Turbo help!
 

Hello,

On my way home tonight I decided to punch it a bit and let the turbo kick in, not too hard but just to have a bit of fun. First, I noticed that my turbo gauge showed that I was pushing 6 lbs but I felt no difference. Then, immediately after, it's almost as if my engine stumbled, like someone quickly slammed on the breaks for a second, and then the turbo decided to kick in for a few seconds and then repeated the process a few more times. I continued driving for a bit, normally (with no turbo), then tried it again but to no avail, it happened again. When I got home, I popped my hood to see if there were any visible issues and to my surprise the front part of my engine was smoking a little bit.

This has happened before but I did not think much of it because it only stumbled once. If it helps at all I drive a 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege with the stock turbo.

I'm sorry if my explanation isn't the greatest but hopefully someone will be able to decode this and know what I'm talking about. I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into before I take it to a mechanic.

Thank you to anyone who can help me!

get a compression test done i can't see why this would happen. my guess and im probably wrong is it blew a piston ring or something but you won't know until the test is done.

Whether or not your guess is wrong I greatly appreciate the guess because I certainly have no idea. Can any vehicle repair shop do a test? And any idea how much it would cost to fix if your guess is right? Sorry for all the questions but so far this car has been a money pit for me so I'm trying to get an idea on how much more I'll be spending.

yeah any shop can you it but your better off to go to an automotive store and buy the tester yourself its about 30$ and its really simple to do is it blowing out black smoke at all? if the boost all over the place?

Alright, thank you. And no, it's not blowing black smoke at all.

are you running a manual or electronic boost controler?

I think an electronic one?

My turbo is hesitating. It feels like it is lagging/ hitting the wall. It drives normally until I try to boost. I just replaced my wastegate actuator. I’m trying to find the issues please help!

check your turbo itself. take the air intake off. you will see the fin's of the turbo through the turbo inlet. you will see the stud that the fin's spin on in the middle. if that stud has play it needs to be replaced. ( if you can move it side to side or up and down) that stud shouldn't move at all. sometimes they move a tiny tiny tiny bit but if it moves pretty good the turbo needs to be rebuilt and the kit will run about 200$ depending on the size of the turbo. another way to tell if its the turbo that needs to be fixed is when you wide open throttle your car if the turbo sounds like metal on metal scraping thats a sign of a worn turbo. Normally running turbo's on wide open throttle shouldn't make any noise it should just sound like air rushing in. check that i have had a turbo act like what your descibing and i ended up replacing the turbo due to the stud moving causing the fin's to scrap against the side wall's. if that doesn't do it and you are running an aftermarket boost controler turn it off and see if its still acting up.

Thanks for all the help Darkstar. It's been running fine since it came back from the shop but I will definitely be keeping all of this in mind.