Noticed possible contact on compressor housing

[usetaboost]

Is this anything to worry about? I spun it by hand and it spins freely but has enough up and down play that I can make it touch the sides. I didn't see any other marks besides this one and the wheel looked fine. No in and out play. I was having some really bad compressor surge, which I've found the problem but still slightly exists.

 

[bison]

What that contact usually indicates is the balance is way out or the bearing housing is worn out in the journal areas. It will continually get worse and roll the ends of the blades over more and more as it wears. There probably isn't enough damage there for it to hurt performance yet but it's time to figure out why it's rubbing and fix it.

 

[usetaboost]

How do I check if it's the housing or a balance issue?

 

[charlief1]

Call Reed and ask him Jesse. If you need his number just say so.

 

[bison]

It would need to be way out and run for a while to make contact on the inducer. You would have to tear it down and look for obvious signs of imbalance like a damaged turbine blade(s). You would cover all bases on overhaul anyway. New wheels if needed and rebalance and back plate gets bushed or replaced. Bearing housing replacement. Journal sizes checked. you can have it all blueprinted.

 

[usetaboost]

ok. as always thanks for the input. I probably won't get around to tearing into it anytime soon. I was looking at it a little bit more closely and it seems if I force the wheel to any point and try to turn it, it doesn't seem to want to scrape much, if at all in any one spot. I also noticed that the compressor housing doesn't appear to be totally flush with the back plate towards the top.

 

[bison]

I also noticed that the compressor housing doesn't appear to be totally flush with the back plate towards the top.

can you make it flush by tightening it? Is the back plate possibly bent?

 

[usetaboost]

I tapped all around it and tried to tighten the bolts. Didn't get much out of the bolts but it looks even all around. Maybe it was just enough, who knows. I turned the wheel around a bit more, didn't seem to change from what I could tell. Could the compressor surging be causing an erratic enough movement to cause this? I would think if it made contact all the time it would have done a lot more damage by now.

 

[bison]

Surging wont do it. Unless maybe it was surging at full throttle. That compressor doenst look large enough to surge on your engine at WOT.

 

[usetaboost]

Yeah it's actually done it a few times. The problem I was having with that was the wastegate rod wasn't tight enough.