Picked up the white 545is from Raleigh *story*

[Tjn182]

Me and Alex (Yellow) ventured out of Boone to pick up the white turbo car from Raleigh. We left around 4pm and arrived just after 7:30pm.
The car did GREAT coming home... except when we hit the mountains. Before the mountains the car just cruised along the highway with no problems. The second we started needing to downshift and use that turbo to get up the mountains... the turbo started to shit a brick.

Half way up the mountain Alex had to pull over because of the turbo noise and because he was flooring the car and was hardly moving. Turns out one of the intake boots slipped right off, causing a huge vacuum leak -- We fixed that.

The big concern was the turbo -- Even at idle you could hear that sucker scratch the housing. The dying turbo became more of an exhaust/intake restriction -- making idling an impossible feat.

After failed attempts to bypass the turbo by removing the wastegate and gutting out the BPV we put everything together and decided to haul ass up the mountain.

The car slugged up the mountain, puffing black smoke behind it at about 40mph. After the Blue Ridge we were able to go at about 45-50mph (55mph speed limit). We passed a cop who was suspicious of me tailing him at only 45mph -- after the butthole tailed my ass for over a mile and riding on my side for another mile, he cruised ahead to look for speeders (turning his radar gun on me and alex full blast after he passed us 100 yards ahead... asshole)

The car came into Boone making noise and slowly -- As we approach the school parking lot -- 100 feet from the entrance -- Alex pulls to the side because the car would NOT move. Parked in a service vehicle spot -- we knew we had to move the car. The car would NOT start, it would NOT move. After a good 5 minutes of cranking the engine over we got a few sparks of life and was able to keep those revs above 3000 -- Alex hauled ass into a parking spot where I believe the car will stay until it is towed away.

We got home at 2am

SO -- Does anyone have suggestions on what we can do to maybe drive the car 100 miles to Charlotte?

[Jeremy]

[QUOTE="Tjn182"]Me and Alex (Yellow) ventured out of Boone to pick up the white turbo car from Raleigh. We left around 4pm and arrived just after 7:30pm.
The car did GREAT coming home... except when we hit the mountains. Before the mountains the car just cruised along the highway with no problems. The second we started needing to downshift and use that turbo to get up the mountains... the turbo started to shit a brick.

Half way up the mountain Alex had to pull over because of the turbo noise and because he was flooring the car and was hardly moving. Turns out one of the intake boots slipped right off, causing a huge vacuum leak -- We fixed that.

The big concern was the turbo -- Even at idle you could hear that sucker scratch the housing. The dying turbo became more of an exhaust/intake restriction -- making idling an impossible feat.

After failed attempts to bypass the turbo by removing the wastegate and gutting out the BPV we put everything together and decided to haul ass up the mountain.

The car slugged up the mountain, puffing black smoke behind it at about 40mph. After the Blue Ridge we were able to go at about 45-50mph (55mph speed limit). We passed a cop who was suspicious of me tailing him at only 45mph -- after the butthole tailed my ass for over a mile and riding on my side for another mile, he cruised ahead to look for speeders (turning his radar gun on me and alex full blast after he passed us 100 yards ahead... asshole)

The car came into Boone making noise and slowly -- As we approach the school parking lot -- 100 feet from the entrance -- Alex pulls to the side because the car would NOT move. Parked in a service vehicle spot -- we knew we had to move the car. The car would NOT start, it would NOT move. After a good 5 minutes of cranking the engine over we got a few sparks of life and was able to keep those revs above 3000 -- Alex hauled ass into a parking spot where I believe the car will stay until it is towed away.

We got home at 2am

SO -- Does anyone have suggestions on what we can do to maybe drive the car 100 miles to Charlotte? [/QUOTE]

I guess the obvious answer (replace the shot turbo!) would be out of the question in that kind of work situation?

[Tjn182]

Well we took the sucker apart today in the school parking lot. The cold side of the turbo was OK -- a good amount of shaft play but nothing killer. We removed the exhaust and saw that the hot side wheel had completely broken off the shaft. After removing the turbo and all the stuff -- we reassembled everything... minus the exhaust wheel.

