1ZZ-FE R.I.P ( xxx damn turbo! @#$%@)

1ZZ-FE R.I.P ( xxx damn turbo! @#$%@)

It finally happened. Thats right, my short lived sweet as custom turbo setup blew my motor to bits. I'm as shocked as you are! Running 8psi (the stock setting with the TSI Extreme Turbo Kit) the car ran great with exception to the BOV causing a rich condition but today for some reason when I hit an off ramp at only 4800 RPM and 8 PSI of boost going slightly up hill the engine blew up like a hand granade (this is something I have done every day without a problem but today it just finally bit it) and smoke and oil went everywhere. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and picked up a peace of the engine block laying on the ground. I also opened the hood and let all the smoke clear and looked for fire but I lucked out and there wasn't any. Holy shit it was crazy. I just got out of the tow truck returning to my house about 15min ago and thought I would share this with you all. This does not stop me since I'm going to buy another motor and this time build the head for boost. But it does slow me down because i have to wait a few months before I proceed. So for the next few months the Corolla is now parked in the garage until it gets some new parts. This got me pretty pissed but I decided its not worth getting worked up over and tomorrow we're going to start searching for an R00 for my wife so I can start driving her Tacoma Pickup to buy some time to work on the Corolla. I'll post some pictures sometime this weekend when I get a chance to put the car up on jacks and see the real extent of the damage, but the car did leave every drop of oil it had on the road along with tons of metal fragments so it can't be good. So the moral of this story is the 1ZZ-FE stock engine with VVT-i does not like 8psi driving up hills at 4800 RPM But serioulsy, don't let this stop you from turboing all your rides but learn from my mistake and build up your internals before doing it. I'll post some pics once I know the exact problems we we can determine where the weak link is. Atleast my loss will be everyone elses gain.

EDIT : Added pics

Hard to see with camera but it looks like a broken rod, and a peace of the crank or piston.


Ouch... I don't even know what to say about this, but notice the hole it punched though the block, Woah!


Sad sad day....

are 1zzfe's really that weak or is there something else going on here?

Some people have had good luck with turbos and others have not. I'm not quite sure what to think anymore. But my turbo setup was awesome and it ran really good and pulled strong. And the car even was running really rich so you can pretty much rule out detonation or any other lean condition. I was also running octane booster with my 92 octane fuel to reduce the chances of detonation further. But the car ran great and today it ran just like any other day and I just got on the boost like I did 12 times before on my ride to work and "Pop". Engine dead...

hmm.. that suck man.. sorry to hear.

somehow I doubt the internals are that weak to be the total blame here though


there must have been an underlying problem.

man sorry to hear that, that really sucks. hopefully my engine doesnt blow once i have the turbo running.

theres a lesson for all you boost junkies.....beef up the internals

I won't know for sure until I take it apart and check. I need to find where the weak link is. The oil light never came on so I think we were getting oil just fine to all the parts. I'll check it out this weekend. I'm still kinda in shock about it.

Oh no! I'm soooo shocked when I see this post!
How could it happen? It isn't TRD sc runing around at 8psi too?

Sorry to hear about the motor - spent all that time installing it, custom work, tuning, etc. - then have it blow all to hell on you. Like they say - $hit happens, take a N/A stock motor, blow 8PSI into it and eventully something will cave on you. Good attitude though - not letting it get you down, just picking up the pieces and make it better than before. Good luck on the rebuild - can't wait to see what comes from this.

That's a bummer man... at least it was fun while it lasted right? And it's good to hear that you won't be giving up on it!

Definitely take some pictures when you can, and when you find out what caused the catastrophic failure, please do let us know.

Again, sorry to hear about the failure

post pics

wow. no breaks. gota go through hell to make a little power and when you do death is right around the corner

i quit tuning

damn...sucks....I'll be selling my turbo stuff soon.....trying to sell the rolla too...

lol, prob true...

Yeah, time to pick up the peaces and rebuild: D Lucky for me I have an engine lift so if I can just find a new motor I can get started on the road to recovery. Any number of things Vortex stated could have happened. I won't know until I open it up and take a look at the internals. I personally think I may have broken a rod. And Vortex I didn't mean to have an offensive topic but the words "God" and "Damn" are both in the dictionary and do not have a primary meaning of the higher power in specific that you might pray to. By banning such a word you are basically forcing your religious view on to other board members which is not very fair. I am an atheist and the term god to me just means 'Higher Power' and nothing more. Again I'm sorry I rubbed you the wrong way but calm down, I didn't break any forum rules that I know of by using those two words and I don't think you need to threaten me or any other board members. I've had a bad enough day already, man this really sucks. I think its finally hitting me just how much this sucks. I'll start tearing it down in a week or two.

That sucks..sorry to hear that.

Be careful man..you just might get hooked.

sounds like ur piston sticks snapped.. but weird since you were at a "low" rpm.

and where's pics? this theread is useless

well wasn't he pushing it running 10psi the other day???? ...i got mine set at 7psi because 1. Mines an automatic. 2. I dont wanna blow my engine.....

I've turned it up like once or twice just for a little while but when the engine blew I was only running 8psi max. Maybe I weakened it just enough doing that. I'm not sure. But at any rate when I get a new motor I'm going to rebuild it with some heavier internals and drop to the compression ratio to 8:1 to try and avoid this again Its a hard lesson but it could have been much worse.

Probably a smart move, with an auto your probably not going to have too much trouble since your not hitting the red line constantly.

Its only a 2wd Tacoma with a 4 banger in it I do like the truck but compared to my Corolla it sucks. The one cool thing is I can haul stuff again though, that will be nice.

I totally understand. I just dont like how you went about it. You could have simply changed the title of the thread and said "Please don't use those words in future post" but instead of you decided to make it a threat to every other board member including myself and go off on us Thats all I'm saying man. I'll be more tactful in the future and respect other people religons. But in the end religons are points of view and people in this forum tread on each others points of view like they are astro-turf. But hey man, I've never had a problem with you and you actually inspired my turbo so I don't wish to piss you off now.

Yeah, today has been a horrible day. I found out my tax return is 4k less then I was expecting. I blew my motor. I missed and important meeting at work and to top it all off I have to buy a new vehical this weekend for my wife so I can use her truck for the next few months while I re-coop from this. What a day, W H A T A D A Y.... The one good thing that happened to me this week was I had a older NA Cobra Mustang race me yesterday and he was so impressed with the race he actually pulled in behind me and followed me into a gas station just to ask me "What the hell do you have in that thing, its fast!". I took that as a complete complement comming from someone that has a 4+l V8 in there ride. But damn short lived, very short lived. But hey, I'll pick up the peices and build a motor that is 10x stronger and this time around get it dyno tuned right away since I know now that I have to weld in a 3rd O2 bung for dyno authority to touch it.

ouch man that blows ass