WRXAUS

To anyone who has played with the Twin Entry Litchfield Turbos,

I have a Australian delivered 05WRX (2L) and i have just completed a twinscroll conversion which included a LM400-S60 Turbo from Litchfield in the UK. All the supporting mods have been done including a Grimmspeed 3 port boost soleniod. The turbo was purchased back in June 2010 and as i understand was one of the first batches.

My concern is we tuned the car last weekend and after being pretty happy that the car made 201kW ATW (6600rpm) at 16PSI i was super dissappointed at the spool rate. I was led to believe this turbo would spool as good if not better than a VF36. It will only make 4PSI at 3000rpm. I have since routed the boost line from the compressor to the wastegate to confirm that its not the boost solenoid (so it only sees gate pressure and should yield the fastest spool), still the same. It would appear to me that the wastegate is jammed. We also seemed to expereince changes in the boost response when tuning which were unusal and seemed to be heat related. ie 2nd and 3rd runs on same map. I thought i read of a similar problem with a memebr in NZ SPECNZ where he had problems with the exhaust housing and wastegate on his LM450.

Can anyone shed some light???

Cheers Ken Down Under In Sunny Brisbane

TimH

iTrader: (11)

I would agree - the spool rate is very poor. My LM480 delivers 1 bar at 3200 rpm so there is definately something not right.

Yes, as I understand it, there has been an instance of a stuck wastegate, and mine is suffering a boost creep problem at the moment, which is possibly a sticky wastegate (although not yet 100% proven to be that - although it still does it with wastegate actuator directly connected to compressor).

1) I would talk to Iain. He's not the world's best at answering email but is usually good on the phone (time zones not withstanding!)

2) Make sure the actuator arm is not impeded by the heatshield - could it be jammed?

3) You could try what Iain has asked me to do. Remove the circlip from the actuator arm and see if the flap lever moves freely (about 45 degrees I think he said) or is jammed. In my case he wants me to wire the flap open to make sure it can flow all the exhaust away and stop the creep, but I don't think that's relevant in your case.

What exhaust manifold and exhaust system are you using by the way?

WRXAUS

Yeah OK i will give Iain a call to discuss. I run Twin Scroll Tomei Headers and Up Pipe Ceramic Coated and a 3" Hitech Exhaust that goes into a Standard STI rear Muffler. The rear section is made by a guy down here called MSR he basically brings the 3'' rear section into the STI muffler, you get the performance yet it is nice and quiet on the highway

TimH

iTrader: (11)

Ok - sounds a good setup - just wanted to make sure there was nothing there that might account for it

SPECCNZ

I sent you a message back on Rexnet Aus.

But to summarise my issues:

First Housing
Litchfield/Turbo Dynamics found a contaminant within the inboard wastegate bush, which they believe was from the ceramic coating.

Second Housing
The wastegate flap was catching on the bottom of the housing due to machining tolerances being out. The shaft was also scored from the flexing associated with the flap catching.

They are putting this down to inferior fuel down under, and the additional soot it causes which leads to components sticking.

I've been sent a 3rd housing with additional machining carried out to increase tolerances. I havent had a good look at it, but still have some concerns in relation to this.

My own guys in New Zealand have carried out some work on the housing, flap, and shaft and now we have 100% boost control.

As I said email me on the address supplied and I will provide you details of what you need to do.

Cheers

BT