Turbo elimination?

I run a mobile auto repair company and a customers turbo blew, sounds like a bunch of bbs in a blender at idle. They were planning on selling the car and had a p0011 code, now I'm starting with the turbo and wondering if anyone had ever removed the moving parts inside of it just to cheaply and easily drive the car till able to spend $$$ on rebuilding it or replacing, I have not touched the car in anyway to view the extent of the damage your experiences are much appreciated

 

Jerry.

just toss one of these guys in the turbo housing. should push enough boost to trick the ecu.

I know its silly in a sense so I guess the answer is no! I can not just eliminate the turbo all together, so then I guess ill right that off as an option and start looking for parts, I'm not experienced with turbo setups, but am a very quick learner, I have been working on cars for 5 years just never had the joy of a cheap SUby owner with a blown turbo before, so I don't sound like a complete noob I do know about the banjo bolt filter and have maintained a 97 impreza L and dealt with all positive repairs from the customer into 200,000 miles and continuing. I have all data and that gives me all the instructions I need to replace the parts... I should of guessed since my searches came up with nothing on eliminating the turbo...

The answer would probably be no.. nobody has tried to do that. Rerouting oil and coolant lines to bypass the turbo... and letting the rest of the bits fly into the exhaust/cat.. probably just too much damage. Even replacing the turbo would leave a humongous possibility of metal pieces in the oil that would cause and engine failure shortly after.. just bad bad..

Yes, sell it and buy a 2.5i. lol

 

When replacing everything you'll want to clean out the pan, replace the oil cooler and oil feed lines. And hope it wasn't run long enough to let the turbo bearing material to wreak havoc to the rod bearings.

Thanks will do, it was only driven a block before it completely lost boost and got real noisy, less then mile before i diagnosed it, so i will deff see what they want to do from here unfortunately expensive repair is needed to drive the car.... I will not have the car started until it's all pulled apart... The cooler is leaking and it's got over 100,000 miles NYC/queens driven. Needs lots of love... Thanks for the replies! I'll update here. Share the experience I gain, I already know to prime new one and all... Pulling oil pan was news to me but safe than sorry. I like to be responsible for my repairs and do them above and beyond factory manuals..

Come on guys no need to act immature about it, a turbo motor is not that different from a non turbo one. Heck I've put turbos and removed them in weekends time on some of my Nissan's.

 

There are other issues associated with blown turbos, like turbine pieces in the intake track and exhaust track. Shot turbo bearings in the oil pan too. To be 100% safe you need to clean out the oil pan, otherwise the oil pickup might suck them in with enough force to rip the net and send it to the oil pump then to the rest of the block. Let's not neglect the banjo filters that got clogged and caused the turbo to blow, you will need to replace them/remove them.

 

Hypothetically it's possible, you just need a few parts:

1. Block of oil feet and oil drain, AVCS lives on the oil feed line thus you want to just cap off the line that goes to the turbo it self. Drain needs a 5/8" plug, so nothing falls into the oil pan.

2. Get NA headers and exhaust pipe to the catback. Otherwise you can try to weld a turbo L replacement (Instead of turbo you have an L pipe that goes from up pipe to downpipe)

3. Connect turbo inlet to the intercooler, or bypass intercooler and connect turbo inlet to the throttle body, you will need to get creative with piping here.

4. Cap off wastegate feed

 

It's all doable, but the cost of getting NA headers with exhaust pipes cost more then just getting a used VF40 off this forum.

Covertrussian has it right. A used VF40 can be had for under $200 here, no way to do it cheaper than that.

Hypothetically it's possible, you just need a few parts:

1. Block of oil feet and oil drain, AVCS lives on the oil feed line thus you want to just cap off the line that goes to the turbo it self. Drain needs a 5/8" plug, so nothing falls into the oil pan.

2. Get NA headers and exhaust pipe to the catback. Otherwise you can try to weld a turbo L replacement (Instead of turbo you have an L pipe that goes from up pipe to downpipe)

3. Connect turbo inlet to the intercooler, or bypass intercooler and connect turbo inlet to the throttle body, you will need to get creative with piping here.

4. Cap off wastegate feed

 

That is just the mechanical side... what about a tune? I don't believe the stock fuel maps would ever compensate for this set up, and I have no idea how a tuner would go about making a base map for it.

OP, you need to read more on here, lots of info about turbos blowing and what to do. That's a sticky at the top of the Powertrain forum you need to read.

 

Well ok maybe 3 or 4 stickys.

That is just the mechanical side... what about a tune? I don't believe the stock fuel maps would ever compensate for this set up, and I have no idea how a tuner would go about making a base map for it.

 

That wont be a problem since this is EFI, MAF's work by calculating airflow, which means when it see's X amount of grams of air coming it adds appropriate amount of fuel for that amount of air. By not having a turbo your maximum airflow is just reduced.

