Banging my head! Multiple turbo failures

[Bryan_Arlaud]

Hello all.


Ive searched high and low for what can be wrong with the turbo system. Been through forums, google, ford and on the phone with manufactures. This my be lengthy but i'll do my best to keep it short.


My truck sat for a little over a year while we built out the suspension. Before it went under the knife when driving hard you could smell oil burning. I assumed it was from blow by and payed little attention to it. But the truck dove as it should and there was nothing noticeable going wrong with the engine. Just broke the suspension.


After the truck sat during the build it started up and we went for a drive. After about 80 miles the passenger side turbo went out. What a mess! It was like the shaft, turbine and bearings just disintegrated. After further inspection of the driver side turbo having nicks in the wheel, it was decided that both would be replaced. So the thought was go bigger.


Enter the Garrett stage 2 Powermax turbos and bigger fuel injectors. We spent major amounts of time cleaning out shrapnel, replace oil feed and drain lines and the turbos. Followed everything that was asked for this install. Uploaded new tune and we were off. 6 miles later passenger side turbo has catastrophic failure again. Pull turbo out and see the shaft is split in half. Looks like it was put in a metal lathe and cut in half. Call the retailer and the ask us to ship the turbo in for inspection. They decided to replace the turbo under warranty and sent a new one. Only took 3 months and no one let us know what the thought was behind the failure. We put the truck back together and took it to ford.


The ford tech had it for about a month and a half. Went through the engine, oil system, cooling system ect ect. They give the truck a clean bill of health and sent me on my way. Oh the excitement for 11 miles and then boom passenger side turbo failure. Took the truck back to ford and again its torn apart. Heads off, oil pan out, turbos out, change pipes out ect. Ford tech says he can’t find the problem, Garrett is non responsive, retailer of turbos non responsive, no one has a clue why this keeps happening.


Has anyone experience this many turbo failures this quickly or have input for what to look for. Im at a loss and have a very expensive paper weight at this point. Any help with other threads, forums, tell me to push it off a cliff, whatever you’ve got.


Photos and current engine modes for enjoyment

S&B cold air intake
AMS boost tubes
XDI Fuel pump
Ford performance spark plugs M-12405-35T Gaped to .026-.028
SPD 170 degree thermostat
SPD stainless down pipes with high flow cats and turbo adaptor
SVC front mount intercooler
Radium Oil catch cans
Borla S type mid section exhaust system
Goose tuned 91 and E85
Turbosmart blow off valve
Garrett powermac turbos
Fuel injectors 1050 cc

 

[smurfslayer]

Welcome to FRF

You: are an overachiever.

S&B cold air intake
AMS boost tubes

your turbo shaft looks heat scored to me and the turbine ... yeah, i know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

Are you getting unmetered air? Before you answer, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything here or point the finger at either of these aftermarket suppliers. That turbo is properly shagged, and some things made it that way.

You said you redid the oil feed lines, but that turbo looks like it could have used some oil to me.

 

[Bryan_Arlaud]

Welcome to FRF

You: are an overachiever.


your turbo shaft looks heat scored to me and the turbine ... yeah, i know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

Are you getting unmetered air? Before you answer, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything here or point the finger at either of these aftermarket suppliers. That turbo is properly shagged, and some things made it that way.

You said you redid the oil feed lines, but that turbo looks like it could have used some oil to me.

Overachiever haha. it's a problem I have will my truck addiction.

We have done a boost leak down check and found no leaks. The data logs do not show over spooling/spinning. if thats what you mean by unmetered air.

The shaft and turbine pictures are of the passenger side that came apart. That turbine is the exhaust side. The turbine in the housing picture is the driver side thats still intact just damaged

Yes my thought originally was lack of oil or coolant but both systems checked out according to ford. they were both flushed and lines checked and cleaned. When the next set of turbos show up were making custom inlet and drain lines so we can attach pressure gauges.

 

[TwizzleStix]

Based on what you’ve said and photos, the right side turbo is not getting oil on the pressure side and/or the return/drain is blocked. Either will cook the shaft to failure.

Note that there are two wheels in a turbo. The exhaust side is the “turbine” and the intake side is the “compressor”, so when you talk turbo make sure to use the correct terms.

Ok, the damaged compressor wheel(s) are caused by some debris in the intake side hitting the wheel UNLESS it happens after the shaft failure.

You said the suspension broke(?). What were you doing to cause that failure. It sure sounds like you’re beating the sh*t out the truck without taking care of it properly. Maybe you’re just trusting your “installer”? There are likely two problems causing the turbo failures that are overlooked by your technician/parts-swapper(s). When a vehicle sits for a long period of time, it invites critters of all sorts, especially mice, to build nests and bring their food into it. Nut shells and other hard items will trash the turbo compressor wheels.

I recommend starting over with the troubleshooting process with someone who does more than swap parts for a living. That leaves out most shops and dealers, so maybe just do it all yourself.

 

[FordTechOne]

Critical question - Were the turbo filters in the block replaced?

 

[Bryan_Arlaud]

Based on what you’ve said and photos, the right side turbo is not getting oil on the pressure side and/or the return/drain is blocked. Either will cook the shaft to failure.

Note that there are two wheels in a turbo. The exhaust side is the “turbine” and the intake side is the “compressor”, so when you talk turbo make sure to use the correct terms.

