Had my car "chipped" and it only lasted 280miles and then the drivers side turbo fell apart. Now its going to cost £1500+ and 10 weeks without car :( (5 have past) What i'm asking would you stay std or keep the "chip" if you were me?

Where did the chip come from?

Was it set up properly?

Did you drive like a nutter :D

Would it have happened without the chip?

 

Answer these and you will have the answer to do you keep the chip or not.

What "chip" did you get? I'd say if it was a safe chip, your turbos would have no problems if set up safely (assuming they were fine).

 

Vijay

As Vijay says "assuming they were fine" apart from a little noise or even a wee bit of smoke theres no way of knowing when yer turbos will fail, if still stock it's best to say "anytime" having the car chipped has obviously upped the boost as it would allow and the extra horsepower you gained has shortend the life of another component, which is not unusual in the world of modifying. Why 10 weeks with no car though, is the garage mad busy or summit ?

smithy

A chip on on its own is very unlikely to cause any damage to the turbos.

depends what boost youre running mate. have you got boost jets installed or an electronic boost controller? you could have had an aftermarket chip installed which was mapping good fuel for you, then you inadvertantly "chipped" it with an inferior one... but that wouldnt affect the turbo, that would just damage the engine.... [shuts up!]

it was done by zedworld runing 14psi. i dont mind that it went wrong just don't know if it's worth the risk. i know its one of them things that just happens my mate has the same thing on his car for 1.5 years with no prob's.

Rule number one when upping the boost - Dont do it unless you do the turbos as well - You should have been advised that the turbos are likely to go with this type of modification. Its the most severe - bear in mind that stock turbos are designed for 9.5 psi - 14 is asking for them to fail - I'm not having a go but the garage should have told you what to expect when paying out for this. When you get it back please buy a boost controller to prevent the boost spiking and to keep it under control or other bits of your engine may well follow.....

 

Good luck getting it back soon though.

stock turbos, as long as they are in good condition, can handle 16psi comfortably (although your stock injectors have maxed out at 15ish and youll be running too lean). only EBCs or jets can increase boost (or bleed valves i think but i dont know much about them) - the chip is there mainly to map out the fuelling for any given boost level. 300dsh what work did zedworld do? did they install jets as well as the chip?

Its unfortunate that yours went shortly after increasing boost, the increased boost may have speeded up the failure but sounds like they were on there last legs.

 

Rule number one when upping the boost - Dont do it unless you do the turbos as well - You should have been advised that the turbos are likely to go with this type of modification. Its the most severe - bear in mind that stock turbos are designed for 9.5 psi - 14 is asking for them to fail - I'm not having a go but the garage should have told you what to expect when paying out for this. When you get it back please buy a boost controller to prevent the boost spiking and to keep it under control or other bits of your engine may well follow.....

 

Good luck getting it back soon though.

Increased boost will reduce the lifespan of the turbo, but stock tubs are capable of handling 14/15 psi (which is what most are running) all day long for many years and tens of thousands of miles.

Totally agree with Legrath sounds as if there wasn't much life in em anyways, deffo wouldn't consider a chip to be a cause

However as for the comment about being forwarned 1) he might have been 2) you walk into a garage and say make this quicker and modify it please Mr, surely common sense says on a car 15 yrs old, summits gotta break!

smithy

Had jets put in. only done it coz the turbo's were done by last owner about 15-20k ago

i know it's just one of them thing's. it only last'ed 2 day's so it would have gone before xmas (had work done at end of sept B/day pres tp my self things always go wrong after my b/day)

Is it me of do the majority of "reconned"/replaced turbos go pop soon after being fitted? I've had at least a dozen or so customers in the past 6 months who have had either turbo failure or engine problems not long after replacing stock turbos.

 

When I sell our DTA performance chips I make it a point to ask the buyer all sorts of questions regarding the condition of the engine and car. Only when I'm satisfied the engine is in good working order will I proceed to inform the customer of the possible problems certain modifications may cause to a high performance engine which is anywhere up to 17 years old. Once that's done there is a disclaimer to go through and if the customer still wants to go ahead with the purchase I will complete the transaction.

 

In relation to the above problem - I strongly suspect that one or both turbos were close to failure prior to installing the chip and boost jets. This has nothing to do with the chip, boost jets or even the garage who fitted them. Ok - upping the boost (as well as a host of other performance modifications) will have speeded up the deterioration of the turbos but they (the turbos) did not fail as a direct result of chipping the car. It is very unfortunate it happened but not unreasonable to expect on a 15-17 year old car.

 

Best course of action is to replace the failed turbos (do it in pairs) with certified and warranted replacement units, go over the engine with a fine tooth comb and sort out any problems encountered. Only when you're perfectly happy the engine can't run any better would I suggest you chip the car and modify the boost (boost controller is favourable over boost jets).

 

All stated IMHO of course ;)

Agree entirely Danny! It is true that a lot of turbo recon places are not up to scratch - its taken me a long time to find a shop I can trust - so far 100% record with no failures or problems. Now I'm asking for it LMAO...

 

One cause of failure is not replacing the turbo oil feeds when new turbos are fitted - ALWAYS fit new lines when the turbos are replaced!!!!

 

How did these turbos fail? Leaking? Collapsed bearing? Thrown an impellor? Without knowing this its difficult to give a cause of failure....

andy, any way of replacing turbo oil feeds in place?, more for precautionary measures or is it worth doing with stock turbos that are on the car?

Erm they're hard enough to replace with the engine out of the car bud so not really no. It is rare for turbos to fail due to the oil supply - more usual is general wear and tear tbh. I think the problem comes when you disturb the lines and the deposits that have built up inside the lines detatch then clog up the oil feed on the turbo...

Erm they're hard enough to replace with the engine out of the car bud so not really no. It is rare for turbos to fail due to the oil supply - more usual is general wear and tear tbh. I think the problem comes when you disturb the lines and the deposits that have built up inside the lines detatch then clog up the oil feed on the turbo...

 

 

thanks Andy

I also always go one step further than simply pre oiling the turbos when they are fitted. Once everthing is back together, crank the car with no spark plugs in and the turbo oil returns disconnected. Only once clean oil is flowing from the oil returns do the pipes go on, plugs put in and the car fired up. Remove the plugs to prevent any compression - this would be blown out of the exhaust and through the turbo spinning it up...

just to say my car was done at zedworld a couple of years ago and its still ok.. boost upped, chipped amongst other stuff..

 

i think it was supposed to be limited to 14psi, but at a RR day recently it reached around 17psi... the fuelling, in the words of the RR operator was "perfect".. so well done zedworld...

 

mine has boost jets apparently, not sure if the turbos are reconned but dont think they are..

 

all the best..

 

Tony

just coming back to the main problem - do you know what jets were put in? if 0.8mm (or smaller! :eek: :eek: ) were put in then boost could easily have spiked to 18psi+ :shock: that would easily make your turbo go bang

I DO TRUST zedworld there doing the work on it now. i had the car on a dyno before i had any work done to make shaw it was ok and avoid what has happend. But never mind getting 360 turbo's now so hope wont happen this time.

It was Silvera eng that put the turbo's on

changed my mind!