My mission was to remove the hybrid turbo and re-install the stock turbo (along with other things)... If you're curious to know what got me to this point, search and find my other threads describing the process/install etc.

I recently decided to sell the hybrid to see if someone else could maximize the performance of this turbo, because I had simply failed in every way, lol.

So that brings us to tonight.

I stripped the block (except LIM and a couple other things) and began removing all of the emissions junk and the rat's nest.

I installed a set of 2571 engineering block-off plates and re-did my fuel lines etc.

My hope was that in simplifying and removing almost all of the vac. lines in the engine, I would be able to fix my vac. leak in the process.

This brings me to a very interesting discovery--but I didn't realize it's significance until I had driven the car later...

The metal 'L' shaped "nipple" that comes out of the turbo compressor housing above the inlet had FALLEN OUT. Meaning the vac. line that ran from this nipple to the boost controller was DANGLING with the 'L' shaped nipple still stuck in the end of it!?!?!

Anyways, I got everything put back together; stock turbo, new block-off plates and a new cone filter. I also decided to redrill the stock turbo's WG actuator arm and shorten it, creating more tension etc.

I took it out for a test drive... First thing I noticed was that my VAC. LEAK was STILL ALIVE and terrible as ever. Second thing I noticed was that I was building boost CRAZY fast and it was hitting 10psi at like 3k RPM's in 1st gear and starting to pull like crazy in 2nd and 3rd. I was giggling like a school girl and I shut off my EBC so that I could experiment a little bit to make sure that I wasn't going to go much higher than 10psi (shortened WG arm was kind of freaking me out). Anyways, I took it to WOT in 2nd gear and was suprised when my car started lagging bad!?! I started cussing to myself KNOWING that something had just gone wrong. I went WOT again and saw that I wasn't making any real boost until 5k RPM's, but it was still around 12psi... Kind of like my hybrid... (key Zelda discovery music)

I drove home and popped my hood. I looked carefully around the turbo area, just in case I saw that my twin-scroll vac. line had come disconnected or something.

My WG's ACTUATOR ARM HAD DISCONNECTED!!!

(I broke it's little clip and I had just pulled the rod's new hole over the pin, thinking that the crazy tension would hold it on temporarily until I could find a new one)

I thought about it...

The WG had been disconnected when I drove it home...

I then realized that if the turbo's 'L' nipple on the hybrid was off, the WG was disconnected then, too.

Meaning THAT's the reason why my hybrid felt so bad!

Anyways, I re-installed the WG arm in the STOCK location (decided the new hole was a little too much) and found a little clip for it temporarily.

I've been driving around for about 1/2 hour or so and all I can say is WOW.

My twin-scroll is working for the 1st time. My WG is hooked up properly. I reach max boost by 3.5K RPM's in 2nd gear and I'm pretty much STOKED.

I honestly think I'm going to re-install the hybrid tomorrow and finally be able to feel what it has to offer.

ha... hahahahahahahahha lololololol

Also, in case anyone thinks I'm a n00b for not realizing the 'L' nipple on the hybrid had literally fallen out (creating a hole in the turbo's housing and disconnecting the WG/boost controller), up until this point I had my stock air-box and air pump etc. Meaning I couldn't see down there. And, who the heck would suspect that FALLING out?

Also, I was always under the (false) impression that if the WG was disconnected, the turbo would boost CRAZY FAST and you'd blow your motor before you knew what hit you... Obviously it's the EXACT OPPOSITE. Meaing the WG is simply open all the time. I'm just suprised that I could hit 12-13 psi on my hybrid and on my stock turbo with the WG disconnected...

Oh well, my car's running like it should FINALLY (months after my rebuild / many mods.

 

haha happened to me too, i couldnt build any boost with the arm off. g'luck to you man, im still trying to have enough fuel support to boost more on my hybrid, i am only boosting it at 6psi right now, hopefully i get more power later with more boost.

eric.

 

That's what you get for yelling at me.
muahhUAUUAHhuAUHAhAHUUHA


-Ted

 

congrats ,a man its great to finnay see one of your turbos working correctly heheh

 

a good thing to do is cap off the inlet of your turbo with a spray paint can lid, or something that will fit, grab a air compressor tank and hook it up to a vaccume line, compress your intake and listen for escaping air, if all your lines are good then the pressure should build up.
I know this works for piston engines, but the compression may seep through the engine on a rotary and not give you any good PSI levels in the intake..
anyways, try this next time you think you have a vaccume leak.

 

Dyno it!

 

First with the stock, then with the hybrid! FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND!

 

I blew my motor.

(lol, seriously)

 

Oh **** what happened? dont you have a newwer rebuild?

 

To make a long story short; the motor's toast.

This is what happened:

I left off last night eager to start today by getting a new vac. splitter and some new (good) vac. caps. On my way to the auto-parts store (after warming up), I tried to do a little 'boost' run, but when I gave it gas it just sputtered and didn't go anywhere... No problem, it's just a MAJOR BOOST LEAK, nothing I haven't dealt with before (lol).

