ging

a while ago i my s-max started to make a strange noise that turned out to be a buggered turbo look at whats left of the compressor wheel and to realy boggle your brains there was no damage to the compressor housing in any way shape or form oh and it gets better with no warning at all about 3 months ago she was sat ticking over on my drive and decided to spit the aux drive belt off not to big a deal till i took her to work and found she was making no compression when starting turned out the belt had been up the back of the cam belt casing knoked the timing out and compleatly killed all of the inlet valves i was gutted and they say it comes in threes well after spending a small fortune on a 225st head that had done 21k and the turbo that goes with it a puma speed dump valve blanking plate as i think it may be what killed the old turbo a lma alloy dumpvalve to replace it with a larger intercooler with all new alloy pipe work and silicone hoses to go with a new k&n panel filter and a new set of wheel and tyers to finish it off i have put it all together and ther seems to be a problem the cam shaft pully seems to have spun on the inlet and exhaust cams so there is no interfirance between the piston and valves and she still wont start after spending 4 hours on the phone to many ford dealers i was told that they do not rebuild this motor they just fit a new one at a cost of my sole in this life and the nxt not satisfied at this i spent even morew time on the phone to be told that there is a tool that you can buy to aligne the cam pullys to the shaft result it is a fortune to buy but im looking at 4-8 weeks for delivery can any body advise me of any way that i can time the pullys to the shafts without this tool i know where the timing marks are to aligne the two together but the one on the shaft is covered when the pully is fitted and the exhaust pully needs to be ste to 15degree retarded when fitted and the inlet needs to be fitted at 25degree retarded now with out the tool im in need of some ideas as to how to do it acuratley any surgestion here are a couple of pics of the car befor she died and a pic of what remains of the turbo cartridge i will post pics of the new bits and peices once i get her running again

ok so i had the bus in and the turbo is defernatly buggered now i cntacted ford for a replacement one and to my amazment they wanted £1415 +vat and fitting so i was looking at a small fortune so i chased a couple of favours from some friends and managed to source a brand new unit for £650 +vat but i mnaged to find out that the turbo is a k04 unit these are widley used on vw's vauxhalls and many other manufactuors now the one on my bus is a k04-033 now im lead to beleive that the astra vxr uses the k04-049 wich im lead to beleive is a bigger unit to the one on the bus now yes i would like the extra power but the man reason i am looking into this is that the astra vxrs turbo is avalable with all uprated inturnals thrust bearings etcand they are avalable from £300 including vat wich will be not only a great saving but a good power increase at the same time so any help or information on the astra's turbo would be greatly apreciated thanks ging

oh here is a couple of pics of my bus

ok so i have booked the bus in for a good service new rear brakes and a couple of other bits and bats sorting out nothing to major to be honest but i have noticed a whistleing noise comming from under the bonnet and its getting louder now im no machanic but i spend all my time around cars and think the turbo could be faulty so can any one surgest an upgrade to replace it with or would i be better just getting the stock unit reconditioned all advice will be apreciated thanks (also its booked in for a remap after chrismas)

thanks alan

hello one and all
a couple of months back i treated the to a s-max 2.5 turbo love the car to bits done a little paint work around here to put my own spin on her as i like my cars to be a little different to every one else i will upload some photos as soon as i get her cleaned up



sorry its not the best photo its the only one i have to hand