Is this turbo broken?

[Lrutts]

Hey guys, i have some questions on finding out if my turbo is messed up or not.

Car is smoking, especially when i down shift or put the pedal down. I also have had a loss of power and it seems like i have trouble holding the 8psi boost i am running, it hits 8 then crawls down.

Now whats odd is that the turbo has NO shaft play at all. But when I took the intake filter off the turbo, there was a small amount of oil on the lip of the inlet.

It's and ebay turbo, so its probably done. But why is there oil on the inlet lip?

Its a 89 BMW 325i with a turbo, running 8 psi

[b*saint]

shaft seal leak.

[Lrutts]

Ya that makes sense, when I uninstalled the turbo, oil was oozing out of the inlet and outlet, i don't thats supposed to happen haha! Thank you

[b*saint]

honestly just replace the seal with a good one from a bearing store and it should last 10x longer.

[ak-]

Both of the people I know with eBay turbo's on e30's lasted about a year or so.

[sweet6e30]

are u running an oil feed restrictor??

[Lrutts]

Both of the people I know with eBay turbo's on e30's lasted about a year or so.

Yup, thats pretty much what happened to mine.

honestly just replace the seal with a good one from a bearing store and it should last 10x longer.

Is this difficult to do? I have never tried to pull a turbo apart.

are u running an oil feed restrictor??

Yes i am

[TS87325IS]

What's your drain look like?

[Jaxx_]

While ebay turbos are cheap pieces of shit as long as you are running a proper restrictor and a decent size drain you should be okay. As others have said this might be a cause of your issue.

[Lrutts]

What's your drain look like?

Um, a big circle haha.

While ebay turbos are cheap pieces of shit as long as you are running a proper restrictor and a decent size drain you should be okay. As others have said this might be a cause of your issue.

Whats a "proper restrictor"?

[The Humjet]

The thing is OP hasn't been running much boost on this turbo. EBay turbos are usually hold up fine if kept under 15psi. So I don't think it's the turbo at fault I reackon it comes down to your oil lines that caused your shaft seal to blow. Whether you had the wrong restrictor or a bad drain setup its these things that usually cause the issues you have been having.
Before you start fixing the turbo you have to check what made this happen. Give us details with pictures of your oil lines and maybe one of us could spot something wrong.