ZD30 turbo change out

[baitfish]

Hey guys and gals,

I thought i'd throw up some pictures of my turbo change out. Been getting a rather rude sound coming from the turbo for a little while now, and it was sort of amplified when i installed the water to air intercooler. So Sunday while in a bit of a hung over state i removed the intake pipe and had a little gander.

first thing i noticed was all of the intake fins looked as if they were starting to break down and pit. Gave the turbine a wiggle with my fingers and there was some slight side way movement. I also ran my finger inside the housing and felt a rough patch near the turbine tips. figured the turbine must be touch the housing every now and then.

Time for a new turbo i figured, and in a hurry. camping trip coming up soon! after doing a few searches on here and all over the net i decided to be a tight arse and opted for a turbo from Auto Power house. Gave the bloke a ring, he was rather short and to the point but swore to me that they had these turbos made for them in china (of course) to very high standards, never had one fail and backed the product with a new for old 12month warranty. sweet i thought.

total price with overnight shipping $853. arrived today, very impressed with shipping speed!

pulled into nissan and brought some new gaskets, turbo/manifold gasket, dump pipe, intake pipe gasket, oil return gaskets

total $83 (nearly $44k after sitting in a new D40 very niice!)

The local dealer didn't have the copper washers for the oil feed line, got onto Garry at nizzbits. the man is a legend, fast email replies and great prices. also got a new neutral position switch.

total $18 for copper washers
$56 for NPS
$10 for express post

opened the turbo box after work today.

 

[baitfish]

the turbo looks the goods, few things a little different but pretty much identical.
the intake turbine does look very different, what do u reckon, old very worn or the new one a different design?

New

Old
The old exhaust turbine looks as though the tolerance for the gap between the housing and the turbine fins are much tighter. Hard to see in the photos.

Old

New
You can also see in the photos that the oem turbo tappers away from the turbine (better aerodynamic i guess, less turbulence?) where as the new one is a definite step up in size. I guess its these little things that effect overall performance.

 

[baitfish]

So in prep for the changeover i parked the ute up in the shed yesterday and removed all the turbo and its components. Had a bit of crap in the way,

After i got the turbo to the shed i changed all the dump pipe studs from the old to the new. Went together pretty easily actually, also attached the oil return pipe at the same time. Mounted the manifold/turbo gasket to the studs and pushed the turbo into place. Put on a few nuts and then attempted to connect the oil return pipe onto the engine block. Harder then i would have thought and managed to lose one of the bolts into many gaps in and around the engine. After 20mins of looking i found the bolt and a ratchet spanner jammed in amongst the suspension. Bonus!

Finished hooking the oil return line in and finished bolting the turbo on.

Then re-attached the intake pipe and that was about it for this evening. Continue on with a bit more tomorrow after work.

 

[tweak'e]

your old turbo looks like it was sucking in water or oil from the intake. the jagged edges is typical of the blades hitting fluid.
make sure you have a catch can fitted and make sure your not sucking up water into the airfilter. theres usually a hole in the plastic inner guard which allows water to fire off the wheel into the intake.

 

[baitfish]

I think it's from the blow by mainly, it's got just under 200k on the clock and never had a catch can fitted till i got it. I've only had it for about 20k of that. I'm thinking it may have sucked in some moisture as well when I sunk the ute a little while ago. While the air box and filter looked and felt dry I guess there could have been some sucked in. I've got an 80 series air box fitted as well don't know if that has helped the cause or not.

 

[Dave]

Good thing you caught it, before the compressor wheel let go.

 

[baitfish]

That's what I thought to Dave. Finished hooking up the turbo a couple of days ago. Installed the catch can a bit better as well. Runs a lot better now but still have a few things to sort out. Induction noise when she is at full boost is very loud, maybe a tad louder than with the old turbo. Has anyone else fitted a water to air intercooler is the same sort of manner as I have? Thinking that maybe the source of the much louder induction noise is a result of the air being interrupted so soon after the turbo? Originally I just thought the intercooler was kinda just amplifying the sounds of the old turbo as is was breaking down. But the noise remains. I did remove the air intake off the turbo inlet and gave it a quick run just to cancel out the air box creating the noise, def was not. It sounded like a jet engine sucking in air lol. Did try to remove the intercooler from the air circuit but I was getting a boost leak so that noise kinda over took the intake noise, if there was even any? May just have to live with noise as long as I'm running this intercooler set up.

 

[Dave]

How'd you go.

