Turbo Issues! Help!! - No power but normal boost?

[Infiniti]

Hey Everyone!

I'll give a little bit of backstory first! Yesterday while driving, I pulled into the overtaking lane at a set of traffic lights to pass some traffic when they went to green. Upon setting off In grinded second gear, which obviously is a terrible noise to hear! However after this, I had really strange boosting power. Normally it kicks in around 1600rpm, but was only actually giving me power for half a second at random intervals.

I'm almost certain my turbo is spooling, as I can hear it sucking in air, and when I got a boost gauge up on my phone via OBDII, it read there as being pretty much the correct boost as I am used to seeing. However I am still getting the very strange intermittent power, while driving home after this I was in fourth gear and there was absolutely no power coming from the turbo even up to around 3k rpm (I then shifted after this to try and stop putting too much stress on my clearly upset engine).

This morning, I unplugged my tuning box, still having the exact same problem, and then I unplugged the Battery to allow the ECU to re-learn boost pressures without the tuning box, and I am still having the exact same issue. 

Absolutely no fault codes, no warning lights or anything is showing on the dash or via OBDII. The car seems to believe everything is normal.

Anyone every experienced this or something like this, what was your outcome? Replacement turbos strangley don't appear too expensive at first glance anyway atleast?

Help? 😞

[flash22]

You may have killed the clutch/gearbox that explains the no codes and lack of power

what's the mileage ?

Drop the gearbox fluid and see if it's got any sparkle bits in it

[Infiniti]

10 minutes ago, flash22 said:

You may have killed the clutch/gearbox that explains the no codes and lack of power

what's the mileage ?

Drop the gearbox fluid and see if it's got any sparkle bits in it

The gearbox and clutch feel absolutely fine, all gears feel the exact same and the feel and biting point of the clutch hasn't changed at all. Could it still really be those?

[Infiniti]

Mileage is 115,000

[flash22]

A blown turbo will either seize, burn oil, explode or smoke heavily it will also throw map, boost codes and may go into limp mode

Put the car in 3rd and try to pull away if the engine tries to stall the clutch is good if the clutch is slipping the revs will rise

as you have a tuning box that extra power will reduce the clutches life, if its never had a clutch it's about due imo

[Infiniti]

9 minutes ago, flash22 said:

A blown turbo will either seize, burn oil, explode or smoke heavily it will also throw map, boost codes and may go into limp mode

Put the car in 3rd and try to pull away if the engine tries to stall the clutch is good if the clutch is slipping the revs will rise

as you have a tuning box that extra power will reduce the clutches life, if its never had a clutch it's about due imo

I'll go out and try moving it in 3rd in just a moment, I believe the clutch was replaced by the previous owner around 10k ago, I have only driven around 1500 miles since I fitted the tuning box, and the majority of my miles are on an average speed checked road, outside of rush hour, so since I have owned the car it has had a pretty stress-free running!

I definitely wouldn't say there is excessive smoke, it's the normal whiteish grey colour too. I'll also go and check the oil level when I try setting off in 3rd.

Thank you again

[furtula]

Sounds like a semi slipping clutch. Either do the test mentioned above, or while on the road, try to accelerate heavily, if the rpm's go up, speed stays the same, clutch is slipping. If it's goes on/of with the power, clutch could be sliping a bit, grabing on, and so forth. 

I don't really understand the "grinding second gear". Was it grinding when you tried to select 2nd gear, or was it grinding while already in 2nd, and you accelerated? 

[flash22]

Bleeding the clutch may not be a bad idea either

[Phil_1985]

This sounds a bit similar to when my EGR Valve started to give up - it was intermittent power (as if there was no turbo) - but then the EML eventually came on and it was permanent. 

 

You could try registering for https://www.toyota-tech.eu/ to view the official diagnosis steps for intermittent power or see if there are any technical service bulletins about this issue. If you go down this route, I would also recommend being able to have on hand the toyota techstream software to make diagnosis easier (some buy this on eBay, some may know a toyota technician on a personal level who could help out etc)

[Infiniti]

So,

After beginning the process, monitoring things via OBD. I decided to try the simplest option of MAF and EGR to rule those out. In the process of checking the MAF to see if there was anything in there, or if it was dirty or even broken I spotted a strip of extremely shiny and polished metal in the engine bay. The inlet pipe from my turbo, all that had happened is my inlet pipe between the air intake box and turbo had fallen off the turbo side. 

Therefore the turbo was sucking in loads of hot air right from the back of the engine bay....

Atleast it was a simple fix?

[Phil_1985]

good to hear!

This was my next route - if the grinding into 2nd gear resulted in some not so regular 'shock' to the drivetrain has it managed to loosen a pipe. 

[flash22]

I'm surprised that didn't throw a code, at least it was something easy

[furtula]

Everyone a bit disappointed we don't get to see pictures of mashed up gearbox and missing teeth 😕