Back in 2018, I had a new short block assembly put in my 2005 WRX to “cure” some noisy piston slap. At the same time, I had the original TD04 rebuilt with a new CHRA. About 700 miles later, the CHRA failed - not even dipping into WOT (wanted to do the 1000 mile break-in). Had it rebuilt again. After around 500 miles, the second rebuild failed. Each time I’d start to smell oil at intersections once the car got hot, and would be able to see some faint smoke from the exhaust if I were to slightly rev the engine and then walk to the back. We thought maybe the CHRAs I was getting from Melett were just bad quality. With a big trip coming up in the car, I wasn’t going to risk another rebuild. I bought a brand new TD04 from Subaru. Car ran great for around 2500 miles. Most of these miles were put on within a 4 day time period. Now this week I am starting to smell oil again at intersections. Tonight I could smell a bit from the exhaust. If I had to place a bet, the turbo is on its way out… I am not really hard on the car at all. I allow it ample time to warm up before getting into boost. Plenty of mechanical sympathy for it on my part! Any ideas on what could be causing this? I’ve gone through more rebuilds in less miles than someone would typically even change the oil! It’s becoming very frustrating, and as much as I love this car, I am starting to dislike the constant headache. Thanks for your input!
Have you replaced your oil feed lines? They get gunk over time leading to starvation issues as stated above.
Thanks for the replies! Mods are fairly simple: * Old ERZ downpipe from around 2008 * Catless up pipe * HKS catback * GS TMIC * GS EBCS * GS panel filter I will check my paperwork to see if the oil feed lines were replaced back in 2018. I should probably look into the banjo bolts as well. When I had the car re-tuned this summer at JM, the oil pressure was great - but I suppose that doesn’t mean that oil to the turbo may have been flowing enough.
Are you changing the oil at every turbo failure? Are you changing the oil shortly after you changed the oil from the failure? Any little bit of garbage from the bearings will turn your oil into liquid sandpaper.
I lost a turbo back in my '04 due to the screens in the oil line clogging... They changed that later, but not sure what years were affected.
I remember on LegacyGT.com removing screens from the banjo bolts on the turbo oil lines on Legacys of that vintage was a big topic. I seem to remember only certain model years had that "feature".
Car goes to the shop this week to get looked at. Hopefully something interesting is found! Side note: I will have to figure out why I am no longer getting e-mail updates on threads and messages!
