a misfire/backfire damage whould explode the turbine wheel (if anything) - - to me you have foreign body contamination

Actually that is not a completely correct statement. Inlet explosions on turbo cars can cause turbine shafts to warp and touch the housing , they can also fracture pieces off the end of the impeller and then be chewed up by the impeller. I have had them just crack the impeller down the center a few times notw and bent the blade tips. I have only had two explode and that was in extreemly high boost pressures on methanol.

Max

 

I have been running a GEMS standalone in my Evo for the past four years. It appears to me that AEM and GEMS must have some working relationship. The software, maps, parameters, and tables look very familiar. Self tuning one of these is not for the faint of heart. For most I would strongly suggest finding a very knowledgeable tuner and looking over his shoulder while the mapping is done. It is really quite easy to do a lot of damage to your engine with a stand alone ECU. I have had some success and am running 25psi as a daily drive on a completely stock engine.

Something has been ingested by the turbo pictured. No way should AEM be blamed for the damage.

 

My additude on this mishap is you have to expect this stuff when your making almost double the whp of a stock engine on pump gas


When your a powa playa this is part of the price of admission

I don't care how carefully you "plan" and how good your installer is - mistakes happen - **** breaks and things go wrong

The good thing is that all the stuff is so cheap on that its not a major disatser like when you blow a ferrai or porsche engine and your out 50,000

I suggest that either you learn to take these incidents as a learning process and make improvements as you go - OR - stick to mildly modified mostly stock evos which run almost as fast and dont give any problems

Sure the AEM has some problems and is tough to get 100% tuned - but all stand alones take a lot of work to get them running properly

I could get you 90% of the peak whp potential with a reflash that would maintain 99.99% of stock like idle, start up and function - - BUT the price is having to use the MAF which does choke off a few extra whp over a map based stand alone

The AEM is a good unit with some minor teething issues which I am very confident will be resolved shortly

With any modified car - you are going to have problems - it goes with the territory

Just like the womanizer who sleeps with hot babes has to deal with a nagging girl in his bed in the am - - the powa playa has to deal with **** blowing up from time to time

I say enjoy the moments when its all running good and your the fastest car on the road and close your ears when the nagging starts ! Your car will nag!

 

True - IF the shaft is bent that is possible - hard to tell from the photo - maybe they cabn report on the shaft??? \\

hard to see that clear on the photos - but looks to me like a screw or bolt hit the wheel


Personally - I would like to hear if this "turbo" failure theory came from Frank who build this set up and what if anmything he has said on the subject as he clearly knows what he is doing and has the car right there to inspect

 

Well we can all speculate all night about this, but after pulling the
intercooler, and checking for debree, will be the tell all, as I stated
before the car has had a filter from day one, and a compression &
leak down was preformed today, it has 3% leak down, so I don't
really believe anything went in the motor. but we will scope, the
cylinders tomorrow.

 

True dat !!!!!!

You need the whole car to do a proper diagnosis and identify the real culprit !

 

As for the turbo I can say it has alot of shaft play & it does rub the
compressor housing. I have seen turbos tear up pretty bad, when
they rub on the housing. I will say that I am not here to point the
finger at AEM or HKS. As anything, things happen, We have been
working with aem on the computer to sort out the ignition problems, which I'm pretty sure we have worked them out. And
now we will work with hks to find out what happened to the turbo. One thing is for sure, we would like to sort out all of these
things, so that none of us have to go through them. And I would like to really thank john for being so paitent through all of this.
I know sometimes it may look like theres no light at the end of the tunnel, but there is. We at SFP are commited and will do whatever it takes to get this thing done right.

 

I have seen chrome plated intake pipes chip and cause this damage. Is yours chrome or plated in any way?

 

Some random observations...

My EVO which has been running on various versions of the AEM EMS for over 5 months now will be at AEM on their dyno Tuesday 12/23/03 for further testing. We wont quit 'till we finger this out.

My car has the very first production box and has been running up to 22 psi with no problems. It starts (hot and cold) with no problems, drives like a stock car.

Frank from SPF... what was the dialog between you and AEM in getting this early box? Didnt you have to beg pretty hard to get this box before everyone else with the understanding that you were on the steep side of the learning curve. Both you _and_ AEM?

Engine management systems do not blow chips of the compressor wheels of turbos. Engine management systems do not make holes in exhaust ports.

That dead turbo in the pics looks like it was killed by compressor surge.

You will not find another electronic engine management company with a higher commitment to customer service than AEM. None. Not one will give you the level of customer service that AEM gives every day.

Not since the 3G Eclipse guys have I seen such an unwarranted lynch mob mentality on a message board. But hey, maybe I dont get out much.

Mike W

 

Relax. Compressor blade debri is not gonna hurt the motor. The Intercooler will catch all pieces with any size. The pieces that pass will just burn in 1600 degrees.

 

A few comments here i would like to add. First in responce to this post. Gems and AEM work together. They are responsible for basically all of the base circuitry. They both do R&D on the units and then market them here in the states as AEM. I have used AEM for a while now and have absolutely no problems.

Second, I was under the impression from the first few posts that the turbine section was the problem. This is obviously a pic of the compressor. This is a guaranteed sign of a foriegn object into the intake tract. IF the end play in the shaft was there before hand then the comp wheel would have chewed intself to death and physically broken apart. This had nothing to do with a misfire or the EMS you are running.
A gentleman posted something right above me. He stated that the intake piping if it were plated could cause this. This is true. But i would bet it was something related to the welding process. When parts are put together and foreign objects "fall off" this is the case many times in compressor failure. I also cannot imagine that surge will cause this.

AL, you say your port exploded would you be so kind as to post a pic.
My two cents.

 

Well said

 

After not much sleep, here we are back on project evo, I don't
whats worse the fact that the turbo is damaged or some of the
posts on this thread. As I said before, we will be inspecting the
intercooler this morning for any foreign object. The inlet pipe
is not chrome plated, it is powder coated. I don't really believe
that compressor surge broke the turbo and as for the BOV,
it is a tail 50 mm. I will let the experts at hks make the call on the
turbo. As for backfires making a hole in an exh port, thats a first
but I guess if you port the living hell out of it, make it thin enough
it (might) happen. But with all that in mind, a nitrous backfire
(might) do the same. I thank all who have inputed on this matter
most know what you're talking about (a few have an idea) but with
the help of all, I believe all issues will be worked out.

 

And he means it...other tuners could learn a valuable lesson from this and see the amount of integrity the guys at sfp.net have..

 

Yes, AEM and GEMS work together. We approached GEMS about 4 years ago to buy the embedded software kernel from their rally engine management unit. We ended up entering into a development partnership for what is now the AEM EMS. The core of the embedded software is based on the original GEMS design but everything else is new. AEM does all the vehicle specific circuit boards, wiring & development specs and GEMS modifies the software to our spec. The AEM EMS is distributed in America, Japan & Australia by AEM and in Europe by GEMS (but still branded as the AEM EMS, or the as the AEM 15).

Thanks,

JR