Ecoboost Performance Forum

Hey Guys.  I figured there would be some here who are interested in seeing this.  I got my Flex about 6000 miles ago with dealer-installed OEM turbos about 1000 miles before that (130k total on the clock).  Here's a pic of what happens to your "brand new" turbo when someone at the factory (or rebuilder, not sure) screws up.  I notice two things conspicuously missing from this picture.  One, there's no nut on the shaft.  It spun off and the turbo ate it.  Why did that happen you ask?  Well, also conspicuously missing, no thread locker compound on the threads, or any other signs that they prick punched the shaft or something of that nature.  Unfortunately for me, this part was installed more than 2 years ago, so out of Ford's parts warranty. 

I also need to buy a new charge air cooler because that's full of metal pieces now.  Needed replacement anyway, as the cooling fins are mostly bent over on the lower side of it, but I was putting that off.  Lucky for me none of the crap made it all the way up into the combustion chambers.  I scoped each cylinder and aside from the typical carbon buildup, they're clean and no scoring on the cylinder walls.  I'm surprised because I did see a little bit of material that made it into the last intake tube, but it didn't make it all the way up and through the throttle body apparently.

I'd like to thank ONLYA6 and his writeup here: http://www.ecoboostperformanceforum.com/index.php?topic=2023.0 (http://www.ecoboostperformanceforum.com/index.php?topic=2023.0) because it was a HUGE help on the rear turbo removal.  Factory manual says remove the subframe.  It's a pain, but as long as you remove ALL of the little heat shields, it can be wiggled past everything.  I'm swapping the front turbo too because that one has a bad seal and I'm worried about it failing in the same way. 

Got a brand new pair of turbos from CF Power up in Brea California for a very good price.  I'll let everyone know how they perform and if they have premature failure.  I don't anticipate that though because the rep told me the company was one of the manufacturers that bid to be the OEM supplier but didn't get the contract, so they're supposedly up to Ford's OEM spec.

Quote from: RandR10 on December 22, 2016, 03:31:10 PM
Well, also conspicuously missing, no thread locker compound on the threads, or any other signs that they prick punched the shaft or something of that nature.  Unfortunately for me, this part was installed more than 2 years ago, so out of Ford's parts warranty. 

Sheesh, sorry to hear about your issue. I'd be wanting to prick punch the the guy that messed up the turbo build!

Good luck with your replacement install! Make sure you flush out all your charge pipes while you have the CAC out, just in case there is any residual metal flake stuck in the inevitable oil film. :)

^ x2!  Sorry to see your Flex be an unsuspecting victim of poor "workmanship".  Certainly wish you the best with the new turbos you have chosen.  I don't think the fragments made it into the oil or coolant, but inspect it carefully anyway.  Maybe change the oil a couple of times at short intervals to be sure.  IDK how you would know about damage to the turboback exhaust tho.

Quote from: MiWiAu on December 22, 2016, 04:26:29 PM

Quote from: RandR10 on December 22, 2016, 03:31:10 PM
Well, also conspicuously missing, no thread locker compound on the threads, or any other signs that they prick punched the shaft or something of that nature.  Unfortunately for me, this part was installed more than 2 years ago, so out of Ford's parts warranty. 

Sheesh, sorry to hear about your issue. I'd be wanting to prick punch the the guy that messed up the turbo build!

Good luck with your replacement install! Make sure you flush out all your charge pipes while you have the CAC out, just in case there is any residual metal flake stuck in the inevitable oil film. :)

Absolutely.  Most of the piping post-compressor has metal flake (hopefully just aluminum) and oil in it, so it's all going to get a thorough bath.  The front turbo came out really easy after I removed the radiator and CAC.  Probably would have been just as easy without doing that, but since I had to get the CAC out anyway, I did that first.  Upon inspection, it has small amounts of damage to the compressor vanes, but nothing to write home about.  It's also debatable whether the oil that was in that plumbing was from the PCV system that I recently added a catch can and new OEM oil separator to or if the turbo seal was damaged.  The bearing is nice and tight but who knows?  I'm glad I have new parts regardless.  Never hurts to be sure and I don't want to do this again any time soon.  Now we'll see if this factory in China is any better at making turbos than the one in Mexico.

