Is my turbo toasted?

SaabSon

Wrench Pro
Points
26
Location
Southern California
Car
04 Saab 9-3 2.0t
At full throttle/full boost the car putters, looses all sorts of power and violently shakes as a result of whatever is going on in the engine. The turbo does this stutter, its almost like the engine quits for a second comes back, quits again and so on unless I let off the gas. This first happened a few months ago and it was because of a malfunctioning spark plug and a misfiring piston (I figured this out because my check engine light was flashing at me and I read the code). Needless to say, I replaced the spark plug and my baby was back to normal. About a week ago, the same thing happened and I immediately thought that perhaps my spark plugs (NGK Iridiums) were being funny again. I replaced them and made sure my gaps were set properly only to find that my problem was not fixed. I'm thinking that because my check engine light wasn't flashing and because replacing and tweaking the spark plugs didn't change anything, perhaps there is a bigger underlying problem. Is my turbo toasted? What are your opinions? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

A few things you should know:
1) The car has 130k miles on it.
2) I sent my ECU to get remapped by Nick Taliaferro and his team from Genuinesaab about two years ago. It's safe to say that my turbo has been "working hard".
 
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It would be worth checking for a boost leak as any leak in the system will be critical

is you saab running a low or high boost turbo .
 
^^ As sleeper said! Plus, I know of young Nicks work and I have also ordered lots of stuff from him and had them shipped to the UK, Nick has a great reputation with Saab's so no problems there. I would suggest you ditch the NGK Iridiums as they don't like Saabs! :sad2: I use a set from the 9-3 Biofuel range, they run hotter and better. Also it sounds to me suspiciously like you may have a coil pack issue. When they start to die, they eat spark plugs for lunch. Check the tops of the coil packs and see if they are still a light cream colour on the top. If not and one or two of them are a dark colour then it is a sure sign that they are on the way out. Check these out first before you start to worry about the turbo ;)
 
Thank you for your replies Sleeper and T9Man!

Sleeper:
I know that my turbo is a low volume turbo at high pressure. Does that answer your question?

T9: Thank you for the heads up on the spark plugs. I'll be sure to buy a set from the 9-3 Biofuel range soon...As far as the coil packs go, is there a thread that you can direct me to or a link that explains step by step how to check my coil packs? Maybe you could give me a short breakdown of how I can check them (i.e. any common problems I might run into while trying to get to them)?

Hopefully this weekend will allot some time to check for a boost leak and check my coil packs! I'll keep you boys posted. If you find any info that would aid me post it on up!

Thanks again for the replies :)
 
^^ Not sure of a direct thread to assist you on this one! Removing the coil packs is pretty straightforward. Once you have removed the engine covers all will be revealed. The top colour of the coil pack is the first thing that you will see. Also the coil pack sits directly over the spark plugs.

Another thing to look at is the connections to the coil packs, these have been known to have water in the connections especially if the engine has been steamed cleaned by somebody not paying attention. Sorry I cannot be of any more help to you on this one, these are my own personal findings on a similar fault found over the years. I do however wish you the best of luck in finding out what the issue is :)
 

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