FAO anyone with a GT series turbo without a metal bearing cage

MarkTurbo

Well-Known Member
Everyone has to remember that 99% will be fine it's just when you use them a bit harder than the usual that they fail.
Would you say mine falls into the category of being used harder than usual? Considering i only do around a thousand miles a year and when it does get used hard its only for around 1 minute on average at a time, i would have said it has quite an easy life :lol:
 

Fast Guy

Moderators
Staff member
I'd tend to agree with you Mark. The compressor map goes to around 2bar+, so I'd say it shouldn't fail so soon while working within it's operating spec.
 
Yes they all use them, and it is only when you spec it you can get the bronze cages fitted,I asked these questions when I bought my last turbo it the same as garretts crock of shit that you can't rebuild the bearing cores and you can only buy new.
So you can't rebuild these at all? Mine has just failed but not got round to removing it or phoning around for advice yet, but I guess it's just a door wedge now?

And thanks Mark, interesting post. Will strip mine apart if I can't do anything with it and see whats happened inside.

What will you be replacing it with?

Cheers, Ben.
 

MarkTurbo

Well-Known Member
Sorry to hear yours has failed now too Ben, what happened when it went?

If you send it anywhere to be rebuilt they will just put a new core in it which is £600. And if its done any other damage like mine did (damaged wheels etc) it pretty much makes the turbo scrap :doh:
 
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red reading

Active Member
They always say the same shit, the shaft bent on one of mine that failed and that was not over speed it was the wheels hitting the housing.......the turbo failed just after start up.

Btw mark I have had bad experience with T D's and there shite attitude.
 

johnny gtir

Well-Known Member
mine died well within the limits same thing heat on cage so i am getting the upgrade on the new one. the old one was low milage
 

johnny gtir

Well-Known Member
This has been covered before but remind me advantages and dis advantages of the gtx pulsar percific inc fitting problems. gtx flows more at the same size ? faster spool
 

gtirx2

Active Member
How direct were your water lines?i was just reading this http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbobygarrett/oil_water_lines and the Garrett White Paper 1 - Water Cooling pdf and was wondering if maybe lengthy unrouted lines could be a contributor to this?

Maybe the gtir suffers from a poor thermal siphon effect to start with and when fitting new longer unrouted lines it makes this issue more apparent,or maybe its from still using the stock water lines as these are not the most direct route, and it does mention to avoid undulations?

It seems the water cooling for bb turbos is also alot more important than it is for the journal bearing jobbies, so i wonder if there is a better way to plumb the water lines in on a gtir for a better thermal siphon effect?

Thats even assuming theres a problem in the first place lol,Just clutching at straws really as i dont want mine to melt when i do finally fit it:lol:.
 
Silly question, but do Precision turbos suffer form the same issue? Anyone using/used one?
Depends which core you get; they do an oil cooled ball bearing core with ceramic bearings. However Precision have their own set of issues which has boiled down to a lot of name calling between Garrett and Preceision regarding the machining of the turbine shafts and the respective tolerances.

I would also avoid using Preecision's own compressor covers (stick with the Garrett ones) as they do not contain in the event of catestrophic failure.
 
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MarkTurbo

Well-Known Member
I found this the other night about precision turbo's whilst looking for something else!

http://www.turbodirect.co.za/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=778&Itemid=21

http://www.turbodirect.co.za/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=776&Itemid=56

How direct were your water lines?i was just reading this http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbobygarrett/oil_water_lines and the Garrett White Paper 1 - Water Cooling pdf and was wondering if maybe lengthy unrouted lines could be a contributor to this?
I was going to post that link as i bookmarked it the other night when i was reading about bearing failures. My water lines are both braided and follow pretty much the same routing (possibly better) than the standard lines. They're also covered in the expensive firesleeve wrc cars use .

Pics of them on my old T28

 
Sorry to hear yours has failed now too Ben, what happened when it went?

If you send it anywhere to be rebuilt they will just put a new core in it which is £600. And if its done any other damage like mine did (damaged wheels etc) it pretty much makes the turbo scrap :doh:

I phoned Turbo Dynamics on Friday and they said they would fit the bronze bearing cage to a new turbo for an extra £100, and whilst i was at it i thought i better mention what happened to my turbo, how few miles it had done, and that i'd stripped it down myself :lol: Got told that it must have got too hot to melt the cage and if i'd sent it to them for inspection they could have found out exactly why it failed. Then when i mentioned the bent shaft he said it could have been overboosted and wasn't really interested when i said it was within its operating range. I just got the impression he either didn't want to discuss the matter or was just a sales person and it was getting a bit technical for his liking.
To bring this back up as I've only just got round to removing my turbo.

When I fitted my new engine last year and re-fitted my 3071 back on and checked it out I found it had a little up and down movement, which I believe is ok, but also had some in and out movement which I believe means it's on its way out. Not sure if/how/why the turbo had failed just sitting in my garage but hadn't noticed any probs before I removed it from the last engine.

I checked it was getting oil by removing the oil return and turning the engine over and measured the oil that came out over 20 seconds, which was fine. So I ran it on the car and all seemed fine. Had it mapped with no probs, then did Bedford trackday where I had to use a db killer and run minimum boost to pass noise regs. I think this was the killer as the week after it started smoking which got progressively worse. At the time I didn't realise using a db killer could damage the turbo.

Having taken the turbo off today there was considerable oil in the air feed pipe to the turbo, and I don't have any recirc going into it, and there is considerable oil in the exhaust. The play up/down and in/out is no worse than when I first fitted it to this engine so I guess using the db killer has damaged the oil seals?

I've spoken to Scott at Owen Developements and I'm going to send my turbo there and see what they say. He said they can provide a new turbo for £708.00+vat or the core only £493.81+vat, and the metal cage upgrade £130.00+vat.

What have you decided to do with yours Mark?
 
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MarkTurbo

Well-Known Member
What have you decided to do with yours Mark?
Apart from the exhaust housing every part of my turbo is scrap. I was talking to somebody from Owen developments at the autosport show last month and he was surprised my turbo had lasted 4000 miles and said Garrett are well aware of the plastic bearing cage problems :roll:

I won't be racing my car for at least the first half of this year, going to see if I can find a decent T28 to bolt on for now so I can still drive it. I'll be going for around 450-500bhp with a T4 twinscroll Borg warner turbo eventually so will be making a new tubular manifold with twin external wastegates. Might as well do it properly, just need to save up some money :doh:
 
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