Dezod , tornactive, or any of the other turbo gods on here please give me info. I have a sf turbo kit, that I have spent about 4 grand in extras. Everything is dialed in to the T but I had a problem with the turbo leaking oil. ( known sf turbo issue). I sent the turbo to turbo city down in LA Ca and they rebuilt the turbo for 300 bucks. I got the turbo back it worked fine for a while,, and then I started getting smoke out of the tail pipe. Well long story short the turbo is leaking oil again. The oil is only on the exhaust side, next to the shaft and vains. I tore the whole turbo apart and this is what I found.
Need some input guys, Im thinking that the turbo was never put together right from the get go with sf, and is missing a seal. I mean there is alot of oil comming out if the exhaust side of the turbo.
Question to you guys is, you think its worth putting more money into this one , or buy a new turbo? Also if i SHould buy a new one, Dezod do you have one that will adapt to my Garrett houseing?
Looking for input.
Well if they re-built it, then they should have taken care of all the seals, so I'm thinking you should be back where it was rebuilt raising hell. Otherwise, you should be able to just replace the center section fairly easily if its an off the shelf spec turbo.
Yes all the seals were replaced and the turbo was balanced to spec. WHat sucks is that it only carried a 90 day parts warrentry after the turbo was rebuilt and that has past.
Well you said you thought it was missing a seal, but then the shop you took it to should have put all new seals in.
I would take it back to the shop and raise hell anyways even if there is a warranty. Be like how can their be a warranty for a part that you never put in if it is in fact missing a seal.
shoulda sold it to me months ago and let me worry about that. Hehe, im just kidding mang, sorry to hear about it. BEST of luck mang, atleast its ur turbo leaking oil and not ur engine like mine is =(.
Another cause of a turbo passing oil it too much oil pressure. Put a pressure gauge on the oil feed line to the turbo and see what it is a idle and high rpms. Call the turbo company to see what the max pressure should be. If it's too high, you'll need to put a restrictor on the oil line. It's just a fitting with a smaller hole size that lets less oil pass through. If this is the cause, the seal will be ok and stop passing oil when the oil pressure is back in spec.
Also, if the oil return line is not flowing enough oil, it will cause oil to back up in the turbo and push past the seals.
Since the oil return is only gravity fed, it needs a nice smooth path from the turbo to the oil pan and preferably always draining downward towards the pan. The bigger the return line the better as the oil coming out of the turbo is foamy and anything you can do to help it flow back to the pan the better.
Ok, what size feed are you using? If it's bigger than a -4, it's too big and you are trying to run too much oil through the turbo at once. Step your feed line down to a -4 and you should have your turbos last.
Im running all -4 earls steel braded lines. The oil return drain line is more than big enough. Do these Oil Inlet Restrictor - T Series 1/8" NPT really work. Reason I ask, the car was sitting for a good 20 minutes at idle, and then started smoking. Im thinking maybe backup oil due to sitting at idle??? I havnt a clue what the turbo specs are as far as oil pressure because sf built this, and I have no contact info with catalyist anymore. My oil pressure gauge sitting at idle was 10 psi. This gauge is inline with the main feed line to the turbo. While under boost i was running anywhere from 10 to 85 psi of oil pressure. Normal????
yeah, if you have an SF turbo and no restrictor its flooding. You need one and yes they do work. The restrictor is a NPT/AN adapter with a much smaller hole than a normal adapter.
