Here’s a more serious example of overspeeding damage – in this image, the compressor wheel has actually exploded into pieces due to extreme overspeeding!
Damage like this can be caused when a turbo spins so fast that it starts to bend the turbine shaft at the thrust shoulder. In turn, this means that the compressor wheel becomes completely unbalanced, and is smashed against its housing at high speed. The extreme speed means that this impact with the housing causes the wheel to break apart into two or more pieces. Low cycle fatigue is another cause of this type of failure but that’s a whole other story!
Obviously, in serious cases of overspeeding damage like this, there’s only one course of action – to replace the part.
There’s also a chance that the broken pieces of the compressor wheel may have caused additional collateral damage when it smashed, especially debris stuck in the underside of the air filter and throughout the induction system.
