90 Loyale, turbo with a bran new headgasket, 20 miles on it. So the after the head gasket, which was definately the major problem, their is still smoke burning off the from all around and on the turbo but their is no sign of anything irregular coming out the exhaust so the head gasket is fixed. I had another turbo that came with my japanese import engine rated at less than 60K so I figured it'd be fun to throw it on and see if it fixed the problem. Well it runs awful and barely idles and smokes alot when I rev it at full temp and sparks were flying out the exhaust. Periodically the turbo light comes on (which never used to on the old turbo) and a sudden increase in power and a loud knock coming from the turbo and then the turbo dies and it looses almost all power all within 2 seconds. It is extremely underpowered and I know its the turbos fault.......Any suggestions on if this new turbo has potential or is it worthless. I will probably just throw the old one back on and smoke it up for a while. PS the pcv system looks fairly clean.

Take your downpipe off, and grab the turbine. See if there is any free play in the shaft at all. Move it in and out, up and down. The thing should be rock solid. If its not, the turbo is bad.

 

Do you have a boost gauge? Dont rely on the turbo light... i'd get a gauge.

 

-Brian

When I hear the knocking and the turbo light comes on the engine definately gets power for during that time