FP ballbearing
Its great that you guys have had no issues, but your missing the fact here, that even with breathing upgrades customers BB units are leaking oil even on idle, Ive seen it with my own eyes, a mate had his turbo sent back to FP for replacement, bolt it up back up and its spitting oil out from the hotside. I dont see the same thing happening with any HKS 7460 or CBRD BB turbos, its obvious that their ball bearing units have had some kind of flaw in design and they are covering it up with "being out of stock" "we will see soon enough" "its a secret" bull crap that is fed to the sheep and fanboys.
And as for FP having the best warranty and service, that is very subjective. What does having run a number at the drags indicate for reliability in terms of the turbo? Sounds like a childs argument, which has nothing to do with the matter at hand.
And as for FP having the best warranty and service, that is very subjective. What does having run a number at the drags indicate for reliability in terms of the turbo? Sounds like a childs argument, which has nothing to do with the matter at hand.
As stated many times before and proven they need to be run with a sealed catch can and have a line going to the air intake to provide "suction" especially at idle.
This is exactly what was happening with my DBB green and when FP looked at it they said the gas rings were out of spec, but just barely. This was a 2500 miles or so old turbo.
I do know that CBRD uses the oil supply from the head, not the filter housing like FP.
Evolving Member
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 357
Likes: 17
From: Australia
It's a strange attitude that people have towards certain products. It seems that people are quite happy to just run the line that a manufacturer puts out, blindly regurgitating it at every given opportunity.
This is the story that FP run, but ask them to recommend an actual setup and they go all quite. Wonder why that is - actually no need to wonder because FP themselves actually tell you
And this is a problem in my mind. So I spend $300 dollars, or more, and many hours building a crankcase pressure relieve system. Two -10's out of the valve cover to a sealed catch can and a -12 to my intake tube for suction.
Does this work? No it doesn't, but what can I do. I can't go to FP and say "I built what you said and my turbo is still leaking oil like crazy". I can't say this because FP won't say what I should build. So what can people do? It's pointless complaining to FP, "it's crankcase pressure that causing the leaks" they say, "how do I releive this to stop the leak?" I ask, "not telling" FP reply. So I build what is generally regarded as a bomb proof crankcase pressure releive system, which does absolutely nothing, but there's no comeback to FP because THEY didn't tell you what to build.
So crankcase pressure is the problem michaelrc51, no it is not! At least not all the time! How do I know, see post #59 of this thread. Crankcase pressure can't be the issue because my turbo leaked oil on a dynamic balancer, and on this machine there is no crankcase pressure because there is no crankcase!
So I convert my turbo to a journal bearing. Does it now leak, I hear you ask. No, it does not. Same setup, same crankcase pressure, same engine, same power output. But no leak. What does this tell me? It tells me that there is a fundamental problem with the FP BB turbo that causes it to leak masses of oil when a journal bearing turbo doesn't.
But your turbo must be faulty I hear you say. Is that right! I have my turbo checked by a turbo mechanic, does he find a problem, is there something wrong with my turbo. No, he can't find anything, the turbo looks fine.
There is a suggestion that this is a rare problem. I myself know of at least 12 FP BB turbos that are leaking oil, just in Australia. Is every turbo leaking? No, but many are, too many to dismiss it as a anomaly. We have just has a recall by Mitsubishi here in Australia for a problem with a circuit board in the headlight system that can crack, causing the car's headlights to turbo off. Has every Mitsubishi recalled had this problem? No, just a small quantity, but still Mitsubishi recall 115,000 cars to replace the circuit boards, just in case.
Forced Performance talk about overspeeding the turbo as a possible cause of damage that could cause the leaking oil problem. In post #64 I ask them for some information about this overspeeding. I ask because it's hard to avoid it if you don't know what conditions cause it. I ask about RPM, boost and flow conditions that cause this overspeed situation. Do I get a reply from FP about this, not as yet. I ask about having a local (Australian) turbo mechanic of FP choice, check my turbo for issues, just to cut down on costs to me (which at this point, to have a non leaking turbo have past $1500 on top of the $2500 turbo purchase price). Does Forced Performance contact me via PM to help with this? NO, they do not. I feel that they won't do this because it would cost them a fortune if everyone with a leaking turbo start putting claims in for repairs or replacements.
At this point I'd be happy with something from FP like "you take the leaking cartridge to our Australian distributor and we'll get it checked, if there is something wrong with the manufacturing we'll replace it, at our expense and if there is found that there is no problem with the cartridge, and it still leaks oil on a dynamic balancer, with no crankcase pressure, we'll give your purchase price back". Can't see this happening, but it's nice to dream.