The car barely started.... barely ran. Found out the AFM was really set for running w/ a turbo. After some AFM adjustments we got the car to roar... yet it was BELLOWING smoke. Smoke quickly filled up the entire parkinglot. I think it's safe to say that it's oil -- and I hope that it's oil coming from the turbo seals out the exhaust side. Our biggest concern was a consistant metal pinging/ticking noise coming from the engine. Without spinning turbo parts we didn't know what it could be... could we have royally fucked something up? I hope not.

We turned the car off... now we're trying to see how we can get it towed to ATL before this monday -- or else the campus parking people will have it towed to bubba's garage.

[Guest]

Shaft play in either side of the turbo is FORBOTTEN !!!

As long as nothing came apart on the compressor side that was ingested into the engine, I doubt driving with the failed turbo hurt anything. All the sounds you heard was mostt likely the exhaust turbine wheel crashing into the housing. When you hear a turbo starting to make screeching noises, it's time to rebuild before it strands you.

The first step is to get a good turbo installed on the car and get everything reconnected properly.

Rich

[Tammer in Philly]

I think you mean "verboten," Rich. :-)
-tammer

[Tjn182]

Well here are some shots and a description of what chaos happened this weekend.



Here's the new white turbo car next to my car in the school parkinglot


A shot of the interior -- Manual seats


Here's the hot side of the turbo -- notice the completely busted shaft.


In the end, this was the only way to make the car work. We took the housing off and removed the busted wheel and ran the car N/A and plugged up the oil feed line.


In the end, AAA came and towed it away. It's going to my garage in Charlotte to get played with at a later date.

The car ran N/A -- the biggest problem was that it BELLOWED white smoke out the tailpipe. Somehow there was a constant amount of oil being mixed in the combustion chamber or in the exhaust pipe. We got about 1 mile out of Boone and couldn't drive it anymore from all of the thick smoke. What was worse was that the smoke came out of the intake side of the turbo -- which was then sucked back into the intake -- and also into the cabin area.
I'm worried the headgasket might have blown... either that or somehow there is oil mixing with exhaust. Either way, the car is toast. It needs a new turbo for sure -- the rest will be discovered later after I spend a day or two inspecting it.

[Edit by Tjn182 on [TIME]1109534226[/TIME]]


[Edit by Tjn182 on [TIME]1109534359[/TIME]]

[RDAvena]

All too familiar with that white smoke deal. Back in 97 when I came back from Germany I went to Dallas to pick up my POV after it was shipped over. 90 Ford Probe turbo GT. Halfway out of Dallas the turbo blew much in the same way yours did.

I drove from Dallas all the way to El Paso checking the gas and filling it with oil. Right around Van Horn she just quit. Changed the sparkplugs and made it the rest of the way. I used up a total of 8 quarts of oil on that trip. Changed the turbo out and sold the car two years later.


[Edit by RDAvena on [TIME]1109610005[/TIME]]

[Yellow2]

Well, tj ran compression #'s on the engine and all came up within the 130-150 except #5 which ran up a 0 on the compression. Looks like I need some new rings and maybe a new piston. Hope I didnt fry anything. If someone could get me a part # / prices on a new piston and ring set. If you have to sell them in 6pk ill get those too.

[Tjn182]

Well I played around with the car today. The first thing I did was check the compression on #5 again -- this time it came back around 130... really weird!

So I started thinking.... Those spark plugs were pretty fouled up when I took them out...
So I went and installed my old bosche silvers into the car.. which were a nice chocolate brown//white, hooked everything back up, and the car sputtered and died. It sputtered and died for quite a bit. Ryan Brenneman came over and I had him crank the car and I manually played with the AFM - Doing this, we were able to get the car to start and rev up a little, but I couldn't keep the AFM in the right spot. After 20 minutes of tweaking the AFM I got the car to start and idle.... ROUGHLY - it idled at about 400rpms. I tweaked the AFM more and more and like magic -- the car started to idle more normally -- and I was able to rev the dickins out of the engine.

The engine blew white smoke at idle, but when you got on the gas all the smoke went away. The engine had PLENTY of torque, you could feel the whole car moving when you revved it. The biggest problem I saw was that the vacuum at idle was about 8... which is really bad. I have no idea why it would be so low except that everything on the car is designed around the fact that there should be a turbo somewhere in the intake.

