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Turbo balancing

N

N97746

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2019
Location
Northeast PA.
Hello Gents, first post,looking to get back into Volvos after a long hiatus. My first car was a '61 122 that I bought from a cop in Philly for $260. Good solid driver with a bullet hole in the roof. How is that for dating me?
Anyhow looking to get a 240 and do a +T for a DD/fun car. Found a '90 940 Turbo waiting in line to be crushed. Pulled the turbo, exhaust mani, IC, E fan, fuel and ignition ecu, and all associated hoses and lines. Here's the problem. I followed on online video on how to disassemble the turbo. Did so, cleaned it well and now that it's time to reassemble I realized I did not index the turbine and compressor wheel to each other. Bonehead. I'm assuming it's important to get them balanced as a unit? Any recommendations where I should have this done? Turbo is a Mitsu TD04H. Thanks.
 
Google this: "turbo rebalancing services near me" and filter by businesses that have average 4-star reviews or higher.
 
Harland, thanks for the tip. Unfortunately out here in the boonies there is nothing within driving distance. Actually there is one, with 5 stars, but only one review. Pretty much think I'll have to ship it out.
 
Where are you? If you are near Philly I know a place. They don't have a 4 star Google rating (it's 3.7), but I know they are good. I have bought a couple custom turbos from them, and my friends shop has used them exclusively for probably 20 years with no problems.

http://www.bptstore.com/
 
I'm currently living in the Northeast part of Pa. I'll also give Blouch a call in the morning. I agree it might not be worthwhile to drop a ton of money on the TD04, but as I'm into rebuilding it might as well get it balanced. Not familiar with turbos on 240s but I'm more interested in day to day driveability rather than ultimate top end grunt. From what I've been reading on TB I thought the TD04 with a few other engine/chassis mods would be the way to go. Always open to advice from the more experienced out there.
 
Mitsu turbo's typically don't need to be balanced.The compressor and turbine are balanced independently. Sometimes you find ones that have been rebuilt by shops where the nut is machined and they were clearly rebalanced. Garret's are the one that are unit balanced and have to be reassembled in the right orientation.

I'd just throw it back together and run it.
 
^^ I think he's correct, you can see on the end of nut, if it has been ground down a bit it's balanced as an assembly.
 
arsenix said:
Mitsu turbo's typically don't need to be balanced.The compressor and turbine are balanced independently. Sometimes you find ones that have been rebuilt by shops where the nut is machined and they were clearly rebalanced. Garret's are the one that are unit balanced and have to be reassembled in the right orientation.

I'd just throw it back together and run it.
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Component balance and assembly balance are two separate processes - component balancing feeds into assembly balancing. Any brand of turbo would benefit from at least checking imbalance at both stages. MHI turbos may very well be assembly balance audited at the factory (I'm not sure but would be surprised if not). Just because the locknut or nose is not cut does not mean that assembly balance wasn't at least audited. The compressor wheel can also be reoriented on the shaft to change assembly balance state without cutting.
 
Sjeng said:
I would never pay the money to balance a TD04.
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I have to say that I agree. If all you are looking to do is rebuild a td04, all it takes is a few hours of your afternoon and a rebuild kit. I did so on my 13c without getting my turbo professionally balanced, and I have put thousands of miles on with no problems. People who claim balancing is a necessity on these baby sized turbos, and are paying hundreds to do so seem silly to me.
 
Thanks for all the replies. My TD04 was taken from a '91 940 with 133k on it. Reason it was at the JY was the #3 rod threw the bearing cap. Maybe it had been rebuilt but I think probably not with those few miles.
The turbine wheel and nut both have a machined flat on them. The compressor wheel has two very small half moons cut into the base. not sure what to think.
 
The half moons on the compressor wheel are from when it got balanced by itself, if the assembly was balanced the machining on the nut would be offset and not dead flat.
 
N97746 said:
Thanks for all the replies. My TD04 was taken from a '91 940 with 133k on it. Reason it was at the JY was the #3 rod threw the bearing cap. Maybe it had been rebuilt but I think probably not with those few miles.
The turbine wheel and nut both have a machined flat on them. The compressor wheel has two very small half moons cut into the base. not sure what to think.
Click to expand...

This means it was balanced in two stages:

1) component balancing: compressor wheel and turbine wheel / shaft assembly are balanced on their own, usually 2 planes each. Cuts are made at the nose and backdisc of each wheel to correct.

2) assembly balancing: CHRA was assembled and overall imbalance checked at both turbine end and compressor end, usually 1 plane per end. Normally only corrected by balance cuts on the compressor nose or locknut, to account for imbalance vector added via assembly. Could have also been run on a high-speed VSR and then altered via cuts on the locknut.
 
Bit of an update. Called Blouch Performance, talked to Mike, he said you can go without balancing the turbo and have no problems or it can wipe itself out in a few thousand miles. Bit of a crap shoot. They will not balance any turbo that they have not rebuilt themselves. Cost for them to rebuild is $350.
Spoke with Ron at Ron's Turbo Service. While he will do a rebuild for $325, he will also media blast and balance your shaft and wheels for $35 if you pay shipping both ways.
Seems like a pretty good deal.
However may be a moot point as I just found an '02 S60 T5 in the local PnP and am thinking maybe the 16T from this may be a better choice?
Any thoughts?
 
N97746 said:
Bit of an update. Called Blouch Performance, talked to Mike, he said you can go without balancing the turbo and have no problems or it can wipe itself out in a few thousand miles. Bit of a crap shoot. They will not balance any turbo that they have not rebuilt themselves. Cost for them to rebuild is $350.
Spoke with Ron at Ron's Turbo Service. While he will do a rebuild for $325, he will also media blast and balance your shaft and wheels for $35 if you pay shipping both ways.
Seems like a pretty good deal.
However may be a moot point as I just found an '02 S60 T5 in the local PnP and am thinking maybe the 16T from this may be a better choice?
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

It's definitely a better choice but you will have to modify the turbo itself to work and have to make a new down pipe which adds more to the overall expense. The easiest option is to rebuild and don't worry about re-balance. Or send off wheels for re-balance.
 
Rebuilt my 16T turbo for the cost of the rebuild kit ($43?), even upgraded to a new 19T compressor wheel($100) and a turbine housing from white855T with no rebalance and have had zero issues.
 
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