Quote from: SHOdded on December 22, 2016, 04:52:29 PM
^ x2!  Sorry to see your Flex be an unsuspecting victim of poor "workmanship".  Certainly wish you the best with the new turbos you have chosen.  I don't think the fragments made it into the oil or coolant, but inspect it carefully anyway.  Maybe change the oil a couple of times at short intervals to be sure.  IDK how you would know about damage to the turboback exhaust tho.

I wholeheartedly agree on the oil changes, as I was already planning on doing that ;).  Hopefully a couple of fresh filters and new oil in short succession would catch any junk before it could damage any engine bearing surfaces.

I'm not too worried about the exhaust.  I looked down the catalytic converters and the honeycomb on them is pristine.  A fine dust did shake out of them as I was dismantling, but no other visible damage to either side.  I think everything else in the exhaust post-cat couldn't possibly be damaged if the cats are okay.

Here's what the compressor on the front turbo looks like.  I'm new to turbochargers.  Can anyone in the know tell me whether this amount of damage to the vanes is normal or do I have a problem with the intake air being contaminated?

I dont think that is normal, but I am new to the TC world myself.

A fine dust in the honeycombs is perfectly routine though.

Quote from: RandR10 on December 22, 2016, 07:02:47 PM
Here's what the compressor on the front turbo looks like.  I'm new to turbochargers.  Can anyone in the know tell me whether this amount of damage to the vanes is normal or do I have a problem with the intake air being contaminated?

I think you are getting debris in your intake.

Are you running a CAI?

Hi flow panel?

I've seen dust past the box on my panel and where the K&N connected to the OEM.

I'm back to running the paper filter.

You might want to have an oil analysis done, that might shed some light as to what is going on.

Okay, never mind.  The bearings on the front one are toast too and you can wiggle it back and forth quite a bit.  Did some research on that.  It either had oil contamination at one point or someone maybe ran it through dust without an air filter for a while (or possibly dirty air filter, it was quite dirty when I bought it so maybe).  I'm also wondering if all the intake piping was cleaned up and installed properly during the dealer install.  I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't because I found that the pigtail to one of the O2 sensors was damaged to the point that you can see bare wire and some of the smaller bolts that call for say, 25-30 lb-ft. of torque felt like they were put on with an impact wrench and needed a 2 foot cheater bar to break loose, and others were loose enough that I'd be worried about them backing out from vibration.  One of the hose clamps going down behind the motor wasn't very tight either.  I was able to take that one off with a nut driver and very little effort.  I found some chunks of broken magnet stuck to the rear manifold as well, and no anti-seize on any of the manifold to turbo bolts.  Seems like some newb was under there working on it.

From my research, what apparently happens with oil contamination or air inlet contamination is once the bearings get damaged and allow the turbine to deflect, or damage to the vanes knocks it out of balance and does the same, the wheel contacts the housing and it starts to consume itself.  Once you get enough play in the bearing or shaft from this, then the nut can back itself off because it's not tight any more, which is what happened to the rear turbo.  Front one would have probably done the same thing shortly after by the looks of it.

Quote from: FoMoCoSHO on December 22, 2016, 07:40:05 PM

Quote from: RandR10 on December 22, 2016, 07:02:47 PM
Here's what the compressor on the front turbo looks like.  I'm new to turbochargers.  Can anyone in the know tell me whether this amount of damage to the vanes is normal or do I have a problem with the intake air being contaminated?

I think you are getting debris in your intake.

Are you running a CAI?

Hi flow panel?

I've seen dust past the box on my panel and where the K&N connected to the OEM.

I'm back to running the paper filter.

You might want to have an oil analysis done, that might shed some light as to what is going on.