I turned the car off and let it cool down. I removed the spark plugs -- BLACK -- which most likely means the car is running rich as hell. Without and exhaust and O2 sensor, the ECU runs everything pretty rich... I re-did the compression test and got 150 on the dot for EVERY cylinder. I dunno what changed, but the engine seems to be pretty health.

My Theory on What Happened to the Car
I believe the car was in perfect running order when we got it -- minus a going bad turbo. The turbo leaked oil and the intake sucked up ALOT of oil, which was normally burnt off in the combustion chamber. When the turbine shaft busted, the exhaust was clogged, causing the engine to run very poorly. With a poorly running engine, the amount of oil going into the engine increased, causing worse and worse combustion -- which in the end clogged the spark plugs. Even after me and Alex stopped the oil feed to the turbo and ran the engine N/A - there was still plenty of oil in the charge pipes to cause problem. Not only that, but the spark plugs were fouled up beyond belief. So driving home with that car was not possible, because the spark plugs were not burning off all of the fuel.
The reading of 0 compression in cylinder 5 was most likely an error made in my part.
And I blame the lower compression readings prior to today to high oil prices. My theory is unmistakably sound

The big question is this though:
In the antifreeze were little spots of "non-polarized" liquids .... maybe oil. Is it possible that the headgasket is blown still? Or do oil or other things somehow get into antifreeze over time?

[Jeremy]

Low vacuum at idle is usually a pretty good indication of a blown headgasket, provided all the vacuum lines are hooked up properly and you don't have a nice vacuum leak somewhere. My unprofessional opinion is that's what you've got. The AFM likely needed so much adjusting because the car has larger injectors for some reason, but I don't know how you'd verify that.

Jeremy

[QUOTE="Tjn182"]Well I played around with the car today. The first thing I did was check the compression on #5 again -- this time it came back around 130... really weird!

So I started thinking.... Those spark plugs were pretty fouled up when I took them out...
So I went and installed my old bosche silvers into the car.. which were a nice chocolate brown//white, hooked everything back up, and the car sputtered and died. It sputtered and died for quite a bit. Ryan Brenneman came over and I had him crank the car and I manually played with the AFM - Doing this, we were able to get the car to start and rev up a little, but I couldn't keep the AFM in the right spot. After 20 minutes of tweaking the AFM I got the car to start and idle.... ROUGHLY - it idled at about 400rpms. I tweaked the AFM more and more and like magic -- the car started to idle more normally -- and I was able to rev the dickins out of the engine.

The engine blew white smoke at idle, but when you got on the gas all the smoke went away. The engine had PLENTY of torque, you could feel the whole car moving when you revved it. The biggest problem I saw was that the vacuum at idle was about 8... which is really bad. I have no idea why it would be so low except that everything on the car is designed around the fact that there should be a turbo somewhere in the intake.

I turned the car off and let it cool down. I removed the spark plugs -- BLACK -- which most likely means the car is running rich as hell. Without and exhaust and O2 sensor, the ECU runs everything pretty rich... I re-did the compression test and got 150 on the dot for EVERY cylinder. I dunno what changed, but the engine seems to be pretty health.

My Theory on What Happened to the Car
I believe the car was in perfect running order when we got it -- minus a going bad turbo. The turbo leaked oil and the intake sucked up ALOT of oil, which was normally burnt off in the combustion chamber. When the turbine shaft busted, the exhaust was clogged, causing the engine to run very poorly. With a poorly running engine, the amount of oil going into the engine increased, causing worse and worse combustion -- which in the end clogged the spark plugs. Even after me and Alex stopped the oil feed to the turbo and ran the engine N/A - there was still plenty of oil in the charge pipes to cause problem. Not only that, but the spark plugs were fouled up beyond belief. So driving home with that car was not possible, because the spark plugs were not burning off all of the fuel.
The reading of 0 compression in cylinder 5 was most likely an error made in my part.
And I blame the lower compression readings prior to today to high oil prices. My theory is unmistakably sound

The big question is this though:
In the antifreeze were little spots of "non-polarized" liquids .... maybe oil. Is it possible that the headgasket is blown still? Or do oil or other things somehow get into antifreeze over time?[/QUOTE]