If the turbo is leaking out of the compressor or possibly turbine side at idle it is definitely a ventilation issue.
As stated many times before and proven they need to be run with a sealed catch can and have a line going to the air intake to provide "suction" especially at idle.
As stated many times before and proven they need to be run with a sealed catch can and have a line going to the air intake to provide "suction" especially at idle.
I'm hesitant to share anything beyond I already have in fear that someone thinking it's the answer will just replicate it wholesale and when it doesn't work they're back in here screaming "you're full of **** I copied you exactly and it didn't work". Also it's not something that isn't already available in the market place our setup isn't special and unique.
Does this work? No it doesn't, but what can I do. I can't go to FP and say "I built what you said and my turbo is still leaking oil like crazy". I can't say this because FP won't say what I should build. So what can people do? It's pointless complaining to FP, "it's crankcase pressure that causing the leaks" they say, "how do I releive this to stop the leak?" I ask, "not telling" FP reply. So I build what is generally regarded as a bomb proof crankcase pressure releive system, which does absolutely nothing, but there's no comeback to FP because THEY didn't tell you what to build.
So crankcase pressure is the problem michaelrc51, no it is not! At least not all the time! How do I know, see post #59 of this thread. Crankcase pressure can't be the issue because my turbo leaked oil on a dynamic balancer, and on this machine there is no crankcase pressure because there is no crankcase!
So I convert my turbo to a journal bearing. Does it now leak, I hear you ask. No, it does not. Same setup, same crankcase pressure, same engine, same power output. But no leak. What does this tell me? It tells me that there is a fundamental problem with the FP BB turbo that causes it to leak masses of oil when a journal bearing turbo doesn't.
But your turbo must be faulty I hear you say. Is that right! I have my turbo checked by a turbo mechanic, does he find a problem, is there something wrong with my turbo. No, he can't find anything, the turbo looks fine.
There is a suggestion that this is a rare problem. I myself know of at least 12 FP BB turbos that are leaking oil, just in Australia. Is every turbo leaking? No, but many are, too many to dismiss it as a anomaly. We have just has a recall by Mitsubishi here in Australia for a problem with a circuit board in the headlight system that can crack, causing the car's headlights to turbo off. Has every Mitsubishi recalled had this problem? No, just a small quantity, but still Mitsubishi recall 115,000 cars to replace the circuit boards, just in case.
Forced Performance talk about overspeeding the turbo as a possible cause of damage that could cause the leaking oil problem. In post #64 I ask them for some information about this overspeeding. I ask because it's hard to avoid it if you don't know what conditions cause it. I ask about RPM, boost and flow conditions that cause this overspeed situation. Do I get a reply from FP about this, not as yet. I ask about having a local (Australian) turbo mechanic of FP choice, check my turbo for issues, just to cut down on costs to me (which at this point, to have a non leaking turbo have past $1500 on top of the $2500 turbo purchase price). Does Forced Performance contact me via PM to help with this? NO, they do not. I feel that they won't do this because it would cost them a fortune if everyone with a leaking turbo start putting claims in for repairs or replacements.
At this point I'd be happy with something from FP like "you take the leaking cartridge to our Australian distributor and we'll get it checked, if there is something wrong with the manufacturing we'll replace it, at our expense and if there is found that there is no problem with the cartridge, and it still leaks oil on a dynamic balancer, with no crankcase pressure, we'll give your purchase price back". Can't see this happening, but it's nice to dream.
Check their Facebook, it's up. I'm on the phone or I'd copy it over. But to recap, zero and zephyr released and a new chra is being used on the whole line from what I see/hear.
Fireescape, I can sympathize with your situation. But batty is right there are no seals on a turbo that can blow. But to clarify if shaft gets loose then of course the seals can be damaged. So if you turbo has no abnormal shaft play the seals are fine in the turbo. It would be pointless to send turbo back to FP. FP has stated that the BB turbo design is more sensitive to crankcase pressure. And I believe with a better designed catch can you can solve your problem.
I have been running an hta green for three years. First two years I ran it with a mahle piston 2.3 engine with no catch can. i had no oil control issues. no oil in pipes. the third year i switched compression with another mahle 2.3 shortblock. everything was fine at 21psi. but since i was running lower compression this go round i needed to turbo boost up to 24psi to get same power. I then began to see oil in my pipes. I quickly checked for turbo shaft play but turbo felt normal, so i mediately eliminated turbo as the source of the problem. The engine didnt appear to have blow by. no pressure out of oil cap when engine is running at idle. dip stick never pops out. no catch and not much oil coming out of the lines off the valve cover. so I decided to make lines bigger off valve cover. that helped reduce problem and almost took care of issue. . so i new I was going in correct direction. i then made a sealed catch can with a filter that wont pass oil. and connected a line to turbo inlet pipe to add suction to catch catch can during boost,. walla it stopped the oil push cold.
There are three ways to ad suction to crank case pressure. using vacuum of exhaust flow, using vacuum at intake pipe, and an electric vac pump triggered with boost.
just because you werent pushing oil at 400hp doesnt mean your engine is in perfect shape. 490 hp is substantial amount more cylinder pressure. once ring seal is lost blow by is exponential.
the black vent line off can gets connected to intake pipe to ad suction.
I have been running an hta green for three years. First two years I ran it with a mahle piston 2.3 engine with no catch can. i had no oil control issues. no oil in pipes. the third year i switched compression with another mahle 2.3 shortblock. everything was fine at 21psi. but since i was running lower compression this go round i needed to turbo boost up to 24psi to get same power. I then began to see oil in my pipes. I quickly checked for turbo shaft play but turbo felt normal, so i mediately eliminated turbo as the source of the problem. The engine didnt appear to have blow by. no pressure out of oil cap when engine is running at idle. dip stick never pops out. no catch and not much oil coming out of the lines off the valve cover. so I decided to make lines bigger off valve cover. that helped reduce problem and almost took care of issue. . so i new I was going in correct direction. i then made a sealed catch can with a filter that wont pass oil. and connected a line to turbo inlet pipe to add suction to catch catch can during boost,. walla it stopped the oil push cold.
There are three ways to ad suction to crank case pressure. using vacuum of exhaust flow, using vacuum at intake pipe, and an electric vac pump triggered with boost.
just because you werent pushing oil at 400hp doesnt mean your engine is in perfect shape. 490 hp is substantial amount more cylinder pressure. once ring seal is lost blow by is exponential.
the black vent line off can gets connected to intake pipe to ad suction.
I’ve been quite vocal about my Forced Performance black ball bearing turbo and the oil leak it suffered from new. I’ve been on a few threads on EvoM about this problem and had taken on board other forum member’s, and Forced Performances, suggestions about crankcase pressure and its influence on the oil leaks from turbos. I did the whole crankcase pressure relieve bit, added two -10 fittings to my valve cover and plumbed these to a sealed catch can, with a -12 fitting from this to my intake pipe. This probably cost me close to $300, dash fittings and catch cans don’t come cheap and there was hours of work removing valve covers and baffles, tapping out the cover for two -10 fittings and the 5mm holes, x 20, needed to reattach the baffles. All this work was for nothing because the oil leak was still there after this work had been done and was gradually getting worse. There was so much oil coming out of the turbo it was shooting back up the intake pipe and soaking the air filter. It was also going up my short route cold side intercooler piping, after going through my intercooler, going up a 6” hose to my BOV and was coming out of the BOV and covering my engine bay with oil.
I took my turbo to a local turbo mechanic to get it checked out, and had a look around his workshop. He showed me his dynamic balancer, which spins a turbo up to 60,000 rpm. I asked him out of curiosity if he had ever put a leaking FP BB turbo on this machine, which he hadn’t. I was thinking about the crankcase pressure suggestion and thought that this would answer that question, as the turbo is spun with air pressure from an industrial blower, so there’s no chance of crankcase pressure as there’s no motor attached to the turbo. The machine fires air into the turbo at 6psi and is fed oil at 65psi. After maybe 20 mins he stopped the turbo.
The end result was that just the act of spinning the turbo with 6psi of pressure caused a pretty major oil leak. I’ve added some video’s, one with the turbo just spinning on the machine to give you an idea on how the dynamic balancer works and one (turned sideways) showing beads of oil spinning around the compressor wheel as it’s spinning. I’ve also added a photo of the end result of this test.
I guess what has annoyed me with this whole thing is Forced Performance’s insistence that there is nothing wrong with their BB turbo, oil leak wise. Even after they removed the BB turbo from sale they insist there isn’t a problem, and when asked why it has been removed the best line they can come up with is “Nope it’s a secret” or “it will all become clear soon enough” , jeez, they even added a smiley face!
I know they have been informed about the problem, and I know it’s a lot more common a problem than they are admitting. I feel that FP would not remove this turbo form sale is there wasn’t an issue. They had stopped selling their stock frame journal bearing turbos and from the look of the BB internals, had spent a lot of money designing and tooling up to build the BB turbos, why all of a sudden stop selling them, pricing them at $9999.99 on their webpage.
