scotty nm35 Grand Master

scotty nm35

Posted
Posted

If the gasket is gone you will see it when the turbo is removed, but considering the amount of labour involved in removing the turbo, I would be getting it highflowed anyway.

scotty nm35 Grand Master

scotty nm35

Posted
Posted

It's a good idea to change the dump at least, while you are there. As long as you keep the turbo wheels almost stock sized, it should all work fairly well on the factory mapping.

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