Thanks for the confirmation. I think at this point I'm feeling pretty good about correcting the problems and bolting it back on and see how she goes.


On the note of correcting my mistakes.......

I did some grinding in the 02 housing some time ago, and apparently grinding away on the 02 bung is a bad idea. So this is something I will have to replace while I have the turbo off.

 

Just have it cleaned up and re-welded.

Don't quote me on the axial play spec. But .005" doesn't seem excessive to me.

 

You know what doesn't crack? Cast O2 housings

 

I'm going to see how cheap I can get another vs what a local welder will charge me. Some day I plan on getting a welder, so if I don't fix it now I'll have something to play with later.

Damn that is nice. A 3.5 inch exhaust system is probably a little overkill for my use case though lol. I do like the vband, unfortunately the cast in logo really kills the stealth factor.

After reading their little blurb about exhaust sizing I'm def interested. I'll keep it in mind when it comes time to upgrade the exhaust system.

 

Update Time

I've gone a couple of weeks of DDing with no oil burning or leaking so I think its safe to call it fixed for now. In the end it turned out that the OEM Oil return tube had started leaking from where the tube enters the flange on the pan side. I'm not sure if oil was somehow moving up onto the turbine housing, or if that double stacked washer on the oil feed was just slowly leaking. I discovered the leak after having cleaned everything up, reinstalling everything and starting the car up on jacks. Less then a minute after running I could see oil oozing out. It sucked because after weeks of downtime waiting on parts and what not, I had to order more parts. It turns out the turbo is fine which is a big plus. So it's back on the road for now..... until the next episode.

Just a quick run through of all the problems I discovered and corrected.
-Double stacked Oil feel washer (My fault)
-leaking Turbo Oil return line
-I used an incorrect type of hose (silicone) on most of the engine, including pcv, fpr, bov, 3-port and maybe some stuff I am forgetting. I pulled all that off and used the proper rated hoses.
-The Turbo to LICP coupler was failing and I replaced it.
-The no name (ebay?) 02 housing was cracked and replaced with a Megan 02 housing. A friend gave me the original one back in ~2009 and never mentioned where it was from. It was fine until I tried to port it, and a couple years later it cracked.