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Borg Warner S475 shaft broke in half. Has anyone else seen this?
I drove on this turbo for about 800 street miles after purchasing it new from MICturbo out of miami Fl.
30 or so dyno pulls. The car performed great. Made approx 877rwhp on 21-22 psi of boost. I drove the car nearly everyday.
First trip to the track I rolled out very easily in first with a 1.93 60 foot to make sure the car would track straight and trapped 152.8 in a 3,250ish pound 4th gen f body.
Second pass I left on a little boost and pulled the front tire(unfortunately my slip did not print out) and right at the end of the strip through the traps the turbo came apart. Right as I released the throttle.
Has anyone else ever have this happen to them? They tell me I have to mail it to them and they will inspect it and decide if the warranty will cover it.
So the whole exhaust wheel and 1/2 of the shaft is just gone? Did you have just a shot downpipe that was fairly large on there that it could have just fell out off, or do you think it just blew up and became shrapnel? That sucks, and yeah, wondering on the BOV also?
Yes I have an authentic Tial Q 50mm. It was running 21/22 psi. The car just trapped 152.8 the pass before with a super easy 1.93 60 foot rollout. I literally left like at a traffic light and then smashed 2nd gear. So it is making power. Our dyno showed 873whp. Car did not lose oil pressure. Still has it and runs fine. Crazy. I have never seen this before.
Straight 2.5 foot 5" dumped exhaust. Literally lost the wheel lol. 5 of us paced for hours.
First off, glad you're ok... anything going wrong at 150+mph is no joke.
That really does suck, though, and I have never seen or heard of anything like this happening on a quality turbo. Pretty fortunate that it was the exhaust wheel, and not the compressor, all things considered.
If you send it in, definitely let us know what they say may have caused it.
For sure. I mailed it to the company that I purchased it from out of Miami Florida. MIC Turbo. Over the phone they explained what, this or that could have caused it. Hopefully they cover it. Its almost a $1,200 dollar turbo. I pinched pennies, traded, and strung myself out to put this car together in the time frame that I did. It is off to performing as I expected though.
But yes thanks guys. Glad to see some input.
Everyone at the track thought I wrecked and couldnt see the car. Somehow not a single drop of oil got onto the track surface. It all must have burnt off. It took almost 20-25 mins for them to let the next car run because of the smoke being a visual issue lol.
Trans brake wasnt holding so I foot braked this one and unfortunately the time slip printed all zeros. Must be because I sat at the line trying so hard to build some boost. From what I could tell it left on about 7 psi.
I run a 60mm he351 holset over a billet S475 compound setup on my cummins with no wastegate around the S475. It puts out around 30psi from the S475 for a total of 65+psi at the intake. The S475 with a stock or moderate size secondary turbo is a popular compound set up for us. Anyways none of us wastegate around the S475's and they all put out as much boost as they can given engine load and rpms. Never seen that happen from one of our trucks. A lot of us blow up the compressor wheel due to overspeeding the charger but the shaft is usually intact afterwards. I even know a local guy (cummins) putting out around 900hp and 1600ft/lbs (before nitrous) on a compound setup with an S480 primary and he has run in excess of 1900 degrees egt at the end of the track before he installed his water injection setup. Point being almost all of us are harder on these borg warner turbos than what it sounds like the OP was. Oh yeah and almost none of us run BOV's either (you need an electronic controller to run one on a diesel). You should hear the turbo bark when I chop the throttle at 65psi lol. I say that turbo had to be out of balance or there was a defect in the shaft. There is no reason that should have happened in my experience.
I run a 60mm he351 holset over a billet S475 compound setup on my cummins with no wastegate around the S475. It puts out around 30psi from the S475 for a total of 65+psi at the intake. The S475 with a stock or moderate size secondary turbo is a popular compound set up for us. Anyways none of us wastegate around the S475's and they all put out as much boost as they can given engine load and rpms. Never seen that happen from one of our trucks. A lot of us blow up the compressor wheel due to overspeeding the charger but the shaft is usually intact afterwards. I even know a local guy (cummins) putting out around 900hp and 1600ft/lbs (before nitrous) on a compound setup with an S480 primary and he has run in excess of 1900 degrees egt at the end of the track before he installed his water injection setup. Point being almost all of us are harder on these borg warner turbos than what it sounds like the OP was. Oh yeah and almost none of us run BOV's either (you need an electronic controller to run one on a diesel). You should hear the turbo bark when I chop the throttle at 65psi lol. I say that turbo had to be out of balance or there was a defect in the shaft. There is no reason that should have happened in my experience.
Thanks for the input. I totally agree. I know several people that run them on diesel trucks putting out a ton of boost. I have never seen this happen. As why I am going to be extremely pissed if they try to blame it on me and not cover it under warranty.
99% of the time when I see things like this it is due to people messing with, over tqing the billet wheels etc. This company did use their own wheel and install on a regular cheap bottom end 1.32 ar 475. It is weird that it lasted 800 or so miles but there is also no explanation.
Is the shaft gone completely? I haven't seen a BW shaft fail that didn't get excessively hot first due to oiling issues. If there is no heat coloring in the shaft, it will be a first for me anyway.
I guess you could unhook the oil line, have someone aim it in a jar or something, then fire it up just to ck oil delivery, just to eliminate something.
I use the Teflon line steel braided hose for a feed, make sure it is pinch free
It is a 4an feed line. There is, and was plentyof oil supply. As can see in the one video when I tried cranking the car and it started to pour more oil. Because the oil was burning off from the turbo housing and exhaust.
04-04-2016, 12:11 PM
Borg Warner S475 shaft broke in half. Has anyone else seen this? 
