Hopefully all you knowledgeable ppl can help me out... so I thought that i recently been visited by the turbo lady, and bought a set of used ko3's (i know i should have bout ko4's, but i couldn't afford it)

so i started pulling the car apart to examine the originals, well they seem fine... no oil in the intake or the down-pipes, and the wheels spin freely, with minimal shaft play (less then 1mm)

I started to think it was a horrible boost leak, so I did a pressure test and could come up with a significant leak... It sounds like a loud whirring sound, and the car doesn't build boost... it makes the sound around 4500rpm when you rev it slowly, and around 2k when you rev it quickly... i checked the diverter valves, they're both ok,

Any thoughts on what else it could be?? if i can't figure it out, i'm going to put it back together and bring it to a local audi / mercedes shop to have them diagnose it... and decide if i'm going to do the work when i know what it is.... the way the turbos spin and the lack of oil, and very little shaft play give me reservations about pulling the motor out if it's not actually the problem...

Thanks in advance!

 

You aren't getting any boost at all throughout the rev-range?

 

i'm getting maybe .2 bar, it's barely on the guage (digital guage so even harder to tell)

 

yeah... so i just didn't wait long enough LOL... when it started making the noise i drove the car less then a mile back to my shop and parked it until i pulled it apart... so I put it back together,... ( i had all the under car part done ie susp, down pipes out, trans mounts our of the way to see, drive / cv shafts) and drove it to a couple German auto repair shops... well the sound went from really loud to just barely noticable in the car, still no boost. Both shops hadn't done a turbo swap before, which supprise the cr@p out of me, and didn't know when they could do it, if at all! so i drove it back to my shop and started pulling it apart again, this time when i pulled the passenger lower ic pipe off practically a quart of oil came out...


so i'v got the motor ready to come out, just have to do the under car stuff again, hopefuly be back on the road by this week end...