I had the IHI RHB5 turbo rebuilt and upgraded with the larger Ford 2.3 compressor. The upgrade was done by Blouch Turbo. On return I inspected the exhaust side and found 3 small cracks under the waist gate flapper valve. I don't think it's big deal but I thought I would ask is this looks serious or should I not worry about it.

Thanks

Graham

 

Ouch, certainly won't help spool any, but doesn't look like a big deal stucturally.

Off/on topic, how much did they charge you for that compressor upgrade?

I'm about to do the same thing. Did you provide the Tbird CHRA or did they do it all?

 

As long as nothing breaks or chips off, it should be fine. We are finding stock MSM turbos in worse shape than that.
Stephanie

 

Weld it shut, go EWG.

 

damnit......you beat me to it!

 

x2

 

It's just going to get worse. I'm not a big fan of putting broken/damaged parts on my car.

 

gospeed81, I picked up a Ford compressor wheel and housing. The center of the cartridge has to be machined as the wheel is larger. Blouch did the machine work and re-balanced it. Blouch were great to deal with, they turned it around quickly and charged me $175 + shipping.

Graham

 

I'm guessing that didn't include a rebuild?

 

gospeed81, Blouch will not rebuild the IHI units, they claim there are no original rebuild parts available, and all the re-build kits you see are cheap junk. I cannot verify there opinion, but I sent them my turbo and they said it did not need a re-build.

 

You see that kind of cracking a lot with internal gates. One option is to see about the availability of a larger flaper, then port the opening to eliminate the cracks. Two birds one stone. Those cracks appear to be too deep for total elimination, but it would still help and there is the benefit of more overall flow through the housing too. I doubt you will loose any appreciable spool with those cracks.

The best option is definitely EWG. If you dont want to worry about a new manifold (which I assume you dont) a custom DP with separate main discharge and wastegate discharge is pretty easy to fab for that housing. You can then put the EWG itself on WG dischrge portion of the DP. This would also allow you to seriously enlarge the WG port for more flow and eliminate the flapper all together.

 

An older SR20 T25 turbo I had cracked in that same spot, and it spread through the cast and ended up screwing the turbo.

 

***Caution I don't know what I'm talking about***

Can you not terminal drill those cracks and then have the holes and cracks welded?