Turbo lady came to visit this past week....
04-26-2008, 12:10 AM
#1
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Turbo lady came to visit this past week....
...and I pimped her out in a Chanel dress and red lipstick.
Here's some background of the story to get everything into one post...
<i>Just wanted to send a picture email to update on Virginia International Raceway, had a great Saturday and Sunday working for on of the BMW Club Racing drivers. Monday and Tuesday was the Audi Club High Performance Driving event. While the weather was not great (patchy rain drizzles both days) it helped to make the track have varied conditions so one could see the changes different lines had on turn in and track out speeds. A couple sections were pretty slick but my new STaSIS center diff did a great job getting more power to the back wheels to keep the car in control. Also had a fantastic instructor with Norbert Watts, a Corvette racer.
On the second to last session of the last day my group was black flagged for someone spinning/going off on the inside of 17a. We all came in to the pits and sat for about 5 minutes while the mud was cleared off the track. When we were released I immediately noticed that the car would not boost down the front straight. Went easy on the car all the way around the track and pulled in.
Originally I thought one of the pressure clamps and slipped off but I'm good about tightening those. The clamp at the throttle body felt a little loose and had a crack in the mechanism, so I went and replaced that, but to no avail. Started looking at the bypass valve hoses and found nothing.
At this point the turbo would whistle when getting on it in the parking lot, which several S4 guys attributed to the turbo failure. But there was still no/minimal wisps of white smoke coming from the exhaust. I decided to follow the caravan with Jim's trailer home, just in case. Since I was not able to boost I managed to keep up towards the back for about 10-15 miles of highway when smoke started coming into the car. Luckily a Bojangles where we were meeting at was about 1/2 mile at that point and I coasted in. The seals on the turbo had gone and were spitting oil into the engine bay and it was dripping on the ground.
Took the turbo off on Wednesday. Compressor wheel wiggles but has overall little damage. Turbine wheel has a broken shaft and has one blade broken off, which did no damage and was laying in front of the catalyst.
Today I biked 9 miles round-trip to a small turbo shop in Falls Church by the name of Tim's Turbos. Tim gave me a great deal on a brand new K04-015HF (My old model was a K04-0125) for sub $800. Borg Warner cross reference part number for the new one is 5304 988 0015. Interestingly neither turbos come up in the official turbo pdf file, but some nice diagrams do!
Old unit was unrepairable due to cracking of the exhaust housing. Tim said these turbos are prone to failure even if well maintained. Commonly the compression nut holding the compressor wheel on loosens and then shreds the compressor blades. Other times the exhaust housing will develop a crack between the waste gate and turbine which slowly spreads over time until it makes contact with the turbine wheel, causing the shaft to snap.
In my case the compressor nut held but the common crack on the hot side slowly got bigger with age and did me in. This would also explain why one of my turbine blades had been broken off but all the rest were fine. I'm going to take the old turbo apart in a few days and post some pics.
This afternoon I biked over to Audi of Alexandria to pick up all new install hardware. All told I've spent $814.11 on parts, free labor... I'm also replacing the factory oil line heatsheild with a beefier handmade one. Using a 12x12" sheet of medium tensile steel sheet, along with a 12x24" sheet of gold reflective foil and a 12x24" sheet of aluminized heat fabric. Cleaning up the engine bay tonight, then will finish bolting in the turbo and then bleed the coolant system.
</i>
Car getting towed home care of Jimax's rented trailer... Thanks Jim!
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/73217/dsc00092.jpg">
Fast forward to tonight... As of 1:00am, car is started and turbo runs fine. Added a bunch of extras while I was in there which added time. Beer breaks didn't make it go any faster either.
To add to the mod list:
-New BorgWarner Turbo Systems Gmbh K04-015HF Turbo
-New turbo hardware
-Shaved and wrinkled coolant cross-over pipe
-Gold reflective mat insulated oil feed line and coolant feed line
-Turbo heatshield with Gold and Aluminized reflective mat
-PCV delete with 034 Catchcan (Waiting on Axis Motorsport adapter plate to get rid of rest of the plastic components)
Car started fine with new oil and coolant, exhaust smoked quite a bit from the residual oil left in the exhaust from the oil seals blowing on the old turbo. This will subside over the next couple days. Hopefully sooner rather than later since it's kind of obvious driving around leaving a smoke screen :-0
Starting to think about modifying the heatshield a bit to have the oil line run on top of it and have the shield wrap more around the intake shielding as well... Later today maybe.
Cheers,
R.
P.S. Car desperately needs a wash now, inside and out, some better engine pictures after that.
Broken turbine wheel with one blade broken off, found in front of the cat.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8491.jpg">
Compressor and housing, not too badly beat up, and the compression nut is still intact.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8492.jpg">
New turbo and hardware and extra goodies ready to install
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8506.jpg">
Inside of new turbo heatshield, with gold wrapped oil feed line. Thinking about modifying heatshield to have oil line on outside.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8521.jpg">
Current view, without intake and a dirty engine bay.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8530.jpg">
Here's some background of the story to get everything into one post...
