I recently welded a crack on my turbine housing. I am going to buy a rebuild kit and a turbine housing in the near future. Will it be okay to get my 350 tuned without the new turbine housing. There was a little bit of oil on before the cold side of my turbo where the air filter piping connects to the turbo.


Reason why i am buyin a rebuild kit instead of a new turbo.

1. Turbo has only a few thousand miles on it and I believe the reason it cracked was the lack of a turbo timer which I have purchased one and now going to install it this weekend.

2. I was told by multiple turbo rebuild companies in socal that the seals might need to be replaced and the turbine housing but the actual turbine blades don't often go bad

3. Its much cheaper to rebuild than to buy a new turbo that fits my turbonetics kit.

4. Im not sure if the car was even tuned considering i bought it with no boost gauge or turbo timer. Thats why im in a rush to get it tuned.

I feel like it should have more power and I so I want to get a tune as soon as I can to narrow down possible problems with my car, not saying there is a problem but I just want to make sure everything is okay.

Compression check - cylinders 2, 4, 6, 1 were at 188 psi cylinders. 3, 5 were at 184 psi

I also want to rebuild instead of buy new for the knowledge of rebuilding a turbo and learning experience.


NOTE: On base I have a public shop where I can rent a stall with all the tools and equipment I could ever need for 8$ a day so all the work on my car is done by me and I wont need to pay massive amounts of money to work on.



Thank you guys I appreciate all the help and input. Please let me know what you think I should do or what tests I should run to make sure my Z is legit.

 

is it a cast housing? if so just junk the housing and wait for the new one, even the best welders with perfect conditions can stop micro fractures from forming after the weld, the allow rust to seal them then if it needs to hold pressure they use sealant, which wont work on the turbo due to clearances. other words the housing is junk.

the turbo timer i would find a hard time being the cause of it to crack, the purpose of a turbo timer is to allow oil to circulate so it dosnt coke inside the bearings, has 0 to do with the exhaust housing, most of the exhaust housings cooling is going to come from the air.

compression test is fine

dont order anything till the housing is off and you can actually inspect the turbine, as well as check shaft play.

 

You can't weld cast iron. The proper way to go about it is to cut a groove where the crack was, cleaning all the corrosion/contamination. The surrounding area has to be cleaned/ground as well.

After doing this, you have to get the oxy/acetylene torch and braze it. If the repair is performed this way, there should not be any issues down the road.

 

you can weld it sasha just has to be done with a stick welder and a specific rod i cant remember which though, takes a long time because you have to control the temp very carefully then you have to control the cooldown to to avoid large cracks, they used a oven and would turn the temp down every 5-10 mins until it got down to about 100 degrees metal temp when i saw it done. not optimal though ive never seen anyone braze it though so i cant comment how that would hold, personally wouldnt trust it though

edit: heres one of the rods for cast iron, i love me some hobart stuff lol all the miller goodness at a fraction of the price.
http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/hoba...FQtyQgodeBAANw

 

I dont know how conservative Turbonetics was on the sizing of their off the shelf kit compressor housings, but you could also use this opportunity as an upgrade path. If the turbonetics kit is like any other commercialized product, there is room for improvement. If you're already getting a new housing anyway, I would look into what is an efficient up-size for that turbo and your engine configuration.
Sorta like how you're getting a gauge and timer, I always use failures as a path to improve, instead of just throwing on the same **** that might break again.
mmm now you got me thinking about billet compressor housings....

 

home rebuild kits without a high speed balancer sound like a bad idea.

 

Per all the big turbo shops I've spoken with over the years, the home rebuild kits are fine as long as the CHRA components didn't run completely dry (no oil) or the wheels didn't make any contact with the housing.

 

turbo timers are a waste. All it does is idle the engine for 30 seconds up to maybe 2 minutes. That is the same thing as driving around in vacuum (cruise) for 2 minutes before you park it. No difference at all except the wasted gas of running your engine. Just don't drive like a jackass 2 minutes before you turn your engine off.

as for welding a turbine housing I wouldn't do it. It's hard to get it worth welding (as mentioned above) and a new housing is cheap. Not worth risking.