Hurricane Turbo failure

[ClutchMaster]

Well another problem and I’m not happy to say the least. Drove up to Houghton because our snow here was Less than acceptable. Trails were awsome and tons of snow, did about 10 miles and all of a sudden no boost. Checked all my boots and hoses nothing looked wrong. So we headed back to the hotel and I started digging into my sled. GF said is the thingy spinning? I said oh of course. Looking for a boost leak or something more common I found nothing. Finally I pulled the air filter and tried to spin the turbo......OH Fu..... it doesn’t spin! WTF. Trip is screwed. Stayed the night the went home early but still had to pay for the room the following night, now this sucs. Pulled the turbo apart today and found the bearings locked up. At a loss as to why I started looking on Garrett’s website. Well apparently the minimum size oil restrictor for this turbo is .035” and the restrictor that was installed was .025”. Great now I have to get this fixed as soon as possible to save my season.
If you have a Hurricane turbo kit I HIGHLY recommend you check your oil restrictor size immediately!

 

[Riceburner]

GF said is the thingy spinning? I said oh of course.

Love This. Smart G F.

Sorry to hear about the failure.

 

[mbarryracing]

Actually 0.025" shouldn't seize the bearing in that low miles. Maybe shorten the life but you had a catastrophic failure... So sounds like it starved of oil all together, from a restriction or a plug up.
Before you pull anything apart, take the Turbo oil return line off at the tank or where ever its plumbed, start the sled and check that there is oil flow. You might not if the bearing shrapnel has plugged the oil return port but when that happens the oil goes somewhere and usually past the center section shaft ring seals and into the compressor or turbine housing. You didn't have that many miles on it so i'm thinking oil feed was plugged.

Second thing I'd do is take the oil feed line off the turbo and put a small catch can under it, start the sled and check that there is oil supply from the line.
If you used teflon tape as a thread sealant on anything on the feed side, look for a piece in the line or restrictor or center section.

 

[kinger]

When it is well below zero how long does it take oil to get to the turbo? My oil line comes from the oil filter and runs to the mid mount impulse. Kind of worried about those -20/-30 degree mornings shortening the life of the turbo as well.

 

[ClutchMaster]

Actually 0.025" shouldn't seize the bearing in that low miles. Maybe shorten the life but you had a catastrophic failure... So sounds like it starved of oil all together, from a restriction or a plug up.
Before you pull anything apart, take the Turbo oil return line off at the tank or where ever its plumbed, start the sled and check that there is oil flow. You might not if the bearing shrapnel has plugged the oil return port but when that happens the oil goes somewhere and usually past the center section shaft ring seals and into the compressor or turbine housing. You didn't have that many miles on it so i'm thinking oil feed was plugged.

Second thing I'd do is take the oil feed line off the turbo and put a small catch can under it, start the sled and check that there is oil supply from the line.
If you used teflon tape as a thread sealant on anything on the feed side, look for a piece in the line or restrictor or center section.

Well I already have taken the turbo off and the restrictor is in the banjo fitting. I didn’t see anything plugging the restrictor but I could have missed something. The hole in the restrictor looked smaller than I’ve usually seen so I checked it’s size with some wire gauges.
I’m wondering the same thing about the cold weather, it was -18 in the morning when we went out, not much oil is going to flow through a .025” orifice at those temps. I always warm my sled up before riding tho. Either way I’m drilling out the restrictor to .040” just to be safe. Thanks for the suggestions guys!

 

[4kops]

The restrictor I don't think is your problem. I sell and have sold turbos to just about everyone that deals with sleds. We run smaller restrictors all the time. The thing that your not thinking about is that Garrett is recommending that in the perfect install. These sleds are far from the perfect install. The drain are very small and restrictive themselves to say the least. Do you still have the tag on the turbo? Garrett has a program that you can purchase a new chra at a reduced price as long as the turbo has not been taken apart and it still has the factory Garrett tag on it. So my recommendation would be to not jump on the dummy box and say it is someone's fault when unsure.

 

[ClutchMaster]

The restrictor I don't think is your problem. I sell and have sold turbos to just about everyone that deals with sleds. We run smaller restrictors all the time. The thing that your not thinking about is that Garrett is recommending that in the perfect install. These sleds are far from the perfect install. The drain are very small and restrictive themselves to say the least. Do you still have the tag on the turbo? Garrett has a program that you can purchase a new chra at a reduced price as long as the turbo has not been taken apart and it still has the factory Garrett tag on it. So my recommendation would be to not jump on the dummy box and say it is someone's fault when unsure.

So what is your take on this failure? Only thing I can find is the restrictor is smaller than recommended by the turbo manufacturer. As far as being absolutely positive what caused the failure we will never know for certain. I can say my oil has been changed religiously never had over 1000 miles on my oil.
Since your a turbo expert and sell them what size restrictor would you recommend for this application? Turbo is a GT2871R.

 

[4kops]

25 should run fine and besides do you think that yours is the only one that has a 25 in it. hard to tell what happened. is this your first trip out with that sled?

 

[ClutchMaster]

25 should run fine and besides do you think that yours is the only one that has a 25 in it. hard to tell what happened. is this your first trip out with that sled?

No I have around 2700 miles on the turbo. Garrett recommends a .040” for oil pressures 40-50 psi and higher oil pressure motors they say a minimum of .035”.
I would say .025” is not optimal especially since there is no engine coolant being run through the turbo. I would think you would want even more oil flow to keep the bearing temps down?

 

[4kops]

So if too small of restrictor would have cause the problem this would have happened much faster. The turbine and compressor wheel guessing will see speeds of 130k plus so with not enough oil #*$&@ will get ugly really fast. Is this your first time out this season?

 

[ClutchMaster]

Third post by mbarryracing seems to think opposite he says it will cause reduced turbo life but not this soon. I don’t really care bout all this blah blah blah. I would be willing to bet the farm if it had a .040” restrictor none of this would have happened. M2C.

 

[kinger]

To big and your blowing seals and spraying oil out everywhere. Its a tight line, Hurricane is knowledgeable in sled specific turbos, garrett is not, I would be a little more reasonable and find the true root cause. Be careful boring out that restrictor without fully understanding the oil pressure. I can't prove it but at one point I read that the apex at full tilt can produce like 80psi of pressure.

 

[ClutchMaster]

Well it’s official....just what I thought. Orifice is to small right from Garrett. Here is what they said. Even with synthetic oil if the orifice is to small you won’t keep the oil cool enough and it cause coking on the shaft seal from the burning oil. Here’s a pic for all ya’ll who think Hurricane is so great and knowledgeable.

Synthetic oil is burnt up, shaft needed more oil cooling too small of an orifice right from Garrett.

 

[STAIN]

I had 5k miles on my turbo Viper with no problems?????

 

[ClutchMaster]

I had 5k miles on my turbo Viper with no problems?????

Maybe mine just had the wrong restrictor installed? Don’t know for sure, just tired of the BS.