I have a question for the tech gurus on the board. I recently had an unfortunate incident with a rather large puddle in the road and hydro locked my motor. The shop the car is at is telling me that the turbocharger is damaged because of the water passing through. I know the motor itself would have a hard time trying to compress water but, a turbo charger should do this with ease. I do not want to come to a blind disagreement with the person working on the car because he is obviously going to try and sell me a new turbo. They also say the turbo is not rebuildable due to this damage. It is a Garrett GT35R. What are your thoughts?

 

dsmn.. where is this puddle at so i avoid it?

 

I don't know if this will help any but if I go through a large puddle with my STS kit sometimes the next day my car will stumble going into boost. It will feel like traction control kicking in but it always clears up after driving for a short period.

 

I assume you have the PowerLab kit, how did you mange to get water all the way up to the air filter?

 

Water isn't compressable by anything. Your turbos could be dmged by the impact. Anyone here is just going to b guessing.

 

I see no reason why your turbo should have suffered any damage AT ALL unless the engine broke and sent pieces through the exhaust side and damaged the turbine wheel. Turbos compress air FAR differently than engines do...the water will simply go through the compressor wheel and get shoved into the engine...but the only thing that will happen inside the turbo is that the compressor wheel will be slowed down.

Ask them to show you the turbo and explain to you what is "wrong" with it. Any kind of damage supposedly related to the water would have to be pretty obvious ( bent fins, gyro, extreme play on the shafts, etc ).

 

hot turbo + cold water = massive warpage.

Compressor wheel would be toast. I would think it MAY be rebuildable depending on housing damage.

 

Here in south florida during the rainy season it can get pretty ridiculous. Basically everything is built on the everglades so the water goes nowhere when the storm drains back up. Basically the water splashed up to the grill area. There was water in the exhaust system post downpipe so it did pass through the HOT side =/. Guess ill be getting a new turbo along with the engine build. My wallet is going to committ suicide.

 

First of all, the turbo is a watercooled turbo meaning that it's not NEARLY as hot as an oil cooled turbo.

Second, the compressor wheel is made of aluminum and doesn't get all that hot as the air going through it aids in cooling it.

Third, the turbine wheel is made of Inconel which is then treated with hot isostatic processing and then it is heat treated. These wheels are EXTREMELY tough, FAR tougher than your regular cast iron exhaust manifold or cylinder heads, which have a much higher tendency or warping or cracking, and it will rarely get damaged for anything except for FOD ( which happens to be one of the largest causes of turbine failure ) or consistent extreme temperatures ( over 2200*+ ).

 

I thought the GT35R on the Powerlab Kit was oil cooled?!?!?!

 

oil and water cooled

 

R denounces water cooled.

when the water hit the turbo, it got really hot really quick. it should be fine.

 

R denounces ballbearing...not watercooled.

 

A turbo definitely gets damaged by water passing through. It´s similar to a water strike in a jet engine( i´ve already seen that). The turbo won´t be repairable cause the compressor wheel is bend or even cracked.

 

We'll I've worked with turbos for almost 10 years ( My 3 previous cars have been turbocharged ) and have worked on hundreds of turbos and have seen some crazy stuff but not once have I seen, or even heard, of a turbo being damages by water entering it's compressor. It just doesn't get hot enough.

You also state the turbo won't be repairable...why not? If it IS a damaged compressor wheel you can just replace it.

 

Just have the turbo examined by a 3rd party (Blouch?) and then please report back and tell us if a column of water (hot or cold) hitting blades running at xxK rpms did any damage.

 

Thanks for all the input guys, I am going to the shop today so I will post up some pictures for you guys to see.

 

sorry youre right, but all bb are water cooled. and yes compressor wheels can be replaced, only garrett can repair a BB CHRA, but almost anybody can replace a comp wheel.

 

You`re right. The comp wheel is changeable. i wanted to say you can´t fix the wheel so you´ve to change it.
I´m an jet engine mechanic and i can tell you. Water entering a compressor wheel means DAMAGE. The temperature is not the problem but the wheel hits the water with 100000rpm?! At that speeds you can say water gets solid.

 

This isn't an arguement. Since you work on jet engines you would be a good person to ask.

When I was in the Army I did a deployment and often we secured the flightline for the airforce. They flew those planes in the rain with no problems. How did that not affect the turbine engines? One would think at high speeds with rain that they would ingest a large quantity of water. They were f16's if that makes any difference.