98 v70 t5 turbo options and oil leaks

[timmybdaddyof3]

Well we picked up a large restoration job out of town and I have been putting about 400 miles a day on the volvo for the last week. Last night while out there and running an errand the car went totally gutless - running fine, but absolutely no boost, the smell of oil, and a nice racket of something getting the **** beaten out of it. Pulled over and opened the hood to inspect, had my "on the go" service kit with me so I was in god shape to see what was going on. Pulled the turbo to IC hose - full of oil, got everything out of the way and checked for shaft play (exhaust gloves are great) there was only about 6 FEET in each direction - found the noise. Then I noticed that the drivers side exhaust cam seal is leaking...there was no oil there when I did the vacuum lines and tune up 2 weeks ago. Looked underneath the car and there was a puddle of oil. Made sure I was okay to start it, pulled it up onto ramps (now very thankful I had my go kit)- and there is a nice stream running from one of the new (ipd no less) turbo oil lines, a constant drip from the cam seal when it was running.

Circumstances were perfect for this catastrophic failure and as much as it "concerned" me I was not totally upset. The parking lot repair was to lock up the turbo (and damage the housing in the process), and bridge the oil lines. Got it all done, added (2 qts of cheap dino) oil, restarted and the only oil leak seams to be the cam seals and possibly an exhaust stud - but I could drive it home (all of this had to occur while I was 50 miles away from civilization). and just to seal the deal, the check engine light comes on and throws a bunch of 0400 codes....apparently there are not specific codes for "bank 1 sensor bathed in oil" or "catalyst is performing as an oil refinery"

So all of this has given me excuses to do the upgrades I was scheduling between now and the end of the year - new exhaust, new IC setup, and NA cams. However my original idea was to just rebuild the existing turbo, but thats not going to happen now- so heres my question:

Which turbo should I go with? I have not had time to do enough research to be comfortable with this, in the end when all is said and done I would like to be in the neighborhood of 300~325 fwhp. is pulling a boneyard 16g and rebuilding worth it - should I look at an 18 or wil the internals become an isssue, and what else should I consider replacing while I am in there - bcv etc?

just looking for thoughts and opinions as it will be going under the knife the end of next week - in the meantime I went from a 300k car that uses less then a qt between changes to a puking mess

[j-dawg]

i thought 98 T5s came with a 16t already? you probably don't need to rebuild a boneyard snail if there's no shaft play.

before you start swapping out turbos, be aware that you should really be getting a tune as well, for which you'll pay a couple hundo (i think around $300 from ARD for a 98). an 18t should bolt up, but big turbos spooling up at low RPMs turns into bent rods real quick on the stock maps. the tune will build boost with RPMs to protect the motor.

what i'm getting at is that if you want to replace your turbo with a bigger one, don't do it until you have a tune as well. if you can do that, it's a pretty easy way to make some aitch pees. if you just need a drop-in replacement asap, i'd go with stock.

[Ozark Lee]

I think you can slap a 19T into it. To get into the kind of HP you are looking for you will need a tune and I would give Lucky at ARD Tuning a call and discuss the options. You might as well get all of the hardware changed for the first tune if you are going get it done anyway.

...Lee

[tryingbe]

I have a good 16T and I am in Mesa, AZ. PM me if you're interested.