well, i manged to find the wastegate - and the rod moves back and forth, so it doesnt seem to be stuck. (is there something else that would be stuck?) How do I check the turbine shaft for play, or the turbine for bent / broken fins without pulling the turbo out? Can the turbo come out without pulling the manifold?

I now have the car jacked up, but honestly, I cant reach a whole lot... from under it... i have the TIP off, and many of the other hoses are out of the way now. I'm going to be ripping out the charge pipe soon, too.

I'll need to cut my old DP off, because the idiots at the shop welded my DP to the CaT to the muffler. The ONLY flange I have is at my DP. lol.

When I start the car and rev it, it doesnt rev past 4k, and the car will not go more than 20mph. I also hear this wicked grinding noise from under the car (sounds like grinding/ticking/air whooshing). The engine otherwise sounds normal. Car makes 0 Boost. Runs at normal Vac.

I would think cogged cat, but there's still exhaust gas coming out.

 

your dp is going to have to come out if the turbo is comin out

 

yeah, i've come to that conclusion. its actually a good thing, because I have a 3" blacktraxx DP for the car, but i need to get the flange repaired.

 

are you trying to start and rev while your dismantling your car? or it wont go past 4k with everything in?

 

yes - with it all connected.

4 weeks ago, the car misfired under heavy boost (i was thinking plugs / coils). Had a CEL
3 weeks ago, the car lost all boost and would misfire on full throttle. Had a CEL
2 weeks ago, the car sat waiting to be fixed, but drove ok (still had ZERO boost). Turbo noise was gone.
1 week ago, the car would not rev beyond 4k rpm and would not really go beyond 20mph, so I now have to work on it in my cold garage. i can hear a grinding / whooshing air sound from un the car coming from somewhere in the section near the Turbo, DP, CAT. Almost sounds like the CAT.

 

yikes.

You should be able to feel the turbo shaft for play, but actually seeing it to measure will be damn near impossible w/o removing it from the car.

If you pull your turbo inlet off, you should be able to reach your arm down the space the inlet occupied, and get your fingers into the compressor. Grab the end of the shaft and wiggle side to side, and in/out. Should move a little, but not very much. Kinda where it becomes hard, because if you cant see how much its moving, its hard to tell whats acceptable or not.

Regardless, it shouldn't turn with difficulty, and it shouldn't make noise, so if you have either of those, I'd get ready to pull the turbo and see what it ate.

BTW, those are a lot of the symptoms my car has, minus the turbo noise, and the CEL. I'm confused as hell, car ran ok, then I replaced the head gasket, and it ran like **** the minute I started it back up. Retraced all my steps, and I can't see anything I'd have done wrong.

I can drive it, but I can't get into boost, or it misfires and loads up. Its just like anti-lag, but w/o any of the benefits. Wondering if I cracked a wire in the harness for the coilpacks. Symptoms like bad plugs/packs, but they're fine. Next up the ladder is the harness to the plugs/packs. What gets me though is NO codes, unless I stand on it until it starts spitting fire out the tailpipe, then I get a misfire code.

 

well, i'll be working on it this weekend. I don't have a replacement turbo yet, so for now, I'm just taking things apart. i pulled off all the black hoses.

The little 90* is for the charge pipe right? The TIP is the big black one that the MAF plugs into? If so, I can't really reach my hand down there and fee the turbine in the compressor.

Is there something else that needs to come off the compressor in order to feel the turbine?

 

turbo inlet IS the big black hose the MAF hooks too. Unless you bench 400lbs and have monstrous arms I can't think of any reason you couldn't reach the turbo.

What'd you do to unclamp the turbo inlet from the compressor? You must have got down in there somehow.

 

well the big black hose came off after i pulled a pin on the compressor. i still cant see or reach the turbine. i know im not going crazy. ill try and get some pics later if i cant figure it out.

 

The inlet pipe that you removed goes into a hard pipe on the compressor side. There's a1 torx screw holding the hard pipe onto the compressor housing. Remove the screw and viewing/touching the compressor wheel will be very easy