Cam sensor huh? Sorry to hear about your head gasket, really not too bad to pull the head though.

Sounds like you had fun anyway, I had a blast when I broke my motor.

 

Bummer about the HG. Any feedback on the GS and stock sway bars?

 

Oh damn - so sorry to hear about the head gasket.
On the upside, Australian Santa has a delivery expected to arrive at your doorstep in the next day or so.

 

So as it turns out, it wasn't the HG afterall. The billows of white smoke was unburnt oil pouring out of the turbo.

The Xida GS' are awesome. Shockingly plush on the street at full soft, and confidence inspiring on the track, would buy again. I'm not the best driver, so I can't really comment on how the combo compares to other things on the market, or whether it would have been better to run bigger sways. I'm running 5.25 inch pinch weld height and found it was a hair more body-rolly than I would have liked, but I really didn't dial them in at all. I was running 10-12/20 all weekend. I was a bit understeery, which I'm sure I could fix easily with some settings tweaks. I was running new tires I hadn't driven before (falken azenis rt615k+) that I didn't really get the pressure dialed in on, combined with new suspension I didn't play around much with, combined with multiple reliability-related issues on the track means I'll suspend judgment specifically on the GS-stock sway combo.

 

Were you running a restrictor on that turbo? What were your oil temps?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by a restrictor. I was running about 11psi of boost at the time. I was also not logging at the time, and don't have an oil temperature sensor as far as I'm aware. So, basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Opps, mean an oil restrictor that limits how much oil can lubricate/cool the bearings in the turbo. A lot of failed turbos I see are running oil restrictors. I never run them. If you were running one, and had high oil temps, that's asking for a bearing failure.

 

Yeah, no restrictor. It should be getting alltheoils! It's possible that oil temps were elevated - I was having some heat issues, but my stock temperature gauge never spiked, for what that's worth.

Some pics of the turbo grenade:
debris in the oil drain
This was also in the oil drain
A little... off
Not sure if this is a symptom of the cause - the nut on the compressor side was totally loose, a few turns from finger tight.
Current status: exhaust manifold and downpipe are coated with oil. I found bits of turbine wheel in the downpipe and oil drain line. There is some oil residue on the compressor housing.

My plan:
1. Buy a new turbo (for obvious reasons)
2. Do a leakdown test to make sure nothing else is going on at the same time that could have caused or been caused by the turbo grenade
3. Get a bigger radiator
4. Put it back together?

Questions:
Should I take off all the exhaust parts and clean them out, or maybe just throw some solvent in there and use compressed air to blow it out?
Do I need to clean out the intake parts?

 

I would clean the exhaust parts, they are probably covered in oil. I'd flush the drain line, and do two oil changes to clean the oil up. Drain now, then start it with new oil and no turbo, let the oil feed flush oil through itself, and stick in into the drain hose to flush that before connecting a turbo inline so you don't send contamination into a new turbo. I'd inspect intercooler for oil, if it's dry you're fine, if it has oil in, clean it and the pipes connected to it.

 

Okay cool, and just use methylated spirits in a spray bottle, or something else?

 

My last turbo failure, I unbolted my exhaust and sprayed them with cleaner (purple power I think) then pressure washed the pipes to clean them. Took about 5 minutes to get them spotlessly clean. Did same for intercooler pipes.

 

Okay sweet. I could probably use simple green then, which I have on hand. Thanks!!

 

Update time!

I did a leak down test while the exhaust manifold was off. The results weren't great. 48%, 20%, 76%, 50%. On all cylinders except #2, I could feel the air coming out of the exhaust port and the exhaust valve cover breather.

I thought with numbers like that there is no way the thing would run, but the kind folks of mt.net set me straight. I put it back together with sonofthehill's old turbo and it fired right up! I'm pretty sure it runs exactly as it did before the turbo grenade.

I put the exhaust manifold back on without the metal gasket, and there is a huge exhaust leak at the back top corner of the manifold. I tightened it down as hard as I could with a wrench (not a breaker bar) and it didn't go away. My guess is the manifold is slightly warped, but I'm open to alternatives. I could throw some gasket maker in there, put the metal gasket on, or pull it all apart and get the manifold planed (I don't want to do that). I could also tighten the nuts in a different order if you all think that could be enough to flatten the manifold against the head.

 

Are we talking about the manifold to head? Definitely use an OEM metal gasket there, I used a smear of orange high temp sealant last time too. No gasket between the manifold and turbo though, perhaps my turbine housing is nicked on the sealing surface somewhere. I used sodium silicate to seal the wastegate v band flange on that turbo, if you can't get it to seal, I have some we can use.

 

I thought way back Lars said not to use a gasket, but I bet he was talking about the manifold to turbo. I'll slap the metal gasket on there and fire it up again. Thanks!

 

Between head and manifold use the mls gasket, between manifold and turbo no gasket.

 

Thanks guys, my mistake!

I'm doing a 3.6 R&P swap with 1.9ConeKiller this weekend, and in the process of pulling my diff I pulled my mid-pipe, forgetting I had planned to pull the exhaust and clean it out. About half a quart of oil poured out. I must have just been dumping oil into the manifold when the turbo let go. I cleaned it out with simple green and water, per Pat's suggestion. I'll do the down pipe and rear section next.

 

Awesome feedback. Thanks Nigel.

Stock sways are partly responsible for that plushness. Big bars will take away some of the independent-ness and affect that ride quality, but also remove a lot of the extra body roll.
A 550lb spring on a turbo NB2 is still "mild" so there is room to add a bunch of roll stiffness with bars without totally trashing that ride quality.

You can play with rake a bit to balance out that understeer. If you set it up at 5.25 level, make sure you accounted for your driver weight and fuel load. Pretty easy to induce a push if you set the height without a driver and with minimal fuel.
1/8" of rake if very noticeable. Rear higher = looser, rear lower = tighter.

 

I didn't think to consider driver and fuel when setting the height, I'll do that for sure. Would you suggest setting the stiffness even front and back and then using height to dial in my intended very slight understeer balance? Or would you use stiffness as part of that adjustment too?
I also want to make sure I'm staying off the bump stops. What's the best way to test that I'm keeping off them under most conditions? With my almost 24 inch tire height, 5.25 is probably on the low end for these shocks, but it's right where I'd like it to be as long as I'm not riding the bump stops.

 

Play with the clickers, do sweeps on your commutes starting from full soft, 2 clicks at a time. You'll quickly notice the behavior changes.
You'll likely end up with the fronts a click or two stiffer no matter what.

Yes, rake is the easiest balance tweak.

As far as bumpstop engagement, you'd probably know already if it was happening too frequently. "Shockingly plush" tells me you're well off of them on your streets at your weight with your driving style and tire. You could keep lowering it until you notice the severe ride quality degradation that comes with too-frequent bumpstop engagement.