I pop off the TMIC to find that 3 of my vac. caps had POPPED OFF; two of the 3 on the front of the UIM and the biggest of the 3 in the back.

No problem, I bought some tighter caps and installed them there.

I spent the next 20 minutes or so boosting like crazy. I still had a bad idle at 1500RPM's pulling 11mm/hg of vac. pressure, even after re-capping the UIM nipples.

Well, I'm not exactly sure when it happened--but the idle got worse... So bad that even with nothing changed, it was *barely* staying alive. To top it off, under boost I started hearing a weird "whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh", like a 'fluttery' noise.

I drove it home as fast as I could to see what could be making the noise. Well, it died as soon as I parked it. I started it back up and quickly started spraying carb cleaner around to see if I could locate a new vac. leak. It would jump around a little bit (meaning at this point I thought that maybe some more caps came off).

I shut it off and then decided that I'd spend the afternoon ERASING everything I did last night, by reinstalling the hybrid.

My HOPE was that I'd be able to finally take advantage of the hybrid, like I finally got to take advantage of the stock turbo last night. In the process of the removal/re-install I'd go over everything and make SURE that everything was buttoned down properly to ensure that there would be no more vac. leaks.

Upon removal of the UIM, I saw that (of course) there were two blown off caps. The one 'angled' one on the back of the LIM and the one coming straight up between the primary injectors.

I went nuts with RTV. UIM, TB, block-off plates, caps/nipples. Everything got a taste of the black goo.

I got the stock turbo off and the hybrid back on pretty quick, everything went really smoothly (practice makes perfect, lol).

Got everything re-installed, everything was crazy tight... Started it, and I should've known at this point, but the cranking pulses were sporadic and weak... I got it started after several moments and pulled it out of the garage. It could barely idle.

I didn't even roll my eyes, because at this point I'm so accustomed to failure that it was normal for everything to be wrong, lol.

Upon slight revving the weird 'whooshing' noise WAS STILL THERE.

I looked at my friend and told him my motor was blown. We gave it a compression test:

Front rotor was between 70-90 (check valve was removed so it was hard to pinpoint any real number). Definitely not PAST 90.

Rear rotor... Between 0 and 30... LOL.

That's the story.

In reflection, I'm thinking that I've had a cracked seal for quite some time, maybe as long as I've had these idle issues (since the day after the hybrid install).

Today when I was going boost crazy it decided to let go...?

Anyways, I looked over my stock turbo that I pulled off the motor, after it was blown and I could see no visible damage... Could I have been spared from having a chunk of seal pass through the turbo? Like, would there be visible damage to the turbo if in fact seal fragments passed through it?

I'm *pretty* sure the weird noise I was hearing was a broken seal sliding over the exhaust port (or something).

I'm tearing open the block tomorrow to 'see what I can see'.

LOL, wow.

I'm doing it right this time. I repent of my n00b ways.

 

haha, yeah.

I explain what happened in my "new" thread; the 4th chapter in the captivating saga of a n00b and his Turbo II.

 

oh noes?

 

thats gay, 9.4:1 rotors in there right? (sig says so) I'm sorry that sucks alot of ***** hope it works out next time.

 

what did you use to put the L back onto the turbo for the WG?

 

yeah, it's got s4 N/A rotors... Hopefully I'll have it all rebuilt by this Saturday, but we shall see.

I just ordered a clutch, and I don't have the stuff (at my house) for flywheel removal. So I probably won't start working on stripping the block until tomorrow evening.

I'm stoked. Whatever, the car's gonna frikkin' rip when I get it all put back together. I'll probably tweak the porting a little bit when it's apart.

 

thats the spirit! but really the only thing its gonna rip is a hole in your pocket when it blows up again unless you figure out what happened while its apart.

do you have any idea why it blew? "boosting like crazy" doesnt blow motors up. and generally, apex seals dont just crack and chill in there, if they "crack," its usually the corner of the seal flying off.

i personally wouldnt run any higher compression rotors while using the stock ecu and piggy backs. if i were you i'd sell all that ****, get some 9.0 or 8.5:1 rotors (probably 8.5's) and get a haltech and pay somebody to tune it. you said you're using 9.4:1 s4 NA rotors... and running 12psi? so the car was probably making the same power that 9.0:1 rotors would be making at 13 or 14psi, which should be a decent amount.

who tuned your car to use these 720's and walbro and safc? you? do you have a wideband? hopefully you do. BUT, ASSUMING you're running the stock ecu, the safcII, and 720cc secondaries with no wideband tuning, heres what happens: your fuel pressure drops when those 720's come online at 3800rpms making the car run lean, then the car gets crazy rich right after that because those 720's are firing at the same pulsewidth that the stock 550's secondaries were because your stock ECU doesnt know any better...

seriously take it from me, dont just rebuild this thing and have it all happen again and blow as soon as you start boosting the new motor.

 

Hey erik, how many miles did you have on your engine when she blew?

 

haha!

