Ball Bearing Oil Feed Location..

Can an oil feed line from the filter housing give off too much
pressure for a ball bearing turbo?

Was wondering If I should use the factory oil feed location from the
head for a dual ball bearing.

Would you recommend an inline filter, or does the RRE oil feed line already have a filter in the line.. I'll ask around to one of my friends at RRE..

Thanks!

 

[Matticus]

Yes. Yes, factory location. And you should use an in-line filter. I have heard of vendors not warranting BB turbos due to oil issues if no in-line filter was used. BB turbos do not like high oil pressure, the filter helps keep it in check. I don't know about RREs feed line though.

 

I would go with factory location. I have an oil pressure gauge hooked up to filter housing. When the car is cold, the oil pressure is over 100 psi.

 

Read this from Forced Performance. It's about halfway down the page. I'm following their advice - they ought to know. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

I wish I would have read this part sooner: /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
"As far as filters go, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. You shouldn't need one in your oil line. Failures occur due to dirt/grit in the oil making it into the turbocharger. Failures also occur due to plugged filters. We have seen it both ways. If you are going to use a filter, check it often."
My AGP L1R came with an inline oil filter, which apparently became clogged on the way back from the last hurricane evacuation. With less than 5000 miles on it, the turbo is totally hosed. The bearings have so much play in them that the compressor wheel is scraping the housing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
I backwashed the filter with carb cleaner, and the stuff that came out was a gritty carbon-like material, that dissolved when you rubbed it between your fingers. I've been running straight 30W oil, as the rings are still breaking in, so it may have been contaminants from the oil breaking down.

 

Sorry to hear about that Jeff!

Thanks for the help guys!

 

Jeff, your luck is just like mine. That grit is probably junk that was lurking in the oil galley of the head that broke loose. You see it more in the oil pan when you don't time a ball bearing turbo and the oil cokes on the bearing. Then when the turbo reaches operating temperature, the crap flies off and lands down in the oil pan. I'd pull the oil feed bolt and use a long ass bristle brush (test tube type) to loosen up the rest of the crap, then drain the crankcase and fill it up with kerosene or engine flush, and spin the motor over with the starter (with the coils unplugged/fuel pump unplugged) and flush the crap out of that oil galley. The head is the proper place to get oil for a ball bearing turbo. Problem is, most rebuilders don't clean that galley very well. I found powdered aluminum in one of mine fresh from the shop after surfacing, because they didn't flush the galley after the head was milled. Kerosene has enough oil in it that it won't hurt any bearings just spinning it over with the starter. You'll cringe when you see what comes out of there though...
dave

 

I think that the vendor of the turbo should be able to provide the support for this kind of information. If not, then they are not doing a very good job. Turbos are expensive, and somebody should have a simple answer for this issue. It's not the first time somebody has asked the question.

I think a in-line filter of some type should be used for all turbos. At the same time, all of the in-line filters I have seen are not very large. This means that they will clog quickly. Also, there is no way to inspect them visually without pulling the assembly apart. There are Gano filters for coolant systems which allow you to visually inspect coolant conditions and act as a filter at the same time. It would be nice if something like this was available for oil in-line to the turbo. At the very least, a filter with a much larger surface area would help.

The FP site mentions sandblasting. There are some head re-builders that use a salt bath to clean the parts. I had a head cleaned like this and I found salt crystals in every crevice. I can't believe that this residue is completely inert.

I would never run a new (rebuilt) engine with a new turbo without having a very strict regiment. You all know the situation: An once of prevention is a pound of cure. Its so easy to not follow.

 

It was a new head, and we cleaned it very well. I'm pretty sure what I had was entirely combustion contaminants that made their way into the oil. It was a fresh re-ring job, and I had quite a bit of blowby at one point.
Anyone going the BB turbo and filter route: I would HIGHLY advise that you break the engine in with an old turbo first if it is a fresh engine. Slap the old 14b in there for a few weeks/months. There's just no sense in taking out a $1300 in the first 5000 miles because of stupid blowby! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

Well Ive had a rebuilt engine for 10k miles.. and am about to slap on my new dual ball bearing turbo, I think I'll be good. Im going to go to the local Earl's place and have them make me up a -4AN line for the feed.

 

[Bimmubishi]

These incedents are certainly costly but I still feel that in the scope of the industry that they are isolated problems. Were the turbos from the same supplier? We have a couple of customers with Garrett GT turbos on their VW's and plenty of aquaintences with BB turbo powered SR20 motors and I've never seen/heard of this problem. Anyone care to comment on an inspection of the cartdrige after the failure?

AL

 

I'll gladly send it to you for inspection if you want Al. I certainly have no use for this huge paperweight at the moment. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Jeff

 

[Bimmubishi]

Jeff, I probably wouldn't know what to look for! I'm going to call Garrett today and ask them some questions.. hopefully we can get some solid info.

AL

 

[Bimmubishi]

Aiiight. I just called Garrett and spoke to a technician there. I don't know if this is very helpful but at least it's HARD information on the setup of these bad boys.

Requirements: Turbo must be fed filtered oil, filtered to 20 microns.

Turbo must be water cooled. The bearing cages and housing material is one that requires constant cooling to avert expansion. So.. that means you have to keep your waterlines if you want to go BB.

The RRE Oil supply line is supposedly from the filtered end of the fluid path as shown on their site.

I can't see why that would be a bad place to get oil from.

As for filtration, Bailey Motorsport uses a steel element inline filter that goes down to 25 microns. Earls and Aeroquip have filters for fuel that go that low as well with sintered bronze and/or steel elements which might not be a bad idea for those who want the extra safety. I'm going to call Aeroquip later about the filter's intended use versus the use inline on a turbo.

A FRAM oil filter is good for 20 microns so in an ideal world, that should cover it.

 

[Bimmubishi]

I just got off the phone with Aeroquip Aerospace Product Support Engineer Tom Chicoski. He said that from an enginering standpoint that there is nothing wrong with using a sintered bronze filter inline, before or after the turbo as the filter element is perfectly acceptable for gasoline, hydraulic fluid and oil conveyance.

This suggests that the Earls or Aeroquip filter should be more than sufficient for this application. If anyone wants to order one we can supply them or you can go to Summitracing or whatnot. This doesn't speak to Jeff's problem of oil filter clogging though, I guess that if it's over 20 microns it won't go through.. end of story- if it did there would also be problems.



Al

 

Quote:
I can't see why that would be a bad place to get oil from.



Bim, the Ball Bearing center cartridge can't see more than 60psi of oil pressure, a few friends over at RRE say that from the oil filter housing the oil can exceed 60psi regularly.

From AGP's site "This must be supplied with a constant flow of CLEAN oil at pressures no greater than 60psi."

I found some GREAT info on GT series BB turbo's from these links:

AGP GT link

ATP GT link

PTE GT link




Here are a few pics of my new turbo /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bimmubishi]

Where did you see that? None of those links said that. If it's true then running off the head may be a better idea with the inline filter.

Who knows what the pressure at the head is though.

 

here you go bim

 

[Bimmubishi]

Nice. I think that Terren did link that and I just missed it the first time. Well that's interesting, important to remember that the failures we've been discussing aren't from overpressure also, but from contamination.
Garrett is going to call us back at the shop because I just left a message requesting verification.

 

Ya, that quote was in the middle of one of AGP's paragraphs /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif, sorry for no clarification.