Sounds like the turbo wasn't primed correctly, which is also the #1 cause of
turbo failure. Stop running the car and take the turbo off. MDC's warranty
doesn't cover oil starvation (which is easily checked to see if that was the
problem), but even if you DID starve and it's not under warranty, Jon useually
rebuilds them for parts +$40. The other problem could be that when the
motor was broken in, there is useualy a lot of contaminates floating in the
oil which could have gunked up the bearings.
In order to prime your turbo you should crank the engine until you see oil
pressure on the guage (without starting it, EFI fuse pulled). And then let
the car rest for a min. You need to do that 8 TIMES, that gets the oil up
into the oil feed line for the turbo, and primes the turbo. If you installed the
turbo, and cranked the motor, and let it start and idle at 1500rpm, that turbo
was dead 30-45 seconds later. THEN it gets it oil... You can see the
problem. It's like running an engine without oil that has NEVER HAD any oil in
it after a fresh rebuild and letting it idle for 5 min. (turbos spin at 5k+RPM at
engine idle).
That being said its very easy to find out what the cause of the turbo failure was.
Jon takes them apart, if the bearings don't have oil on both sides, it was started
dry, if the seals have large chucnks out of them, then it's crap in your oil. If there
is oil on both sides of the bearings and throughout, then it was started, spun up to
5000rpm+ (turbo rpm not engine rpm), but the oil is completely broken down due to
heat, then it means the turbo was running it's ass off without oil cooling or lubrication
and then got it at the last min before it died.
Jon has successfully told me when I was using good oil/shitty oil, when I was running lean
when I had crap in my oil, AND told me my head gasket was failing, on 4-5 different turbos
and correct every time. It's like a damn CSI: episode!
Again, that being said, I'm sure Jon will worth with you on it.
Jeff
