2006 Evo 9 ~83K miles
Stock block, Head
FP Red journal bearing turbo
FP4R cams
ETS Upper and lower Intercooler piping and Intercooler
Megan o2 housing
Full 3" exhaust(no cats)

I was headed to work tonight and pulled out on the road and started to accelerate. Got to around 5k and heard a loud pop, huge cloud of black smoke out the exhaust and no more turbo whistle. Pulled over in a parking lot and took the intake off and found the turbo was locked up. I sat there letting the car cool down while trying to figure out what to do. Once cooled down some I was able to get to the turbo and spun it backwards and to my surprise it started to spin. It continued to free spin but to be safe I decided to just get it towed.
After having the car towed to my parents house and put it in the shop. I spent a hour or so checking it over I found no obvious reason behind the sudden locking and unlocking of the turbo.
Another concern is that after checking over everything, we decided to try starting the car and letting it idle, I noticed smoking from exhaust and vent case vents and lower than normal vacuum(-6 when its normally -12).

I'm hoping its not the motor letting go.
I'm going to get a a compression check done tomorrow hopefully
Any suggestion as to possible causes would be appreciated.

 

I mean it could be a million things. It could be something as simple as oil starvation, or a boost leak, or a con-rod snapping.

I wouldn't run it until you perform the compression test. Report your findings back... for now, try not to fret. The only thing left to do is find the problem, and fix it.

 

Are any of the fins damaged on the compressor side of the turbo? Is there any up/down or left/right movement ? What about axial movement (ie shaft pushes in or out). I'm trying to figure out the "locking" part of the turbo

 

My JB turbo blew at about the same mileage. The turbine separated from the housing, self destructed and was obviously destroyed. It had the same symptoms, loud pop and engine cut and smoke out my exhaust. The blown turbo dumped about a quart of oil into my exhaust, hence the smoke. The blown turbo was probably the cheapest and easiest of repairs from such an event. I thought it was the head gasket or the motor until I pulled the intake off. Did a full oil flush and upgraded to a DBB turbo.

In all honesty though, its hard to tell until you pull things apart. The turbo should NEVER sieze like that so that is a primary red flag. Its weird that it spun "freely" as you stated after cooling down. Definitely do a compression test and leakdown test after checking the turbo.

 

Edit: ^^^Beat me to it. Great minds think alike!

My suggestion is to call FP, because the turbo seized! They'll probably tell you to send it in for inspection.

Before or after you take out the turbo, you can do a leak down test, compression test, etc.

 

I keep reading of blown Fp performance turbos and their warranty, i was planning on getting a 73hta green.

 

While we're happy to take a look at the turbo for you and it's probably not a bad idea if it did actually lock up at some point. Given that usually a turbo locking up means improper lubrication and/or contamination it usually doesn't just free itself after a while. So to hazard a guess I would say foreign object damage to the turbine side and while the housing was hot it was seized up on the broken bits but when it cooled it had enough clearance to spin again. However just like everyone else I'm just guessing.

As far as "I keep reading of blown Fp performance turbos and their warranty" of course we're the most mentioned because we have the most stock frame turbos out in the wild. I assure you though our failure rate is extremely low and given yours is a JB turbo it's guaranteed to be over a year old as we haven't sold any new JB units in almost 2 years.

So if you want me to check out the turbo send it in and we'll be happy to take a look at it. Make sure you send in the oil supply line that was on the car when the turbo failed for inspection as well.

-Michael

 

I think your right about the cause of the turbo failure. Not a quality issue in my opinion. I'll know for sure later on after I do a compression check and pull the turbo off.

 

Agreed on this statement. I've had 2 fp turbos on my last 2 dsms, never had issues ever.

It probably also wouldn't be a bad idea to drain your oil and check to make sure you don't have anything laying in the bottom of the pan that shouldn't be there. Are you getting any types of engine knock?

 

No knock. Car will start and idle and turbo still spins freely. Just low vacuum and light smoking as of last night. Haven't had time today to tear into it more.

I'm thinking maybe piston ring failure which came out and caught the exhaust side of the turbo and got it stuck. And when I spun it backwards it unwedged it allowing it to possible fall into the exhaust. I'm going to pull the exhaust off and check when I pull the turbo to look for debris of any kind.

 

Yikes. Good luck. Let us know what you find.

 

Compression seems a little low but fairly even across the board.
1-125
2-122
3-118
4-122

Next step is to pull the turbo and see what we find

 

Whats left of the turbine side of the turbo. Guess it's time to go back to the stock.

 

!!! That sucks! Sorry for the luck man. I'd send it in to FP and see what happened to it, they may be able to rebuild it

 

Damn that sux.. but glad it wasn't the motor. Now to find the cause the issue, so this doesn't happen again.. good luck