Well, I'm back
Uneven start - must have been something with the injector return lines. I took out all the injectors to have them checked, found zero problems but upon reinstallation the bad start was fixed.
New problems after a 1200 mile trip:
Turbo went south (blue smoke out the exhaust, crunching noises from the turbo) and before the turbo went it ran lumpy at idle and was shaky until 1500 rpm. Power was good until the turbo failed.
The lumpy idle and shakiness will have to wait until I change the turbo.
Why did the turbo fail? Old turbo? Overheated oil?
After 600 miles, when I got to the destination I could notice a turbo whistle above 10 psi.
On the entire trip back home I had to make one mountain pass (car fully loaded) but I kept it at 2000rpm in 4th, EGT at 900F, oil temperature slowly went up to 200F after the cooler. After this ordeal, traffic jam. I kept a high idle (1200rpm) to have good flow through everything and never shut off the engine. After about another 200 miles the lumpy idle started but I did not notice any power problems. This lumpy idle got worse, with blue smoke coming out of the exhaust, until I started hearing strange sounds from the turbo and then no boost and no power. I know, I should have stopped when the problems started but it started to smoke at idle on this road, with no way of towing it back home from there:
http://romaniatraveldestinations.com/the-transalpina-road-in-romania/Now another problem arises. I've been wanting to do a VNT (1756vk) but I've also thought about a newer fixed geometry turbo (Holset or a Garrett). The stock turbo is an IHI RHB5, after I remove it I will post compressor/turbine measurements, maybe you guys can help me pick a replacement
Do I VNT it or not? Based on the calculators on Garrett's website, the GT2056s (fixed geometry) is a good choice for my car as far as the compressor side goes. It's been used on commercial 2.8 liter and 3.0 liter engines.
The GTB1756vk has the same size compressor wheel, larger turbine inducer and same size exducer and it's been used on the 2.8 CRD Jeeps. So I would assume it's not going to choke my 2.5