What caused my later model EFR6258 to die?
 

Car has been running fine aside from some blow-by I've been noticing. Car smoked upon startup only after sitting overnight, but would stop as soon as it was warm. I drive home tonight and half way into my commute, car stops boosting. I hear a faint howl and think boost leak. No leak, tears or holes were found. I looked into the inlet and and turbine and my heart dropped. Everything rotates freely, but the shaft appears bent, possibly due to turbine fin throwing everythign off balance at such high [turbine] rpm. The air filter, while dirty, was intact so I don't think it ingested anything.

Now I need a new turbo and a new motor (or rebuild). Give me a reason why I want to keep this miata.


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...921_210141-jpg

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...921_214523-jpg

ouch. sorry man.

tb screw ingested possibly?

good call, i'll take a look tomorrow (though I've never had them loosened on my watch)

Any updates?

Did you check the CHRA bolts on the turbine side?

CHRA bolts are snug, but can be hand loosened. The spec is 10 ft-lb

Took some images. Not too sure what happened. I don't think it was bearing failure. Shaft spins fine, no resistance, but it is warped a bit (I believe from misbalance after turbine fragged).

Full-Race said they cannot warranty this since I'm not the original purchaser. Shucks. Learned my lesson

Disassembled the turbo
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...34482719_n-jpg

Wastegate bracket was only held in by a coolant banjo fitting. The head broke off, the other screws backed out
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...36019571_n-jpg

Turbine Carnage #1
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...82860757_n-jpg

Turbine Carnage #2 - Look, the base of the wheel had broken off. I wonder if this got stuck while trying to exit, damaging the rest of the fins at speed
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...52736802_n-jpg

Turbine Carnage #3
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...77167840_n-jpg

Tiny amount of weeping on the rear oil seal. I attribute this to high oil pressure on cold starts (~85-90psi). Full-Race says it's fine as their customers operate these turbos at 100psi, far over BW spec. When warmed it doesn't see over 80psi oil pressure on full tilt.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...41449986_n-jpg

The shaft spins freely, but has a wobble to it now. Barely noticable play axially, zero radial play. Here the compressor wheel crashed into the backing plate a bit
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...88600546_n-jpg

The compressor wheel touched down on the housing.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...00503527_n-jpg

Basically, I honestly cannot definitively say what happened other than the turbine is shot. I don't know when the onset of failure occured, I just noticed when it became catastrophic enough to affect every day driving. I cannot find my snap ring pliers to remove the bearing section and inspect. Will update later.

This turbo won't be warranteed, so I need to decide if it's worth getting a super core for $1100, replacing the center portion and reusing my housings, or if I should just eat an extra $400 and get a new turbo (with a warranty) that will have all the correct tolerances on the compressor side.

EFR6258 or EFR6758 on pump gas? Thinking sticking with the 6258...or getting rid of the Miata. I've bled a lot into this project already.


.....or Bauer catfish

Did you inspect the throttle body? My 2560 lost one at Laguna and the damage is somewhat similar:

https://www.miataturbo.net/prefabbed...e-wheel-81058/

--Ian

Throttle body bolts on the butterfly are both still there. I guess I'll take the head off and see whats inside

With the aluminum shaved from the compressor housing, should I be thinking about replacing my intercooler and washing out my charge piping?

Full Race can at least take it for inspection, that's a dick move to deny it straight up.
Does look like it ingested something, though.

They kept pushing that it's likely contaminated oil that caused bearing failure. They don't want to see the turbo since they aren't going to be able to offer me anything other than selling me another product due to warranty not being transferable.

I'm going to built another motor and swap it in eventually. I don't quite trust the motor currently in the car. I might also have my BE oil pump sent back and inspected.

Replace intercooler or leave it?

Sorry to hear all this, man :( Don't give up the fight!

Just ordered internals for a 94 block. It'll be nice to shorten the oil and coolant feed to turbo. I need a crank though. Pulling the head this weekend.

You are one boss dedicated man.

Couldn't you re-use some of the old internals, like rods and pistons?

Best of luck man. Wow.

I figure for as tapped out as this setup is, I think it's best to have a whole motor ready to drop in at any given time. That way when I pull the old one out, I'll start assessing and re-rebuilding. Worst case I throw it into a catfish or exocet.

Having just eaten the no warranty sandwich, I would certainly get a new one. Especially on a piece like this and if a core alone is $1k!

If you stick with the project (please do) then don't shoot yourself in the dick. God forbid things go sour later, because then you might be so pissed off from the second failure with no warranty that you actually shoot yourself in the dick. Worth $400? It probably is even for the peace of mind after this ordeal.

Yea, there are some parts where the assurance of a warranty is worth the extra cost. Though in this case I don't think it was a manufacturer defect. Speculation is something got ingested and pooped out the turbine.

Last try. If it dies again, with a new motor, I'm definitely doing something wrong and should quit and take up baking.

paging Jeffbucc

^ my thoughts exactly :laugh:

Wat

Cliffs Notes: He bakes (bread only nowadays).

Looks like roasted ringland did the turbo in. I've got some big problems on my hands. I don't know about trying again.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...44547974_n-jpg

Aww sheeiz man.

Possibly bad injector? How do the other pistons look?

--Ferdi

Ouch... The bright side if there is any is that this happened at the tail end of the driving season (if VA is anything like Illinois). If you have another car, don't throw in the towel just yet.

that looks like some ...... serious det

Like, it should have sounded like a tin can full of ball bearings for a white det

Yea I was quite shocked at how it didn't leave me on the side of the road spewing smoke and sounding lumpy.

