Anyone taken their VGT actuator apart?

Started by Rx7man, June 23, 2015, 01:36:15 AM

Rx7man

I was in the process of mocking up the turbo on a dead engine, trying to figure out my oil lines, etc, then I went to cleaning everything up..

One thing led to another, which led to the whole works being apart on my bench ;)
What I noticed was there seems to be a distinct lack of lube on the reduction gear bushings in the actuator.. they seem to have some sort of nylon? bushing.. they're still good but I could see signs of them getting eaten up.. they're a reddish color and there were some red flakes on the housing.

It is driven by a stepper motor, and should the board ever fry on me, I think I'll scrap it and drive the stepper motor directly... I wasn't able to remove the board, I'm going out on a limb here but I think the solder joints to the stepper motor are holding it back, and I wasn't going to pry on anything.. would have loved to take a look at what components are on the backside of it.  I had originally thought that it detected the home position by bottoming out, but on one of the reduction gear wheels there's a magnet embedded in it, and a chip on the board that must be a magnetic sensor.

Really cool to see the how it works, especially the fine machine work on the vanes.  I had seen a Ford VGT turbo apart, and they're very different.. they change the angle of the vanes, while this really changes the nozzle width... I guess each style has it's benefits, but I can say this has a whole lot less moving parts... I haven't put it back together yet, so I'll try and get some pics and post them up
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

I've had it all the way down to the board being removed. When I got my VGT UPS helped me out by dropping my package atleast 3 times. The wires to the controller were broken right at the exit.

So I had to take the whole thing apart, no way I was going to leave a solder joint near the exhaust housing of a turbo. So yes, you have to de-solder the motor, to get the board completely out. However my reduction gears certainly had lube. It appeared to be a white lithium type of grease, certainly not your average wheel bearing grease.

Ya the holset design has a TON less moving parts. Really just a gigantic piston lol. The outer ring that the nozzle fits into, that ring actually spins and at the maximum size of the turbo / minimum protrusion the fins still fit into the vane holes, so make sure you line it up with the housing extended to make it easier, then just turn it into place.
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

Did you index the motor?  I found it doesn't index at the same place every time.. it rotates about 1/3rd of a turn, and for as much as I can tell ignores that magnet... I put it together randomly, then test fired it, it sucks back, then moves a little forward.. as a test I took it apart and indexed it to a different location, and it does exactly the same thing... don't know what to make of that.

The part that seemed to be missing lube was the bushings.. I have some silicone dielectric grease that's slippery darned stuff and doesn't come off even with solvents.. I put some of that on it.. meanwhile it doesn't hurt electronics any.


I took notice of that ring.. does that come out at all or is it somehow staked into place?

I also couldn't figure out what that big flat bulge on the hot side housing could possibly be for.


I guess the UPS guy took it literally when you said "Drop it off at my door"
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

Ya I should take pictures of the box it came in and upload, its got like 7 holes in it, really bad ones. They won't help me with the UPS insurance cause I'm not the shipper, and the shipper basically refuses to help me out, its been half a year without resolution.

To index the motor you just change the send command where the 0x01 to 0x02, and it'll index and power off, reset your command and de-power and re-power the turbo you're good to go.
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

me78569

I had mine off, I need to take it apart and ensure I have it indexed right. 

I have full range on the turbo without issues so I must have it close haha, but still.
2000 Dodge 2500 quad-cab 5.9 Cummins slt, homebuilt 47re revmax 3.5 messed with vb, Quad adr iquad, 4" tbe , pureflow 150 gph. he351ve in the works 100hp DFI inj

hakcenter

Again you don't have to index it.


byte data[] = { lo_byte, hi_byte, 0x01, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }; // data message with an added counter
  // data[2] = 0x02 for recalibrating gearbox

swap 0x01 for 0x02 and it'll self calibrate
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

me78569

#6
I will do that and see what happens.  I am wondering if it will change what I am used to as far as my boostmap haha.

Here is from holset




attached is the full pdf

Some more stuff attached
2000 Dodge 2500 quad-cab 5.9 Cummins slt, homebuilt 47re revmax 3.5 messed with vb, Quad adr iquad, 4" tbe , pureflow 150 gph. he351ve in the works 100hp DFI inj

Rx7man

Good info.. some slight differences in our design, but not by much, thanks!
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles