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S482 turbo. It failed on me this last weekend during testing and started smoking bad. Also had a little internal rattle that could be heard through the exhaust which is a 5” down pipe. It had oil in both sides and the exhaust side was especially soaked. I took it apart this evening and found that the thrust spacer had worn down into the thrust bearing, which allowed the other side of the thrust spacer to rub the turbo housing where the front shaft bearing goes in. It had pushed some of the steel housing towards the center and I couldn’t get the front bearing out. Basically a slight inward mushrooming. The thrust spacer has also been worn and mushroomed on the same side as was rubbing the housing. I had to lightly file this inner edge of the housing and now the bearing comes out and goes back in as it should. My question is if the housing itself is still usable. I am assuming that under normal conditions that the thrust spacer riding in a new thrust bearing, it would never actually touch the housing so it shouldn’t be an issue.
Excessive thrust loads generally come from extreme pressure ratios/high back pressure. Using too small a turbine housing can lead to your problem even with the right pre/post turbo piping.
Edit, thrust bearing is worn on the cold impeller side. Which allowed the thrust spacer to move towards the center housing and rub the housing. But, I bought it used and the shaft felt good so I ran it. It has always leaked a little oil into the cold side, and has leaked into the exhaust side as well as I have to keep it cleaned up. But not bad enough that I was worried about it. So I am sure it was already worn pretty good.
Yea, thats what we figure. Its a A2W IC and I dont think thats the issue. But its most likely the piping from the bed to the engine. After the IC it has two 45s on small bend and four 90s. All 3inch. IC is 4inch in and out. We are running just below 20psi right now but that will be going higher with tuning.
I may look at rerouting the piping and getting rid of 2 or 3 90s.
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Turbo failure with pics and questions. 
