The number one cause of turbo failure is lubrication, be it not enough, dirty, too hot or the wrong type. There are also several others such as ‘scrub’, FOI (foreign object ingestion), carbonization, turbine failure (typically crap going out the exhaust I.E a piece of a ring or piston) excessive axial or radial play, etc etc. Without question your ‘damage’ was caused by F.O.I, but don’t think that’s solely through your air intake (although that’s the most common) Many vehicles, including the Elan, vent crankcase vapors into the intake and over time, as I am sure you know, these hoses deteriorate due to heat and oil. Carbon can be a turbos enemy in more ways than one and a hardened piece, or chunk of rubber, that finally comes loose from the inside of the breather hose will cause exactly the kind of inducer tip damage you have. Heat is the big enemy and the warm up/cool down cycles, along with nice clean oil, will increase your turbos life exponentially. Again, for me that wheel should be replaced (attached is a minor nick that warranted replacing the wheel, and this is towards the center, along with how the wheel should look, remember the further out the more critical to the balance as the area you have damage is precisely the point at which the compressor wheel, spinning along happily at over 90,000rpm, slices through the air (saw one cut a guys finger off at the first knuckle once , cut so clean it didn’t bleed for the first 30 seconds!) Just because you didn’t notice a problem does not mean there wasn’t one there! If you had no problems with your rear wheel bearings, but during a service to grease them you noticed chipped rollers, would you stick them back in anyway ? Now ,imagine they were an absolute bugger to get at and you wouldn’t want to do it again………….
Just my 10 cents worth (worth even less now
)vi11ain wrote:GeoffSmith wrote:What would worry me is what caused the damage as it should be clean air downstream of the filter, whereas some big lumps have obvoiusly been injested. Is there any way you could have got crap in from outside or is something coming apart in the plumbing?
The only other point I can make is that the turbo was working perfectly and making no funny noises etc prior to removal - in fact it was easily producing 1 bar boost as the point of removing it was to port the wastegate to eliminate boost creep after installing a Peco 2 1/4" exhaust.
So calling all you turbo experts (and amateurs) out there with a camera - please post your compressor wheel photos, failed or otherwise, for the sake of comparison!
Ben
D'oh!
) Not to say your guy is wrong, as he has the parts in hand for closer inspection and we are peering at a picture, but the nick at approx 8 o’clock will take quite a bit of dressing and without seeing it first hand I don’t see how its going to be done without altering the trim and require balancing. From the pic it appears yours was individually balanced as I don’t see any removal of material on the compressor nut (when balanced as a rotating assembly-turbine and compressor bolted together- material is removed as close to the center as possible) Yours looks to have had material removed from the wheel itself indicating it was balanced individually. Don’t forget to show him which blade you bent back into shape (see below in red) and ask him again the cost of a new compressor wheel as they are really not as expensive as you may think (if it is shop around) I assume you will be charged extra for the ‘dressing’ and re-balancing of the old compressor wheel? What’s the cost of a new one in comparison? Pasted below is a quote from a turbo rebuilder:
) outlast me. 
Glad to hear that your other unit was ok.