Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Deciphering the mystery of the infamous blowing up of the turbo:
You can see on the compressor side where the blades of the pinwheel hit the wall of the housing. The blades are all chewed up on the ends. The housing must be a lot harder material, because it faired a lot better. You can see theres some discoloration in the housing, where it did get ground down a little, but to the touch, theres really not that noticeable of a step there. All this happened after the bearings went, I'm sure, and contributed none to the demise of the turbo. You can also see the oil that leaked into the compressor side when the bearings finally gave up.
The middle two pictures show the end play of the shaft. I took them both without moving anything but the pinwheel by pushing up on the exhaust side pinwheel. Look at where the blades are relative to the discoloration line on the housing between the two pics. It also wobbles side to side about as far, but that would have been hard to show in a still pic.
What I can't figure out is the missing tips of the blades on the exhaust pinwheel. It doesn't look like that could've happened from banging up against the housing. I would imagine they would have just ground down like on the compressor side. My only thought is that the heat coupled with the mechanical force of the fins hitting the housing made them break off instead of rub off.
The real question is what did it in the first place? Cheap materials/manufacturing? Pressure buildup beyond what the turbo is rated for? Heat buildup? Mechanical force/foreign object damage? Debris in oil wearing down the bearings?
The holset is back in and running well. I haven't been getting on it though, because it was WOT that killed the other turbo, which leads me to believe it had something to do with either heat or pressure, or both.
You can see on the compressor side where the blades of the pinwheel hit the wall of the housing. The blades are all chewed up on the ends. The housing must be a lot harder material, because it faired a lot better. You can see theres some discoloration in the housing, where it did get ground down a little, but to the touch, theres really not that noticeable of a step there. All this happened after the bearings went, I'm sure, and contributed none to the demise of the turbo. You can also see the oil that leaked into the compressor side when the bearings finally gave up.
The middle two pictures show the end play of the shaft. I took them both without moving anything but the pinwheel by pushing up on the exhaust side pinwheel. Look at where the blades are relative to the discoloration line on the housing between the two pics. It also wobbles side to side about as far, but that would have been hard to show in a still pic.
What I can't figure out is the missing tips of the blades on the exhaust pinwheel. It doesn't look like that could've happened from banging up against the housing. I would imagine they would have just ground down like on the compressor side. My only thought is that the heat coupled with the mechanical force of the fins hitting the housing made them break off instead of rub off.
The real question is what did it in the first place? Cheap materials/manufacturing? Pressure buildup beyond what the turbo is rated for? Heat buildup? Mechanical force/foreign object damage? Debris in oil wearing down the bearings?
The holset is back in and running well. I haven't been getting on it though, because it was WOT that killed the other turbo, which leads me to believe it had something to do with either heat or pressure, or both.