It's got a paper filter in there now.  I'm going to install a Ford one just to be sure when this all goes back together.  Couldn't get one from the dealer without waiting so I stuck a Fram on there.  I doubt that particular filter is the problem though because the oil consumption issue was there from day one when I got the car, and the engine itself is pretty tight.  When I did the boroscope, there was still clean crosshatching on the cylinder walls.  I'm leaning towards either that old dirty air filter getting all this started or some contamination introduced to the intake piping during turbo install (or maybe left over from previous turbo failure).  The oil in the engine was recently changed and it looks clean as a whistle.  I've seen engines with wiped bearings and the oil will have metal flake suspended in it.  If the oil was ever contaminated, it certainly doesn't look like it is now.  As I said above, I plan to do an oil change after I do first start up and let it get to operating temp at idle only.  Then I'll drive it easy for a couple hundred miles and change the oil again.  Similar procedure to how I've broken in newly rebuilt engines in the past.

So, I took all the turbo piping over to the wash tub to be cleaned and I found a smoking gun.  The one pic is of a damaged boot retainer that's on the inlet pipe to the front turbo.  I think that was leaking and allowing contamination into that turbo.  The other pic with the hose clamp loose is the one that was really easy to turn and felt loose on the backside of the motor when I dismantled everything.  I think this was also leaking from being loose and caused the same kind of contamination.  Since both were so low on the motor, they both probably sucked in quite a bit of dust and debris from the road.  I'm not curious any more as to why this happened in so few miles.  Very very sloppy work by whoever did this damage to the one pipe, forgot to tighten the other pipe's clamp and damaged the O2 sensor pigtail when he removed the front cat.  Hopefully that tech didn't work on anything else on this car.

Dag yo. Sucks! At least you caught it before putting in the new ones!


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Great invesrigative work, seens like the jackpot alright.  Fingers crossed only peripheral equipment is involved.

That is definitely really bad quality of work, and IMO even out of the wormanship warranty, I would bring it to attention of the shop, so that no one else gets screwed by the same tech.

Also, may be time for some EcoPowerParts hot pipes, to make sure nothing cracks/leaks when you replace the turbos!

do you have any additional info on the turbos you're going to go with?  Specs, pricing?

There's nothing worse than those "rush butcher chop chop hurry up jobs" and definitely feel for ya and best of luck. Z

Quote from: SHOdded on December 22, 2016, 10:22:10 PM
Great invesrigative work, seens like the jackpot alright.  Fingers crossed only peripheral equipment is involved.

Manu..... you alright my friend?

Sip'n to much egg nog when you posted?

Ease into it my friend. Lol.

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LOL.  My comment was on target except for 1 misspelling.

Quote from: SHOdded on December 23, 2016, 07:51:57 AM
LOL.  My comment was on target except for 1 misspelling.

2 but who's counting(I didn't even realize till BPD1151 called you out)

You are right, 2!  I am not fond of mobile devices LOL.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGYO/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGYO/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGAI/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGAI/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X)

These are the ones I got.  Amazon wouldn't ship them to me for some reason so I just drove up there and picked them up in person since it's not too far for me.  They were easy to deal with and the rep was very helpful.  He told me they originally started manufacturing them to bid the OEM contract (which they didn't get), and so they should meet any spec that the original ones had and came from Ford's original engineering drawings according to him.  I cannot verify this, but other than the writing on the castings they look identical to the ones I pulled off.

I went with them based off reviews on Amazon for their other turbos.  They sell OEM replacement cylinder heads and turbos for the Powerstrokes, a bunch of different Subarus, I think some Audi models and more.  Seemed to be good reviews across the board and much less expensive than anything else I looked at.  If I get at least 30-40k miles out of them, I'll be happy.

Quote from: RandR10 on December 23, 2016, 12:01:04 PM
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGYO/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGYO/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGAI/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B019JKWGAI/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1JEYMHOGQPN8X)

These are the ones I got.  Amazon wouldn't ship them to me for some reason so I just drove up there and picked them up in person since it's not too far for me.  They were easy to deal with and the rep was very helpful.  He told me they originally started manufacturing them to bid the OEM contract (which they didn't get), and so they should meet any spec that the original ones had and came from Ford's original engineering drawings according to him.  I cannot verify this, but other than the writing on the castings they look identical to the ones I pulled off.