In any event, head is damaged. So...if anyone has a spare 1.8L crank and a BP4W head, please let me know

perhaps now is a good time to move to a vvt head? ;)

Damn man, that's super unfortunate. Sorry you had it go out like that.

In for root cause, this thread is making me shit water :noes:

Have one?

Well, we found out what ate the turbo. Not sure about the detonation cause it still drove and sounded fine. I'll take a look to see if the valve seals were going, maybe some oil was coming in on the intake side of cylinder 4

holy hell, great price. I'd have to ask Brain to modify the ms3x to support and I wouldn't know how to tune it.

I'll start pinging your FS thread

I believe the VVT feature should already be available if you have the MS3X from Brain. This is what i have ubderstood when have discussed it.

If I recall you had an earlier model NA block which as I unfortunately found out takes a bit of extra work to get the crank trigger system to work. The crank trigger system is a requirement for use with the vvt head. I'm also going the route of the built vvt with efr and I ended up just buying a complete vvt engine with all the wiring and such. Looking forward to your updates.

Yea when installing the bp4w I made the mistake of getting a 36-1 trigger wheel so I was never able to run sequential anything since no code was developed for this wheel and cam input.

Props, I did not know that and was planning that in the future. I'm guessing 32-1/12-1 are the best options at the moment? I hear you really don't need a ton more resolution than 12-1.

Oem 4 tooth with the 99-00 code is fine.

Or you have to grind the double nubs for the cam input so it triggers once per rotation and enter the cam and crank tooth #1 angle in manually.

You should seriously consider running E85.
Your safety margin goes from |__| to |______________________lel______________________|

lol, I'd only be able to fill up in Ashburn, Alexadria and Bethesda. Maybe I just shouln't run all the boosts. Maybe some Water injection as a bandaid.

Maybe go NA

Ungh, E85. So many wants :cry:

Eek. That's the weak point of Supertechs.

Well good thing these were Wiseco!

Actually, while we're on the topic of Supertechs...they are coated right? Every picture I see of them online show them to be flat grey.

This is what I got in the mail today:

Supertech
8.6:1
84mm

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...929_191331-jpg



Kinda shinier than I expected.... is this right?

Oh OK so they have similar designs.

Were your pistons this shiny?

My Supertechs look like your Supertechs, looks more like anodized than a coating. It depends on the camera and the lighting? :dunno:

Edit: Pics!
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1412057164

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1412057164

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1412057164

I can get that same color change depending on what angle I hold the camera in relation to the lights. Seems to do this more under florescent source. The pocket on the underside in the last pic and the face of the bottom edge of the skirt is what my eyes see, rather than what the camera sees. Hard to explain. But you are right, definitely not the dull matte "coating" I was expecting based on other peoples pics.

Even though we did as detailed of a job building the motor and I think I have a good tune, this kind of stuff worries me. Is it just me or do more people have problems with Wiseco pistons than Supertechs? I have Wisecos in mine now and running 17psi with the same turbo.

Don't worry unless there's a reason to worry. Lots of people have had successes, it's the failures that are easy to remember.

This is just a reminder that nothing is forever. I hope to be even more careful the next time around. Maybe not get too drunk on boost and keep it a bit more conservative. I'd like to add knock sensing to ms3 though...


Also with regards to piston brands, any piston can fail if the tune is spotty. If I recall, Savington or another one of the knowledgeable members had a dented dome on a Supertech. Others have had hot spots on the valve reliefs if it weren't hand finished.

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I was tuned by a former FM employee and recommended tuner so I am sleeping OK at night, but how much power were you putting down and what boost levels? Our builds are nearly identical. I made 311/285 on 17psi

I was under the assumption most MS units had knock sensing. My guy had to set the parameters for the knock sensor because he said it was going off way too often and that with my forged internals, the noise level is higher so the sensor has to be set differently. Once he was done that he was able to start tuning. I have an MS2X

This is why I want to run water/meth. I have no access to E85 so options are limited besides being conservative on my spark map.

That is some gnarly damage Psyber...sorry friend. :sadwavey:

The knock module is extra and has to be added to the daughter board on my ms3. For $85, it'd be a great tool to help mitigate or at least inform the user of damage habits.

Thanks for the words. We break, we rebuild, then we spank her naughty.

We never lose (though it might feel like it sometimes). We either win, or we learn.

...and then lose some money in between. Ok yes, we lose.

The Enhanced MS2 that Alex has already has advanced knock control on it, using the same chip as the MS3.

So should I take this opportunity to upgrade or change my intercooler for fear of having miscellaneous shavings from the compressor housing?

If I recall, the begi and precision intercooler have the best core design with a higher fin density. Not sure if I' sold on the vibrant cores yet.

Anyone care to weigh in? Should I just keep my Begi#3?

My vibrant fab9 core kept temps good on the dyno and street. Not idea about track though.

I too have a questionable IC on hand (junk yard/dirty unit).
This might be a terrible idea but this is my plan to clean it out.

1. Rinse it with yet to be determined non-hazmat aluminum cleaner.
2. Hook one end up to turbo.
3. Hook up other end to a pipe that points away from my car.
4. Take it to the rev limiter.
5. Refill with cleaner, swap intercooler hookup (blast from the other side).
6. Repeat until I feel good about it.
7. Run it until the IC is dry inside.
.....Maybe go easy with the throttle to make sure impeller speeds don't get out of hand.

Or use a leaf blower ??

Hmmmm all pine trees around me. The OP however lives in VA so a leaf blower is certainly something that could be near by.

Not nearly as cool though :D

Just rent a pressure washer. On mine I can inject soap into the lower pressure attachment. Makes cleaning things easy.