You can type here any text you want

Precision turbo bearing failures

Welcome!

By registering with us, you'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

SignUp Now!

richardv6

Active Member
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
283
Ok I bought a couple billet 76 turbos last year from hartline performance. And finally got car together and drove it around for 3 rd time for learning purposes and boost control adjusting. And after about 5 miles of driving I noticed a bearing roaring sound and it would continue after engine shutoff. For about 45 secs. Pulled inlet pipe and can move impeller up and down. Bearings shot.....anyone else had bearing failures with these I have have ball bearing turbos before and never had any issues. This is first with billet wheel for me. How is precision with warranty ? Or is their none.
 
I have a friend that uses PTE BB turbos and has had bearing issues with his. He has friends that used them and had same issues also.

That is the reason I am hesitant about using them. All these failures happened before 5,000 miles on their cars, albeit they aren't buicks but that shouldn't make a difference.

The turbos I'm talking about were all bought two years ago or so, it may be different for what they sell now but I can't say because they now run different brand turbos.
 
Yea I will try to contact holly. Monday see if they can help me out. They are good people.
 
Precision warranty I believe is 1 year on manufacturer defects. My 76 dbb billet wheel is being rebuilt right now and that is what they told me the warranty will be. I had it for a couple years but with really very limited time on it (less than 500 miles) and no track passes. Apparently there was something found in the oil feed restrictor when they disassembled it and for the life of me I cannot figure out how that got there. The oil to the turbo is fed directly from an external filtered source. My bad luck and another $700 to rebuild it.

Hope you get it warrantied.

Regards,
Shev
 
image.jpg
My bearings fail as well brand new 6765
image.jpg
 
^^^ holy crap. That looks like more than just a bearing failure.

Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app
 
I've never seen one so bent out of shape like that before, and at both ends no less!!

It was hot for damn sure!!!
 
Yeah those bearing halves in the pic, even though the bearing is broken in half, do not show much evidence of extreme heat and wipe. The turbine end of the shaft / wheel assembly shows relatively minimal heat damage as well, with no heat at all on the compressor side. Looks like an FOD / wheel failure on the turbine side and then it went south from there. (FOD = foreign object damage)

I do make note that the bearings do not have a 360 degree oil groove in them. That's an opportunity for improvement.

How does the thrust look? Could have been a thrust failure that allowed a rub to occur.
 
Last edited:
Yeah those bearing halves in the pic, even though the bearing is broken in half, do not show much evidence of extreme heat and wipe. The turbine end of the shaft / wheel assembly shows relatively minimal heat damage as well, with no heat at all on the compressor side. Looks like an FOD / wheel failure on the turbine side and then it went south from there. (FOD = foreign object damage)

I do make note that the bearings do not have a 360 degree oil groove in them. That's an opportunity for improvement.

How does the thrust look? Could have been a thrust failure that allowed a rub to occur.
No one that builds/engineers turbos will agree that that the amount of heat that went into that shaft was normal. Looks like it melted, wobbled and when the wheels hit the housing it z'd the shaft. Journal bearings never had a 360* groove in them. The bearings are floating and oil control is via clearance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
No one that builds/engineers turbos will agree that that the amount of heat that went into that shaft was normal. Looks like it melted, wobbled and when the wheels hit the housing it z'd the shaft. Journal bearings never had a 360* groove in them. The bearings are floating and oil control is via clearance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Didn't say it was normal. It's blued and it shouldn't be. But it could be worse and would be worse if the journal bearing went first.

BW turbos have an 360 degree oil groove on the bearing OD which provides full time communication between the feed hole and the shaft. Nice little feature.

Sounds like we are on the same page anyways. The bearing was a victim of a wheel failure.
 
Last edited:
I've had three DBB billet PTEs
The third one I out on car right before BPG 2 years ago
When I staged the car on the qualifying run it sounded like a jet engine went bad and turbo was shot. They blamed me for mounting it "too tight"

Everyone involved in my car
Said that was BS on PTEs and was cover up.
They fixed it but I think charged me shipping and maybe 80 bucks.

This turbo was literally out of the box new.

Had a fuel injector from them new in a set and had Leeper flow it and one sprayed way different than other 5 and they wouldn't replace it

I think most of their products are good but on the crap that comes out good luck getting them to take responsibility man
 
Had a 52 that looked like that, I found it when it fell out of the open dump. Chopper rebuilt it for free.
 
I talked to Mrs Hartline once about buying a oil feed line for a turbo saver setup I had. I was ordering just the line because I didn't have one, and she made the comment that they did have issues with some of the older kits having to large of a oil feed lines, and the pressure was to much for the bearings, and they was causing failures.
 
Had a 52 that looked like that, I found it when it fell out of the open dump. Chopper rebuilt it for free.
I had a 51 go bad and sent it to precision. They were able to determine that it was my fault and sold me a turbo saver and charged me a lot of money to repair the turbo. Within a few months it was doing the same thing.I decided they would never get any of my money again. I decided to give Chopper a try at Limit Engineering and he turned it into the biggest turbo that he could for a small shaft. TE67/6776. I sent it back to him once because I thought it was bad. He disassembled and inspected it. He found nothing wrong and took an educated guess as to what my problem might be and he was right. He sent me back my turbo that looked new and charged me NOTHING. There are few things more precious than service after the sale. I've had this turbo for 9 years without any issues.
 
I had a 51 go bad and sent it to precision. They were able to determine that it was my fault and sold me a turbo saver and charged me a lot of money to repair the turbo. Within a few months it was doing the same thing.I decided they would never get any of my money again. I decided to give Chopper a try at Limit Engineering and he turned it into the biggest turbo that he could for a small shaft. TE67/6776. I sent it back to him once because I thought it was bad. He disassembled and inspected it. He found nothing wrong and took an educated guess as to what my problem might be and he was right. He sent me back my turbo that looked new and charged me NOTHING. There are few things more precious than service after the sale. I've had this turbo for 9 years without any issues.
He made mine into another size can not remember what it was. I sold it and then moved to a 45a.
 
He made mine into another size can not remember what it was. I sold it and then moved to a 45a.
That's a big shaft turbo so he couldn't turn mine into one,but the 6776 is very comparable.
 
Back
Top