Jump to content
SAU Community

Has anyone broken a compressor wheel before?

Lithium

By Lithium,
in Engines & Forced Induction

 Share

Recommended Posts

Lithium Grand Master

Lithium

Posted
Posted

I've finally sorted out a new turbo for my car so pulled off the stock turbo off my R33 Spec2 which crapped out at the drags a couple of months back - and pulled it apart to find out what the damage was. Turns out that there is a bit missing from the nylon compressor wheel!!!

This isn't something I've heard of, and I'm not too sure what could have caused it - I always run it with a filter. Anyone seen this before? Should I be concerned about where the nylon went? (The ballbearing core is stuffed too...)

Cameron_Datto Contributor

Cameron_Datto

Posted
Posted

I have same Turbo and My Turbo had the same things happen as yours ,, piece missing on the Plastic Compressor wheel .. ALso Turbine SHAFT where the BAll BEARINGS run on had excessive wear on about 180deg of ball bearing running contact face on both bearings BUT the other 180deg of the bearing contact was normal this would make the turbine shaft to run off center when it rotated ,due to the Egg shaped wear on the shaft

.. Just before the Ceramic Wheel let go ,, there was excessive oil smoke from the exhaust .. also it idled higher i guess it was from the pieces of the compressor wheel jamming throttle body ,, when i started to boost it was noisey from the Turbo and then no boost..the CERAMIC wheel said BYE BYE .. Just before this all happen i have driven the car HARD the previous time i used it .. And i thought what may have caused it was that the oil was to thin and broke down under the high temps causing the bearings to wear .. and put it out of balance which caused the compressor wheel to brake .. which made the balance worse causing the seal to leak .. then the ceramic wheel lets go ..

if any one has other ideas on what happened let me know .. as i havent got a reason for the Oval shaped bearing wear on the turbine shaft .. which i recon is the start of the problem .... DID YOUR Ceramic Wheel let go ? Cheers Cam

Lithium Grand Master

Lithium

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Some of that sounds similar - I get a click when rotating the wheels, but the ceramic exhaust wheel is perfectly in tact. I shut the car off as soon as I heard dodgey noises from the bearings, and the only time it has moved again was to drive it on the trailer to tow home. When it was idling on the trailer it sounded perfectly normal.... I'm kind of worried about where the nylon may have got though.

Has your engine sustained any damage?

Cameron_Datto Contributor

Cameron_Datto

Posted
Posted

i Dont believe its any thing to do with the air filter ..because of where the compressor wheel brakes .. most of the chunky bits would end up in the intercooler inlet side while the finner bits would filter though that .. so the internal damage of the engine would be minimal ,, Due to being Nylon .. BUT if you dont clean out you intercooler you might have problems ..

Lithium Grand Master

Lithium

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Now that I think about it, I think I know what happened to the broken piece of compressor - we were sure we heard something drop out when we removed the piping which comes off the compressor and heads towards the intercooler, but couldn't work out what it would be. There is probably a piece of compressor wheel lying on the floor in my garage somewhere :rofl:

It was only later when we pulled the turbo apart that we realised what had happened inside.

Also, just out of interest - the turbo otherwise appears perfectly healthy. The amount of shaft play is normal for a healthy turbo, and there was NO smoke.

r33gtst196 Contributor

r33gtst196

Posted
Posted
I have same Turbo and My Turbo had the same things happen as yours ,, piece missing on the Plastic Compressor wheel  .. ALso  Turbine  SHAFT where the BAll BEARINGS  run on had excessive wear on about 180deg of ball bearing running contact face  on both bearings BUT the other 180deg of the bearing contact was normal   this would make the turbine shaft to run off center when it rotated ,due to the Egg shaped wear on the shaft  

..     Just before the Ceramic Wheel  let go ,, there was  excessive oil smoke from the exhaust ..  also it idled higher i guess it was from the pieces of the compressor wheel jamming throttle body ,, when i started to boost it was noisey from the Turbo  and then no boost..the CERAMIC  wheel said BYE BYE ..      Just before this all happen i have driven the car HARD the previous  time i used it ..     And i thought what may have caused it was that  the oil was to thin and broke down under the high temps causing the bearings to wear ..   and put it out of balance which caused  the compressor wheel to brake  .. which made the balance worse causing the seal to leak    .. then the ceramic wheel lets go ..

 if any one has other ideas on what happened  let me know ..  as i havent got a reason for the Oval shaped bearing  wear on the turbine shaft .. which i recon is the start of the problem  .... DID YOUR Ceramic Wheel let go ?    Cheers Cam

What boost were you running when ya did this

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • joshuaho96
      Unpeeling the Orange

      By joshuaho96 · Posted

      The average previous owner for these cars were basically S-chassis owners in the US. Teenagers or teenager-adjacent. I often tell people that neglect is easier to fix than something that was actively "repaired" by previous owners.
    • MBS206
      Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

      By MBS206 · Posted

      All I hear is ROADTRIP!
    • sunsetR33
      Unpeeling the Orange

      By sunsetR33 · Posted

      Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • Kapr
      What brakes on R34 GTT(Europe)

      By Kapr · Posted

      No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • wizlb
      Who has a Infiniti Q60, Q50 (V37)?

      By wizlb · Posted

      I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
×
×
  • Create New...