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Turbo failure story

Eagle

Nemo me impune lacessit
Moderator
TCG Premium
Mar 1, 2008
63,904
4,732
Woodsticks, IL
So long story short, the PT88 failed on Thursday when I decided to take the car to work. This is the story of the aftermath.

I've been tuning the car on my own. Tweaking the tune, driving, tweaking, driving. The car had been running excellently since the 1/2 mile. I was working on squeezing out the last few drops of power from the car.

Having the car @ work for the first time this year meant I had to take a couple people for a drive. 3 quick rides went great... the 4th, was a bit different. I took a quick lap around the block and 1/2 way around I made a quick 1st gear pull and shut it down. Immediately after that pull, I noticed that the car felt like I had blown off a charge pipe somewhere so I took it right back to the office. The motor was still running fine, aside from feeling obviously laggy, just like when a cold side coupler comes loose. Got it parked in the lot and noted that the turbo sounds were 100% gone from the car. Checked all the piping, everything was in place... that didn't leave me with too many options. Pulled off the cold air intake pipe and went for the compressor fins... they wouldn't move at all. :fu:

Made an emergency call to SRT41320 to borrow his trailer, had my wife grab it from him and drive it out to pick the car up from Naperville. Thankfully the office was having a party Thursday, so after I found the turbo seized, I went back in to have a couple beers to drown my sorrows. :rofl: Wifey showed up a couple hours later (its a WAY long drive and I owe her a huge thanks for doing this for me!) and we towed the car back home.

Got up Friday morning and pulled the turbo out of the car. Thankfully, both fans looked like they were 100% intact. This is a huge plus. Means that both the compressor and turbine wheels as well as the housings should be in good shape.

I called up Jeff @Goodfellas Garage and he pointed me to Midwest Fuel Injection in Palatine. I called them up, and spoke with Bryant. He told me to come out as he thought he could fix it for me. :fy:!!!!!

I get there, he looked at it for about 30 seconds and says, I'm going to have to send this out. I don't have any Precision parts here. :fu: I explain to him that I'm looking to get the car on the track Friday night and I really need it fixed ASAP and asked where he was going to send it to. He paused for what seemed like forever with a relucant look on his face then told me that this place was in Minooka, called R&S Distributing.

He called up Rich @ R&S and asked if he had time to work on my turbo, that I had a race that night I was trying to get to. He agreed and told Bryant to send me over after taking my name and my turbo info.

I get to R&S and find Rich. He tells me to put the turbo on a bench, that his guy Russ will be helping me out in just a minute. Apologized that he had to leave for lunch, and took off. I was left waiting for Russ. This is when I realize that this place is CHUCK FULL of turbos. Most of the pics below are from that shop.

Great guys, great service, amazing amount of parts available. If you ever need turbo service, call up Rich @ R&S (815) 467-9545.
 

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Eagle

Nemo me impune lacessit
Moderator
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Mar 1, 2008
63,904
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Woodsticks, IL
A few pics from the shop, then what ended up being my failure point. The compressor housing backing plate. I guess there's some sort of race that the bearing chassis rides on. The guys are R&S said it looked to them like the tolerances in the turbo were too tight, which caused the parts to start to make contact and generate heat. Basically, the backing plate seized to the bearing chassis.

They inspected my turbine housing, the shaft and turbine wheel, compressor wheel and housing. All good. Informed me that the backing plate is a part that Precision makes themselves and that you can only get it from them. Oh and by the way, they don't sell parts to their turbos - so good luck getting them to agree to release any parts to you. I got a whole back story on how Harry @ Precision used to work for Garrett, how he then started his own shop, and now how Garrett has dropped him after Harry started making his own parts and needed less and less from Garrett.

They then informed me that there was no charge for tearing down and inspecting my turbo because they weren't able to fix anything. I thanked them and took my stuff and jumped in the truck, headed for Precision.
 

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Eagle

Nemo me impune lacessit
Moderator
TCG Premium
Mar 1, 2008
63,904
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Woodsticks, IL
Here you can see the two housing sides and Precision's new building located in Hebron, Indiana. I had no idea it was that close... else I might have just gone there first! :roflpicard:

Anyways, I get there right as they're closing. This after "discussing" with their sales guy Pete, about how I really needed the stuff to get this turbo fixed TODAY. They were very reluctant to say they could do anything at all to assist, but told me if I wanted to come out there anyways, I was welcome to do so. I had spoken to them on Thursday and was told that I could just ship in the turbo, that it'd be 10 business days + time to get parts to have it fixed. Actually showing up at the shop and talking with the guys there moved me up in the line and they're going to look at the turbo first thing Monday.

They seemed to think that I needed a new rear cover and bearing assembly (although R&S thought the bearings were OK) - I was glad to hear that was all I needed after initial inspection. The tech guys (I can't recall their names) were very cool and understanding, but they literally had 5min until the end of their day on Friday... so I understood that they just didn't have time to work on it for me then.

Long story short... I tried LIKE HELL to get this fixed in time for RSD. I REALLY wanted to get my races off. Instead, I spent 10hrs driving all over the damn place trying to get this turbo fixed without any luck.

I guess I'll have to make good on my races @ the July RSD!
 

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rocket5979

Gearhead
Nov 15, 2005
6,576
18
Round Lake, IL
Long story short... I tried LIKE HELL to get this fixed in time for RSD. I REALLY wanted to get my races off. Instead, I spent 10hrs driving all over the damn place trying to get this turbo fixed without any luck.

I guess I'll have to make good on my races @ the July RSD!



That's too bad to hear Dan. Even though you won't have much downtime or cost into getting the car running again, it still sucks when you miss an event you really wanted to run at. BTW, if you if you happen to see a few T3 PT5957's down there pick 2 of them up for me.......I'm good for it......I promise......lol :pedobear:
 
That's too bad to hear Dan. Even though you won't have much downtime or cost into getting the car running again, it still sucks when you miss an event you really wanted to run at. BTW, if you if you happen to see a few T3 PT5957's down there pick 2 of them up for me.......I'm good for it......I promise......lol :pedobear:

U upgrading ur turbos?
 
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