It has been only 2 weeks since I fitted some new mods, including the Kinugawa TD04HL-20T (11 billet compressor wheel and 9 turbine wheel).
I started to tune the car for the new turbo last weekend and yesterday I went for another round of tunes.
I have been a few hours doing some pulls, analyzing data and tuning it.
I was doing almost the last pull of the night (it was almost 5am) and in 3rd gear @ 5700 the turbo just hugely failed.
I immediately lost all boost and power.
At first I though it would have been an intercooler hose popping out but as soon as I look at the mirror I see a crazy and huge cloud of smoke. I immediately knew that turbo was gone.
I was video recording the pull (as well as data logging it). You can hear the noise @ 5700 in 3rd gear. Here is the video:
I towed the car home and after some sleep I went to see the damages.
A few oil in intercooler hoses and including in the intake pipe, MAF and filter. Not to much, just a bit. Compressor wheel looked ok (no damage to it apparently) but I noticed a bit of play on it.
I pull out the downpipe and as supposed turbine wheel was damaged as well as a lot of oil and burnt oil of course.. One blade was completely ripped of and the shaft is broken. I can freely move the turbine wheel in and out, from one side to the other.
This is a huge fail for a brand new turbo.
Probably the 9 blade turbine is not good for balancing at all.
I was pushing the turbo around 21-23psi.
Now shopping for a new (definitely bigger!) turbo...just still wondering which one will be...