In_DET

I had a major bearing failure on my old GT28RS and needless to say I was pissed. The turbo had been making an occasional high pitched spool/"screeching" sound when boosting at anything other than WOT for a short while. This was not a constant noise. Well, one day, the turbo goes from 15psi to 0psi in one nasty second. I remove the turbo and I've got an obviously spun bearing.

Upon closer inspection, no oil was getting thorugh the center section, its as if there was an internal blockage in the turbo that stopped oil flow. I tried to blow air through the oil passage on the dead turbo and there was no air flow whatso ever. Blocked solid. I use only mobile-1 15-50, Mobile 1 filters, I change oil every 3 months like clock work and I've never found any particles of metal in my oil. Oil pressure is solid at around 70psi when the car is warm and I'm crusing.

So this time I decided to upgrade to the GT2871r and while I was at it I replaced water lines, oil feed line and the oil drain line just to be sure there wasn't a problem. I installed the ATP restrictor on the new turbo to make sure that also wasn't why my GT28RS died. I changed oil again before restarting the car, I checked to make sure there was oil flow through the lines and out the drain flange, checked the water flow, etc. Everything checked out. I get the turbo installed, and it drives fine and doesn't make the screeching noise at non-WOT boost.

Flash forward to this week and the damn noise is starting to show itself. If I try to hold partial throttle boost at 15 psi, I get the noise. Needless to say, I've very pissed about having 2 GT series turbos, both purchased brand new, developing the same problem. At $1200 a piece, this is a bit rediculous. I don't know what more I could possibly do. I've installed the required restrictor, replaced lines, used top quality oil and filters, etc. The turbo intake is filtered and there are no tears in the filter, and there are no holes in the intake piping.

Has anyone else run into this problem or know what I can possibly check to see why its happening?

Matt Vassallo

What car do you have the setup on?

I dont' run restrictors on rwd SR20DET's.

nissantuner22

why no restrictors matt?

In_DET

S13 Sr

bkrupps14sr

I have a t28 on my S14 sr. About a week ago, my turbo started making the same noise your talking about. I've never raised the boost over 12 pounds. I haven't taken mine off to check it out yet. I will do it this weekend.

Matt Vassallo

because i don't, and i'vve never had any problems with my turbos the way i run them, so why change ?

of course the turbo sellers gonna tell you to restrict the oil to the turbo, that way it can blow out and you can buy more turbos ! just kidding

Epstein

The oil restrictor subject is very debated on FA and mostly unresolved. Every freaking post in Advanced is like a meeting of the minds. So if they haven't concluded either way, I would have no problems going either direction. I just installed a GT2871R with restrictor on an S13, but haven't had a chance to get on it yet.

Possible wild-assed guesses:
- blockage inside the block going to your turbo oil feed?
- thinning the oil due to running super rich?
- water from somewhere?
- 15W50 is too thick for GT series?

In_DET

There is no blockage in the block going to the oil feed line, I know that because I ran the car for a few seconds with just the line attached and no turbo on the opposite end just to flush out the hose and make sure I had oil flow.

The car shouldn't be running super rich, its been tuned by Enthalpy for my GT28RS setup and the only difference now is that I'm using a Gt2871r, but keep in mind this problem showed up with the 28rs too.

The reason I'm using 15w50 is because I had been experiencing startup clatter noise when I used the 5w15. The 28RS died when I was using the 5w15 also so I was ruling out thin oil as the culpret.

Matt Vassallo

i never have and will continue to not use restrictors on all of the gt series turbos i install, because i havent had one fail on me yet