What can I say? lol

I guess I really have no idea what happened... I'm probably going to have to wait until Friday before tearing into the block (flywheel 'ish).

I was thinking about switching back to the 8:5's, but I don't have any...

The reason why I ditched my O.G. TII rotors was because one of the corner seal slots was bent, causing one of the corner seals to stick on the first rebuild. The second rebuild was with my '87 N/A's 60k mile rotors and housings.

I don't know, I've *heard* of seals cracking but not dislodging until they're "triggered" by some sort of extreme condition... It makes sense to me, but at the same time, I'll know what happened as soon as the motor's apart.

I think I'm going to stick with my existing setup and do it perfectly. Obviously nothing can beat a standalone ECU, but I think it's a little much (effort and $) for right now.

I've gotta sell my vert... lol (screw the vert)

 

ouch, my suggestion is invest in a wideband, i had no idea you had n/a rotors in the thing or i would have suggested sticking with close to near stock boost levels and work your way up. 12psi even with a stock turbo with 9.4:1 rotors is tough on the engine unless you have a very accurate way of tuning it.

 

Probably 8k miles or so...

It would be different if I were a casual owner, but I'm doing my own work, so I view everything as a learning experience (because it literally is).

This isn't just a "rebuild". This will be my TII's re-re-rebuild. Each of the previous rebuilds was done imperfectly. On the first I used a sketchy rotor, and on the second I used sketchy side-seals (without checking the clearances).

Lesson for all n00bs (from a transitiong n00b): Don't take any short-cuts. They ALWAYS come back to get you later... AlWAYS.

Either way, I enjoy being schooled by my TII. lol

 

9.4:1 must be fun, hope it works out for me, probably wont though.

 

Holy **** Erik!!

You know, in the back of my mind I always wondered about the motor's health, when working on your car (which is why I asked if you had taken a comp test), but I never figured you might have had a cracked seal. Sounds possible.

Haha, remember when you were telling me over the phone, I think, about when you took off the airpump hose or something like that, and saw a little chunk of metal in there that looked like a piece of a side seal? Heh, this thread made me think of that

Well good luck dude!! Do it right this time and you'll be much happier. Have you ordered your new seals and such yet? Your front housing will hopefully be fine, but your rear housing is most likely junk Hopefully the irons didn't get any damage and the rotor apex slots aren't harmed too bad. Good luck with everything, let us know how it turns out!

 

Look at it this way. Ever since I've had my TII up and running and being modded, it's NEVER ran right. It's ALWAYS been slow and unimpressive (at least using another similarly modded TII as a comparison).

The N/A rotors have never been a big "wow" factor until yesterday...

You're right though, I've always discounted the N/A rotors as doing nothing significant... People always say that they create more low-end and help the turbo spool quicker etc., but something's ALWAYS been wrong with my setup... So I just pushed the significance aside.

My buddy who's more experienced/responsible than me (lol) has a nearly identical setup (using 9:4's, same porting etc.) but he got the R-tek 1.7 chip... Oops. LOL.

I had the SAFC set to +5% from 4k RPM's to 8k RPM's. This is with a Walbro 255 and Greddy 720's, running 13psi (max) on the stock turbo.

I guess we know what the limit's are using 9:4's without any more 'control'.

(I should've got the R-tek...)

Whatever, I'll ship out an ECU this Saturday for the R-tek mod.

I'm probably going to be facing a break-in period, so it's not like I'm in any hurry, lol.

 

Nah, I haven't ordered the new seals yet. Steve (13bpower) is trying to convert my to a Rotary Aviation seal package, but I'm not sure yet...

BTW, when you drove the TII the WG was disconnected, LOL.

I wish you could've experienced it's short lived glory earlier today... haha.

Anyone else want to sell me on the Rotary Aviation seals? They're obviously cheper than Atkins, but...

I don't know, Atkins is like, my neighbor.

(lol)

 

The apex seals are fine, but that's ALL I'd use. And do NOT use their springs! Their springs, as stated on their site, are for stock n/a non-nitrous engines or stock TII engines with stock boost levels. I've seen them wear fast too and flatten out for turbo guys, n/a is usually okay.

What I did for my recent build was RA seals and OEM springs ($$$). I don't know anything about the rest of the hard seals they sell, but I used OEM (except the solid corner seals, which were Atkins) for all the other hard seals and springs.

Also, RA coolant seals have been known to be more difficult to install than OEM, they need to be stretched and if you stretch them too much... well it's not going to work all that well anymore

The rest of their o-rings are fine.

Some food for thought

Here's a quick list of what I used and where I bought it.

Mazda OEM o-ring kit - Mazdatrix
FD corner springs - Mazdatrix
Solid corner seals - Atkins
Side seals - Atkins
Side seal springs - Mazdatrix
OEM apex springs - Mazdatrix
RA apex seals
Viton oil control rings - Atkins
Oil control ring springs - Mazdatrix
New bearings/stat gears/etc - Mazdatrix
Front/rear main seals - Atkins
Thermal pellet - Mazdatrix

Bla bla bla...