 

MAP is not that much different, it just works by the pressures instead of estimated air flows like MAF's. With map you have PSI columns that say for this amount of pressure use this much fuel, with NA you will always be under 1psi, thus will not overfuel.

He's going to have me replace whatever it needs, I found 2 options on eBay one new 429 but comes from china, the other reman and its more at 489 but from Cali, for assurance of timely delivery I will most likely opt for reman, but cheaper and new + seller had 100% positive and sells all sorts of new turbos.... Somewhat attractive... Thanks for all the help! I'll keep us posted. Be few days before i get room in my garage to open it up, 2010 camry clutch just arrived, old one is out so maybe by the weekend I'll be back with an update.

This one time in band camp, a customer came in looking for a turbo for his bobcat skid steer, I go outside looking for part numbers and see that his turbo had been eliminated. Well the exhaust side was there and someone had built a blocking plate to cover the hole where the bearing housing should bolt in. The end.

Take apart the turbo and check the condition of the exhaust and intake housings, if they are not chewed up all you need is a new CHRA.

 

Once again though, your not fixing the issue at hand. A friend just bought a car that went through 3 turbos because the mechanic kept on replacing turbos instead of fixing the issue (clogged banjo filter). By the third time there was turbo parts in the oil pan, the oil pickup mesh had a hole in it thus there were metal shavings in the banjo filters too. That means the oil pump could be full of shavings too.

yes I do plan to go all out if needed, ill def check the filters and use compressed air blow out the lines. Depending on the damage; I will filter the oil change to look for metal content and drop the pan if I see anything. While I'm in open pan surgery I will make sure oil pickup and everything is tip top. Prime the new pump. I deff learned a lot asking here I can't believe there is no safety screen for metal going into intake... I'm sure there's reasons, maybe the pressure is to great and would pull the screen into intake and fail anyway...

 

Fingers crossed

What do you mean by safety screen for the intake? You mean a mesh screen before the turbo inlet?

Yes some sort of "filter" before and after so if the cat or turbo fail, it does not poison the intake of the engine... As common as this issue is and the number of engines that are kaput from the turbo failing on the forums, I feel a good mesh screen would be a safety net for the system. But I'll repeat myself when I'm thinking its really hard to build a screen that can withstand the environment.

Yes some sort of "filter" before and after so if the cat or turbo fail, it does not poison the intake of the engine... As common as this issue is and the number of engines that are kaput from the turbo failing on the forums, I feel a good mesh screen would be a safety net for the system. But I'll repeat myself when I'm thinking its really hard to build a screen that can withstand the environment.

 

 

Yea, you might want to re-think that.

 

I'm no expert, but I don't think any other car has what your thinking about.

 

Unless the turbo has the air filter mounted to it, as some of the Honda Civic guy's do. We never had a filter on the oil feed lines to the turbos.

I've never seen or heard of such protective screens either, sadly most of these safety measures usually end up hurting the car more (banjo filters is prime example).

 

The only thing that I've seen even remotely close to what you are talking about is mesh screens on Nissan MAF's. But they are not there for protection, they are there to smooth out the airflow before it hits the sensor element.

http://www.zspeedperformance.com/images/4131497581_fc5b54c1d2_m.jpg

Ok the shaft is broke the fins are chewed up and oil was pouring out of the intake side? Was not expecting the oil... Also I realized the intercooler itself is a filter, large peices of metal can't pass through it easily... The oil dip stick has shiny sparkles in it... Very fine metal flake in the oil.. I did not see any filters on the bolts... I have pics I'll try to upload I'm not sure about putting a cartridge in it or just get a new one / reman... I will dig deeper into it today.

I would pull the oil pan off (painful), problem with Subaru oil pans is, the drain plug is so high that you have a TON of oil left even if you drain it all. Plus there are a ton of baffles to make the pieces of metal to be stuck everywhere.

 

As for Banjo Filters, here is my guide to it, that shows where they are all located at.

 

Finally if your intake and exhaust housings are now chewed up you can reuse them with a new CHRA from eBay.

You suuuure you're a mechanic...?

Ok the shaft is broke the fins are chewed up and oil was pouring out of the intake side? Was not expecting the oil... Also I realized the intercooler itself is a filter, large peices of metal can't pass through it easily... The oil dip stick has shiny sparkles in it... Very fine metal flake in the oil.. I did not see any filters on the bolts... I have pics I'll try to upload I'm not sure about putting a cartridge in it or just get a new one / reman... I will dig deeper into it today.

 

 

I guess you know what the right thing to do is...that would be pull the engine and rebuild it and the heads, new oil cooler and pump with a oil pan.

 

A new ej257 is $1645, plus $245 for the gasket set.

You suuuure you're a mechanic...?

 

 

Naaaa, he's just great with a camera, his wife does all the work.