I went with them based off reviews on Amazon for their other turbos.  They sell OEM replacement cylinder heads and turbos for the Powerstrokes, a bunch of different Subarus, I think some Audi models and more.  Seemed to be good reviews across the board and much less expensive than anything else I looked at.  If I get at least 30-40k miles out of them, I'll be happy.

You should be able to get OEM turbos for pretty close to the same price as these.  Tasca sells them for about $450 to $500.  They require a $250 core charge, but you get that back when returned.

With it being Christmas time Tasca was going to take probably over a week for them to ship unless I dropped hundreds on overnight shipping.  Need to get back on the road with this car before the ground shipping would get here.  I think the shipping back of the core is on me as well.  Cost me 30 bucks in gas to get these.

Putting everything back together today and I pulled out the screens that sleeve over the banjo bolts for the oil supply lines to be cleaned.  They were full of coked up oil crud.  They weren't completely blocked, but the front turbo was pretty close.  Looks like yet another part of the job that wasn't performed by the last guy.  Luckily there were no signs of any metallic contamination, so progress is being made.  For anyone changing out these turbos, based on what I'm seeing here, cleaning these screens is a must.  Don't overlook them.

That sucks...a while back subaru turbo cars utilized screens or turbo oil filters and they just eliminated them all together becaus if they clogged that scenario was worse than running dirty oil through them...id take them off...you already have a high quality filter on the engine

Just throwing my experience out there,  but i replaced the screens on the supply lines at about 100k miles.  They were in perfect shape.  No blockage at all and were still filtering well. 

Quote from: pmezo33 on December 26, 2016, 10:35:35 PM
Just throwing my experience out there,  but i replaced the screens on the supply lines at about 100k miles.  They were in perfect shape.  No blockage at all and were still filtering well.

Interesting.  Looks like the PO wasn't exactly diligent when it came to oil changes.  I think I might check the front one again in a little while and see what it looks like just to be sure that no more gunk is accumulating in it.  If sludge accumulated in the past, it might start to slough off with the frequent oil changes I tend to do.  Don't want to replace turbos again in another 6000 miles from this.  This job is a PITA so far.  That back turbo was the toughest part.  Should be back on the road tomorrow though when the new intercooler comes UPS.

Have I got a story for you guys.  Got the turbos installed a couple days ago.  I let it idle with the existing engine oil because it was still fresh.  Checked for leaks while it warmed up, everything checked out and looked good.  I drove it up on ramps, changed out oil with brand new Motorcraft 500S filter and full synthetic 5W-30.  I cleared engine codes with FORSCAN and took it for a test drive and felt good while taking it easy.  I drove it for about 10 minutes and got the urge to give it a little juice and make sure it was making good boost.  Pulled nicely and upon deceleration, to my horror I saw a cloud of white smoke out the rear.  Freaking out now, I took it back to the shop and looked everything over.

Oil was dripping from the turbos, and the rear one was smoking because that one was hitting the exhaust as it dripped.  At first I thought the banjo fittings were the culprit because I couldn't source new crush washers from the local dealer and reused them, but upon closer inspection, no oil on top, just on bottom, and it looked like it was coming from the area of the hose clamp on the turbo inlet.  I pulled off the front turbo's intake hose and I saw oil pooled on the cold side of the compressor wheel, so I know it was coming from the turbo seals and not from somewhere else like PCV at the WOT port.  I racked my brain for a couple of days and did some research. 

At first I was thinking bad turbo seals, but on brand new turbos, I wanted to believe that CF Power didn't stiff me with garbage turbos right from their manufacturer.  My research told me that usually when a brand new turbo leaks, it's because of either oil drainage problems or excessive crankcase pressure.  Almost never to they leak right from the get go.

