Hi,

Just curious how you can tell if a turbo is not behaving itself. My mate came down to visit in his STi 5 and we compared car's etc.

I noticed on his car when he was hitting boost and reaching around 3,500 to 4000 rpm you could hear a tinny noise coming from where the Turbo is located. Almost sounds like metal catching on metal but definitely coming from his Turbo.

We had a look around the engine, listened to the turbo etc but couldn't really notice anything and his engine seemed to be idling right with not funny exahust fumes.

Had a go in mine to compare and noticed mine was different bar the dump-valve chattering away, just Turbo whine as boost built up and the roar from the engine.

I've advised him to get it looked over but he is thinking of just replacing the turbo for reconditioned one (new to Subaru's, ex Cossie owner so you will have to excuse his ignorance ).

It got me thinking, would like to know the tell tale signs in case my turbo does decide to let go

 

could just be the heat shield catching

 

I would definitely suggest removal of the heat shield. These are move hassle than they are worth!! Remove it and see if it makes any difference. If the Turbo was on its way out, you would get less boost than normal, plus you normally get swirls of blue smoke coming from the exhaust!

 

Almost certainly a heat shield making that noise. I've had it on two cars. I've not known a turbo to go on these cars under normal use, but I'm sure they're out there, must be very very rare.

 

Could be what happened to me.

I had a VF 28 go earlier this year. Got a VF 41 fitted, awesome.

A week later it went as wel!!!!!!

Took it back to the Garage went through everything, took the new turbo off and, found a lump of the Cat in the impellor blades of the Blower jamming it!!

Took the up pipe off & found bits of the Cat were being sucked back into the Turbo!

This had being going on in the VF28, little biits that eventually wore the bearings down.

Fitted a decated STI Up Pipe, no problems since.

The sound could be little bits of Cat being sucked back, obviously if it's totally decatted, not that.


Good Luck.

Regards

Alan MaC