Symptoms of a Bad Turbo ---- :(

[shift_SRDETuser]

Hey guys just needing a little feedback from your personal uses or knowledge on the turbo s14s or s13s.

Do bad turbos make noise, give off some smoke (white), has in and out shaft play, causes the vac to stumble at idle on decel and makes car almost die, will boost up and spool up but feels funny in that it spools fast up then falls flat and has funny acceleration characteristics? Makes it feel almost like the timing is off and the car will do weird things like blow off under little or no boost and occasionally backfire? I will be replacing the turbo soon and just need to know if these are some of things that happen?

[boro drift]

Sounds like a boost leak to me, along with a bad turbo.

[shift_SRDETuser]

I can hear vaccum on idle and am thinking it is coming from a gasket or something -- sounds close to the head and the pcv valve? I pulled it off to look at the valve but I think it is ok. I can not find it -- the idle air control valve is on the front of the intake manifold but there is a lot of vac lines that run along and underneath the intake -- so I will try and trace it....

[shift_SRDETuser]

I hate to bump my own thread but I solved my own problem. I was having idling problems and the car was not running right -- thought it was the turbo -- shaft play and what not the s14 turbo is not a ball bearing turbo. So about a couple of weeks ago I tried and clean my idle air control valve with carbon cleaner -- carb cleaner.... well I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned -- then something strange happened the car up and farted and died. It had blow a huge *** amount of carbon and sludge through the turbo and into the hotpipe and chargepipe...Well the car was missing backfiring and having all kinds of trouble.... well I decided just for the heck of it to clean the charge pipe neck and the hot pipe neck -- I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned spraying carb cleaner then using paper towels to clean the rest off well then I put it back together and guess what.

Back in action the sr20det is an amazing engine.... the best 4 cylinder ever made


Modified by shift_SRDETuser at 9:22 PM 11/14/2008