I checked the drain lines on the turbos.  Ran water through both, no visible signs of oil deposits, and no restriction on the flow of water.  Next I did a compression check to see if the rings were totally shot.  Got 150-155 across the board except for one cylinder that read 180.  At this point I was thinking my engine is completely toast and I need to drop three grand on a new one.  But I looked up the specs on this engine in the Ford shop manual, and it says those compression numbers are within spec.  A wet test shows that all of them read about 180, so I know I've got some blowby, but nothing crazy according to Ford's specs.  I figure that one cylinder had so much oil in there from the turbos blowing oil that it was the same as a wet test.

Next I put my hand over the oil fill hole at idle, and pressure would build up after about 5 seconds and burp out after I took my hand off.  Nothing crazy, but I thought it was weird that it was pressurizing like that at idle.  Then I thought for a minute, why the heck wasn't this being evacuated through the PCV valve?  The vacuum on the intake manifold should be enough to pull these gases out, right?

And then it occurred to me.  I thought maybe the UPR catch can check valve doesn't have enough flow to keep up with the blowby, so in an act of desperation, I took it off and put the stock PCV hoses back on.  Put my hand over the oil fill, no pressure build like before.  Now at this point, I got pretty excited, because I thought I was gonna need to pull my engine and replace it before I did this test. 

I took it for a test drive, and other than residual oil burn off the exhaust, no smoke at all under light load and low rpm.  I drove it nice like that for about 5 minutes to get the engine up to temp. and I did a WOT pull to ~4500 rpm and still nothing.  Mind you, before it was puking smoke out the exhaust by that RPM before I switched the factory PCV hoses back on.  Then I drove it up on the freeway and did several red line pulls, and absolutely no more smoke.  It took a while to burn off all that oil that had covered the back turbo's exhaust pipe, but as I took it to the gas station and filled it up, idling for 10 minutes in the process, the smell all but went away.  I filled up, checked the oil, and off I went again.  Still nothing as I did one more red line pull for good measure before getting home.

Moral of the story, if you have a high mileage engine with some blowby, don't install a check valve on the manifold vacuum that restricts down to 3/16" when the original PCV hose is closer to 3/4". 

I took the check valve apart and this is what it looks like.  That orifice is pretty small for a PCV system.

Here's a pic of the turbo inlet.  This caused so much oil to blow through them that they used almost a quart in like 10 miles of test driving and idling I had done.

That's a big sigh of relief to say the least and glad you were able to get it all done without any major drawbacks,best of luck for the upcoming 2017 New years my friend,enjoy. Z  :)

Thanks ZSHO.  Hope you have a great one as well.

Hope 2017+ is kind to you and your Flex.  Even if they are troublefree miles, don't forget to chime in here periodically :)

Quote from: RandR10 on December 31, 2016, 07:25:55 PM
And then it occurred to me.  I thought maybe the UPR catch can check valve doesn't have enough flow to keep up with the blowby, so in an act of desperation, I took it off and put the stock PCV hoses back on.  Put my hand over the oil fill, no pressure build like before.

Glad you got your issue resolved. :)

I was wondering where you had this check valve installed, and in what direction it was allowing flow?

When you experienced all this white smoke, did you have a cleanside separator in service with your can or did you leave the OE clean side tubing installed to the intake piping?

Also, if you sucked a quart of oil through your turbos, may want to consider pulling your intake piping, charge pipes, TB, and TIP/MAP sensors for cleaning as well as cleaning the CAC.


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I went back and looked at your OCC install thread and reviewed it again. Did you install additional check valve(s) from what was shown in that F150 schematic?

Also, it looks like you did have a CSS in place at one time, and if you remove the CSS element from the oil fill hole and plug it with your hand, you will definitely create a vacuum there if the OE clean side port is capped, since you removed the possibility of fresh air entering through the CSS. ;)


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Air rushed out, not in.  It was building pressure in the crank case.  At idle the intake manifold is in a vacuum state and should create a vacuum through the PCV valve if you plug the clean side like I did.  It was working, but not enough to cope with the amount of blowby my engine has.  The orifice was too small for that.

