also, upon porting of the gate area, i have found a few minor hairline cracks on the INSIDE of the housing. the two or possibly three cracks are not visible from the outside of the turbo, thus i think that the turbo should be just fine. any thoughts? the cracks are right on the lip that the gate hole 'opens' from the normal path of the turbo, the "T" if you will in the housing.
another thing, since i have removed my gate and flapper, there is still a hole in the flapper's place. how should i go about pluging the hole? its maybe 3/8 diameter. i thought about welding it shut, but i dont think this would work because i'm pretty sure its cast IRON, not cast STEEL. a guy at our work tried welding cast iron, and no matter how clean the weld, how deep, how this or that, it just couldn't really get it to work....afraid i may have the same problem, but his welds did hold, just not under a lot of stress.....and this makes me wonder if it could work because it isn't really getting torqued on. yea, yea, it is getting stressed. i mean after all, it would be on he hottest part of an engine setup, and exposed to a huge range of operating conditions, but not any real direct force will be applied on it. or do you think that tapping it and plugging it would work best? if so, what do i use to 'locktite; the bolt? i mean, i think normal locktite lasts to like 400 degrees (???) or something, but turbos run over 1000+.....hmmm