Ok, the damaged compressor wheel(s) are caused by some debris in the intake side hitting the wheel UNLESS it happens after the shaft failure.

You said the suspension broke(?). What were you doing to cause that failure. It sure sounds like you’re beating the sh*t out the truck without taking care of it properly. Maybe you’re just trusting your “installer”? There are likely two problems causing the turbo failures that are overlooked by your technician/parts-swapper(s). When a vehicle sits for a long period of time, it invites critters of all sorts, especially mice, to build nests and bring their food into it. Nut shells and other hard items will trash the turbo compressor wheels.

I recommend starting over with the troubleshooting process with someone who does more than swap parts for a living. That leaves out most shops and dealers, so maybe just do it all yourself.

@TwizzleStix, yes I've thought it was an oil issue the hole time. Some have said it was too much oil pressure and others feel it's starved. I had ford go through both oil and coolant systems before the latest failure and gave both a clean bill of health. Im now getting custom lines made so we can put pressure gauges in the supply and return lines to monitor. We pulled the heads and oil pan previously to make sure the the feed and drain lines are not clogged. Even sent compressed air through them.

All charge pipes have been removed and cleaned of shrapnel I know they are clear. i have no rime or reason for the damage to compressor wheel on the drives side. I have had thoughts for the BOV not working properly and causing a pressure surge as a cause to the compressor wheel damage but the nicks look to be too far away from the inlet cone of the turbo.

We are starting the diag process again, however ford and I are at a loss of where to look this time outside of what we did last time. The ford tech is read to throw in the towel.

And thank yo for clarification on turbine vs compressor wheel. that makes it easier to explain. I'm fairly new to turbos so i appreciate the correct terms.

Yes I'm hard on this truck. I feel into this truck for a very good deal and the ad said it completed the BAJA 1000. I feel thats not entirely true the way I drive it. I knew i was going to redo all the suspension so we went hard at the PRO 4 track. It made it through the day but barely. Ive had several real race trucks / cars in my time and this was meant to be able to have fun with the family and maybe go on a few runs. It just needed to be cooler than everyone elses. All that said I do take very good care of my toys, just sometime I brake them in ways that no one else does. I always seam to hear we've never seen this before. lol

Critical question - Were the turbo filters in the block replaced?

@FordTechOne Yes they have been replaced along with new feed and drain lines per ford and Garrett's recommendation for turbo failure and replacement.

 

[smurfslayer]

What I meant by “unmetered air” is any source of ingest that does not come through the air filter. To expand a little, I’m asking is there any possibility of ingest into the turbo from snorkel, to air box, to intake tubes, to joints, to turbos that doesn’t come through the filter. I saw the intake updates, and thought it worth checking. I’ve read the AMS tubes can warp with heat and I don’t know your full intake setup so that’s why the question.

Thinking about this more, reading the other responses, and I keep coming back to the picture of that turbo. I think @TwizzleStix has posited a good point- what if the lack of oil / heat caused the failure and the damage to the turbo is actually from material of the turbo. To me, looking at the picture this theory has merit.

The fact that you’ve had multiples come apart in this similar fashion in consideration of having replaced the block filters, & turbo lines replaced, something seems to be starving the turbo of oil, and if it’s got new lines and filters, what’s left ( logically, the obstruction would be north of the block filter )

For the ‘unmetered’ intake to be the cause, it would require a lot
1) assemble the intake wrong multiple times
2) ingest material that would destroy the turbo

in the amount of time and miles you're seeing this, it sure seems unlikely.

Good luck with the troubleshooting.

 

[Bryan_Arlaud]

@smurfslayer good point. When we removed the charge pipes this time we had shrapnel in the AMS down pipes on both passenger and driver sides. Even found it in the air filter. I could see if shrapnel from the passenger side failure got that far that it would damage the driver side compressor wheel. good catch!

I spoke with the ford tech this morning and we are going to pull the heads again. The ford hot line has suggested we look at the oil passages inside the block to the filters that lead to the oil feed lines. We did replace them even though the original ones were not clogged and had nothing in them. So the heads are coming off again. I'll have both turbos in hand later today and I'm taking the to a turbo shop where we will be pulling them apart. This shop says the can diagnose the insides and give a more clear path of what the issue is with out sending back to Garrett for diagnosis. They've said it's one of or a mixture of 3 things, Boost leak, oil starvation or air starvation however based off of pictures they think oil starvation but want to see the turbos and failed parts first hand.

 

[dsiggi]

Interested in the outcome here. Not a turbo expert but when things are hard to diagnose like this, it usually ends up being something dumb....... or something that isnt what it seems at the surface in my experience.

I once helped my neighbor diagnose an ingition problem on his Malibu Surf Boat. We did plugs, wires, you name it. It was throwing injector error codes as well.

Had him take me out on the lake and he said watch this. Every time we hit a wave the engine would cut out. Seemed strange how well it ran and what not otherwise which led me to believe it was electrical. Called up my ole buddy that has worked on all kinds of inboard boats for 30 years.....

He says to me, "shake the ignition key". Well Ill be damned there it was, engine started cutting out at the dock. Things were loose and we had bad ignition contacts behind the dash.

Tightened all that up. Problem solved.

 

[Bryan_Arlaud]

@dsiggi I wish and pray it's something simple that we've over looked. My last bill with ford was over 5k for 11 miles of fun. If it winds up being something simple it'll make a good camp fire story over beers. lol