And yes, I installed a second check valve in the tubing that runs between the CSS tee and the can, making it identical in design to the F150 kit they sell, albeit with a smaller volume can of course.  The manifold check valve was installed with flow toward the manifold.  The clean side check valve was installed so that it would flow only toward the WOT port and CSS, then close off when the manifold is generating vacuum.

Quote from: RandR10 on January 01, 2017, 10:15:25 PM
Air rushed out, not in.  It was building pressure in the crank case.  At idle the intake manifold is in a vacuum state and should create a vacuum through the PCV valve if you plug the clean side like I did.

I have my clean side plugged as well, and at idle, I pull vacuum (inward flow) at my oil fill.

You're talking about the PCV valve on the dirty side, right? There's no PCV valve on the clean side. Agree you're IM is under vacuum at idle, which should draw flow out of the dirty side, but IN the cleanside, which should mean vacuum at your oil fill if your OE cleanside port was capped, correct?

I guess I'm still confused why there seems to be air rushing out of the oil fill at idle. I guess this makes even more sense as to why oil might have been getting pushed out the CSS toward the WOT port when under boost.

Quote from: RandR10 on January 01, 2017, 10:15:25 PM
The clean side check valve was installed so that it would flow only toward the WOT port and CSS, then close off when the manifold is generating vacuum.

Hmm... this seems backwards to me. The cleanside should pull fresh air in under normal operation.

With the CSS check valve installed allowing flow towards the WOT port, I can see how oil could get drawn in to the intake.

If I'm interpreting your information correctly, it seems like something is amiss. Maybe you or someone else can give me a sanity check.

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170102/c37a9c4b1297afd83a0313f95fa9f218.png)

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"You're talking about the PCV valve on the dirty side, right?  There's no PCV valve on the clean side. Agree you're IM is under vacuum at idle, which should draw flow out of the dirty side, but IN the cleanside, which should mean vacuum at your oil fill if your OE cleanside port was capped, correct?"

Yes, I'm talking about the OEM PCV valve on top of the oil separator on the other side of the engine from the oil fill.  I never said anything about relocating it, did I?  That part was never modified, and in fact every single part of that is brand new dealer-sourced stuff.  The original clean side port had a cap on it from the catch can kit as well because it was replaced by the CSS.  I agree, I should get vacuum at idle in the crankcase if the PCV valve (again, on the other side of the engine) is doing its job.  With the catch can installed, it was not.  It was bad enough that after a few seconds it built up pressure in the crank case and a little air would blow out when I took my hand off.

"I guess I'm still confused why there seems to be air rushing out of the oil fill at idle.  I guess this makes even more sense as to why oil might have been getting pushed out the CSS toward the WOT port when under boost."

There's no oil coming out of the CSS at WOT.  It's blowing past the turbo seals, most likely at non-boost conditions, because if the crank case is pressurized, the oil will not drain back into the pan properly.

"If I'm interpreting your information correctly, it seems like something is amiss. Maybe you or someone else can give me a sanity check."

Yes, something is in fact amiss.  My engine has 130k miles on it, much of them in hundred degree weather in the desert summers of Southern California.  As a result, it's got worn rings and a decent amount of blow by.  However, the original PCV valve and hose were still able to cope with this condition.  The check valve in the catch can kit was not able to cope with this because it is much smaller and will not flow enough volume fast enough.  When I switched back to the OEM hoses, no more pressure in the crank case at idle, and no more oil blowing past the turbo seals.  The mystery is solved.

Quote from: RandR10 on January 02, 2017, 12:28:30 AM
The mystery is solved.

Cool. I'll stop thinking about it then. ;)



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Quote from: MiWiAu on January 02, 2017, 08:19:58 AM

Quote from: RandR10 on January 02, 2017, 12:28:30 AM
The mystery is solved.

Cool. I'll stop thinking about it then. ;)



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You will just move on to something else, lol.