<i>Just wanted to send a picture email to update on Virginia International Raceway, had a great Saturday and Sunday working for on of the BMW Club Racing drivers. Monday and Tuesday was the Audi Club High Performance Driving event. While the weather was not great (patchy rain drizzles both days) it helped to make the track have varied conditions so one could see the changes different lines had on turn in and track out speeds. A couple sections were pretty slick but my new STaSIS center diff did a great job getting more power to the back wheels to keep the car in control. Also had a fantastic instructor with Norbert Watts, a Corvette racer.
On the second to last session of the last day my group was black flagged for someone spinning/going off on the inside of 17a. We all came in to the pits and sat for about 5 minutes while the mud was cleared off the track. When we were released I immediately noticed that the car would not boost down the front straight. Went easy on the car all the way around the track and pulled in.
Originally I thought one of the pressure clamps and slipped off but I'm good about tightening those. The clamp at the throttle body felt a little loose and had a crack in the mechanism, so I went and replaced that, but to no avail. Started looking at the bypass valve hoses and found nothing.
At this point the turbo would whistle when getting on it in the parking lot, which several S4 guys attributed to the turbo failure. But there was still no/minimal wisps of white smoke coming from the exhaust. I decided to follow the caravan with Jim's trailer home, just in case. Since I was not able to boost I managed to keep up towards the back for about 10-15 miles of highway when smoke started coming into the car. Luckily a Bojangles where we were meeting at was about 1/2 mile at that point and I coasted in. The seals on the turbo had gone and were spitting oil into the engine bay and it was dripping on the ground.
Took the turbo off on Wednesday. Compressor wheel wiggles but has overall little damage. Turbine wheel has a broken shaft and has one blade broken off, which did no damage and was laying in front of the catalyst.
Today I biked 9 miles round-trip to a small turbo shop in Falls Church by the name of Tim's Turbos. Tim gave me a great deal on a brand new K04-015HF (My old model was a K04-0125) for sub $800. Borg Warner cross reference part number for the new one is 5304 988 0015. Interestingly neither turbos come up in the official turbo pdf file, but some nice diagrams do!
Old unit was unrepairable due to cracking of the exhaust housing. Tim said these turbos are prone to failure even if well maintained. Commonly the compression nut holding the compressor wheel on loosens and then shreds the compressor blades. Other times the exhaust housing will develop a crack between the waste gate and turbine which slowly spreads over time until it makes contact with the turbine wheel, causing the shaft to snap.
In my case the compressor nut held but the common crack on the hot side slowly got bigger with age and did me in. This would also explain why one of my turbine blades had been broken off but all the rest were fine. I'm going to take the old turbo apart in a few days and post some pics.
This afternoon I biked over to Audi of Alexandria to pick up all new install hardware. All told I've spent $814.11 on parts, free labor... I'm also replacing the factory oil line heatsheild with a beefier handmade one. Using a 12x12" sheet of medium tensile steel sheet, along with a 12x24" sheet of gold reflective foil and a 12x24" sheet of aluminized heat fabric. Cleaning up the engine bay tonight, then will finish bolting in the turbo and then bleed the coolant system.
</i>
Car getting towed home care of Jimax's rented trailer... Thanks Jim!
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/73217/dsc00092.jpg">
Fast forward to tonight... As of 1:00am, car is started and turbo runs fine. Added a bunch of extras while I was in there which added time. Beer breaks didn't make it go any faster either.
To add to the mod list:
-New BorgWarner Turbo Systems Gmbh K04-015HF Turbo
-New turbo hardware
-Shaved and wrinkled coolant cross-over pipe
-Gold reflective mat insulated oil feed line and coolant feed line
-Turbo heatshield with Gold and Aluminized reflective mat
-PCV delete with 034 Catchcan (Waiting on Axis Motorsport adapter plate to get rid of rest of the plastic components)
Car started fine with new oil and coolant, exhaust smoked quite a bit from the residual oil left in the exhaust from the oil seals blowing on the old turbo. This will subside over the next couple days. Hopefully sooner rather than later since it's kind of obvious driving around leaving a smoke screen :-0
Starting to think about modifying the heatshield a bit to have the oil line run on top of it and have the shield wrap more around the intake shielding as well... Later today maybe.
Cheers,
R.
P.S. Car desperately needs a wash now, inside and out, some better engine pictures after that.
Broken turbine wheel with one blade broken off, found in front of the cat.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8491.jpg">
Compressor and housing, not too badly beat up, and the compression nut is still intact.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8492.jpg">
New turbo and hardware and extra goodies ready to install
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8506.jpg">
Inside of new turbo heatshield, with gold wrapped oil feed line. Thinking about modifying heatshield to have oil line on outside.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8521.jpg">
Current view, without intake and a dirty engine bay.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/72595/img_8530.jpg">
04-26-2008, 06:24 AM
#6
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Crack in the exhaust housing that slowly grew and finally cracked into the turbine area.
I remember a small crack in the lip between the wastegate and the turbine wheel years ago when I had the cat off. It's now spread all the way through and when it connected to the other side it allowed the housing to warp and the exhaust turbine to make contact.