 

[baitfish]

well not much has changed since the last post. took the ute camping this weekend, and it ran okay i guess, still plenty of intake noise but. My mate was following me and he did note that on most take off's or hill climbs that the old girl was blowing white smoke, unburnt diesel? last few fuel ups I've only been getting around 12 to 13L per 100 rather than the normal high 10s. running some diesel doctor injector cleaner through it now, see how it goes.

 

[tweak'e]

white smoke is often incorrect injection timing or turbo leaking oil out the exhaust.

 

[baitfish]

incorrect injection timing, would that be caused by the crank gear or pump gear slipping on a shaft or something? seems to still run smoothly, well as smoothly as a diesel does. would it run roughly when the timing is off?

thinking maybe it could be oil leaking into the exhaust seeing as though i just finished replacing the turbo. where would it be leaking from, bearing carrier? any easy way to check without completely removing the turbo?

would a faulty map sensor cause it to over or under fuel through out the rev range?

 

[tweak'e]

i doubt the pump timing would be out enough to cause smoke and not trip the ecu fault code.
that leaves injectors. however i would have thought it motor would be running fairly rough.

the most likely is turbo leaking oil out the turbine seal.
makes sure the engine breather is not blocked or the oil return line is not blocked (hope you didn't use sealant).

otherwise disconnect exhaust pipe and fire it up. you will soon notice the oil is its leaking.

one other thing is to check your water level in the intercooler.

 

[baitfish]

Thanks for the help tweak. I did put on a new catch can when I changed the turbo. It had no medium so I filled it with stainless steel pot scrubbers and put a piece of pipe from the inlet fitting to the bottom of the can to force to gas and oil to the bottom of the can first. If this is to restrictive will it cause the cover to pressurize and burn that oil gas? I have noticed now that I think of it that there is oil coming out around the front glow plug seal thingy. Never use to prior to the turbo change.

 

[tweak'e]

yes a restrictive catch can will cause oil to blow past the seals including turbo seals. disconnect the breather hose and see if it still blows smoke.

 

[baitfish]

thanks tweak'e i'll give it a hit as soon as i get a chance. here's to hoping its that easy

 

[petes navstr]

what intercooler is that from?? is it a package where did u get it? i dont mind that

 

[Guido]

Sorry, hit post before I finished. Delete please.

 

[Guido]

Baitfish, how does the cheap turbo go?

In a situation where I'm thinking of doing a swap out for peace of mind. $1700 for genuine replacement or $900-$1000 for chinese. Gut feel is genuine. I plan on keeping this ute for a while so interested on hearing people opinions if they were to swap out. Don't want to spend heaps and a direct fit is preferred.

Also, has anyone had any experience with just the cartridge swap outs? But the ones I have seen are also chinese...

Cheers
Guido

 

[Craig09]

Baitfish, how does the cheap turbo go?

In a situation where I'm thinking of doing a swap out for peace of mind. $1700 for genuine replacement or $900-$1000 for chinese. Gut feel is genuine. I plan on keeping this ute for a while so interested on hearing people opinions if they were to swap out. Don't want to spend heaps and a direct fit is preferred.

Also, has anyone had any experience with just the cartridge swap outs? But the ones I have seen are also chinese...

Cheers
Guido

hey mate,Lawry, me and a few others got one of ebay a while ago.there is a few threads on them one by me and i think one by Lawry.i had no issues and was running great until my timeing chain snapped lol.Lawry's is still going great as far as i know..
i wouldnt change the turbo if theres nothing wrong with yours (have you looked at yours?) but if you do want to get another i dont have my ebay one on my engine anymore as the new engine i bought already had one bolted on so my ebay one did about 1500-2000ks and since has been in a box sealed up in the shed (a few weeks now).if your intrested im only chaseing $500 to go towards a new exhaust system.it still has close to 10 months warrenty.
cheers

 

[180degrees]

Baitfish, how does the cheap turbo go?

In a situation where I'm thinking of doing a swap out for peace of mind. $1700 for genuine replacement or $900-$1000 for chinese. Gut feel is genuine. I plan on keeping this ute for a while so interested on hearing people opinions if they were to swap out. Don't want to spend heaps and a direct fit is preferred.

Also, has anyone had any experience with just the cartridge swap outs? But the ones I have seen are also chinese...

Cheers
Guido

Ring garry at nizzbits, he will give you a much better price, for the sake of a few hundred dollars just go genuine...