I'm working on the turbo in my E99 and was replacing the stock wheel with a billet that I got from Clay cause my stock one got dusted from a K&N air filter. I wasn't planning on doing a turbo rebuild kit cause as I am trying to save up for the late 99 conversion kit from Riffraff, probably won't happen for a couple of months though. Is this turbo salvageable until the upgrade and do you think the 75$ rebuild is a must? Any advice would help.

 

The $75 rebuild is internal seals, so...is there shaft play side to side or in and out? Was it blowing oil out of the exhaust?

 

Looks like you have a couple of cracks in the first pic.
Is that correct?

 

That's a normal looking compressor backing plate.

 

Alan, it wasn't blowing any oil and didn't sound bad either. The stock wheel just got dusted pretty bad and the fins on the wheel were in bad shape.

lhud, the cracks don't go all the way through but was a concern to me.

Dan V, good to hear!

 

As Dan said it looks like just the casting, if the play doesn't allow the wheel to contact the housing, and there is no in/out play, the turbo will likely be fine.

I would want to do a compression test at somepoint before you go into adding more power such as injectors, which as a health check I would do anyway even on a non-dusted appearing motor.