Anyway that’s it for me, I’ve had my turbo converted to a journal bearing, at a cost of over $1000, and the builder who did the conversion said that there was no visible fault with the ball bearing cartridge. The only suggestion from FP was to send my turbo back to them, at my expense. This would probably cost $300 in postage by the time I had the turbo returned to me and my car is my daily driver, I just can’t have it off the road for the month or so it would take to return the turbo to the states. I also know another Australian FP BB turbo owner who did send his leaking turbo back to Forced Performance for repair, only to install it on its return and still have it leak oil. I guess it just doesn’t pay to be an early adopter of this sort of product, it’s a lesson that has cost me a lot of money, time and hassles.
What was under the compressor housing when it was taken off.
The end result of spinning the turbo on the dynamic balancer
Video of the dynamic balancer in action
Sideways video of beads of oil spinning around the compressor housing
I took my turbo to a local turbo mechanic to get it checked out, and had a look around his workshop. He showed me his dynamic balancer, which spins a turbo up to 60,000 rpm. I asked him out of curiosity if he had ever put a leaking FP BB turbo on this machine, which he hadn’t. I was thinking about the crankcase pressure suggestion and thought that this would answer that question, as the turbo is spun with air pressure from an industrial blower, so there’s no chance of crankcase pressure as there’s no motor attached to the turbo. The machine fires air into the turbo at 6psi and is fed oil at 65psi. After maybe 20 mins he stopped the turbo.
The end result was that just the act of spinning the turbo with 6psi of pressure caused a pretty major oil leak. I’ve added some video’s, one with the turbo just spinning on the machine to give you an idea on how the dynamic balancer works and one (turned sideways) showing beads of oil spinning around the compressor wheel as it’s spinning. I’ve also added a photo of the end result of this test.
I guess what has annoyed me with this whole thing is Forced Performance’s insistence that there is nothing wrong with their BB turbo, oil leak wise. Even after they removed the BB turbo from sale they insist there isn’t a problem, and when asked why it has been removed the best line they can come up with is “Nope it’s a secret” or “it will all become clear soon enough” , jeez, they even added a smiley face!
I know they have been informed about the problem, and I know it’s a lot more common a problem than they are admitting. I feel that FP would not remove this turbo form sale is there wasn’t an issue. They had stopped selling their stock frame journal bearing turbos and from the look of the BB internals, had spent a lot of money designing and tooling up to build the BB turbos, why all of a sudden stop selling them, pricing them at $9999.99 on their webpage.
Anyway that’s it for me, I’ve had my turbo converted to a journal bearing, at a cost of over $1000, and the builder who did the conversion said that there was no visible fault with the ball bearing cartridge. The only suggestion from FP was to send my turbo back to them, at my expense. This would probably cost $300 in postage by the time I had the turbo returned to me and my car is my daily driver, I just can’t have it off the road for the month or so it would take to return the turbo to the states. I also know another Australian FP BB turbo owner who did send his leaking turbo back to Forced Performance for repair, only to install it on its return and still have it leak oil. I guess it just doesn’t pay to be an early adopter of this sort of product, it’s a lesson that has cost me a lot of money, time and hassles.
What was under the compressor housing when it was taken off.
The end result of spinning the turbo on the dynamic balancer
Video of the dynamic balancer in action
Sideways video of beads of oil spinning around the compressor housing
I am with Firescape as well. Michael posting back to a customer with smart *** remarks when he is having problems with FPs turbo is just immature and down right unprofessional. I called FP a couple months ago and talked with Michael about a 18K and he told me 2-3 days. Then talked to the sales lady which she explained to me that Michael had no idea of what he was talking about telling me 2-3 days for delivery. She told me at best 3-4 weeks. After reading this post I have closed the door on FP and their expensive turbos.
Ok, but to be fair, unless you actually placed the order you wont really know. MAYBE Michael, the owner, knew something more than the salesperson who is just an employee? just sayin.
FP seems to be always innovating and pushing the limits trying something new. Lets give credit someone is still doing that to our aging platform. When you push the limits of things sometimes you wont see certain weakpoints in the design until its been out for a while and actually being used. This oil leak issue may be one of them.
FP may not admit it, but its likely why they are now using a different chra design. Them telling you to improve the crankcase venting, imo is a bandaid fix, BUT its all part of the game. I doubt mitsu intended its turbos be stuffed with a bb inside of it.
The downside is the way FP has handled it, although to be fair, their customer service has been getting better. You would see this if you have followed them from back in 2010ish or so.
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Evolving Member
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 323
Likes: 2
From: seattle wa
plenty of other options I have used almost every stock frame turbo...
Kanigawa makes a good product shocking to say
CBRD makes a good product
FP makes numbers and solid standing bad service though for the price
Map Makes good turbos too
Kanigawa makes a good product shocking to say
CBRD makes a good product
FP makes numbers and solid standing bad service though for the price
Map Makes good turbos too
