No, it's where it goes into the turbo from the air cleaner. There's no space between the turbo and intake manifold on these, the pressure goes straight in.

God, I can't imagine those dumb elbows having to hold boost pressure.

-Rog

Yeppers. The u tube is upstream of the turbo. A hole will pull air in, like it does through the air cleaner but with a heckuva lot less flow restriction.

Worse, when I cleaned the inside if the u tube after buying the car it was coated with oil mixed with fine grits. It had been leaking a long time. Since I couldn't find a seal I kept it duct taped up. The seal was really deformed and not sealing.

I just got back from a drive and it runs great and makes good power. No worries.

__________________
79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Ecology is the PicNPull of LA/San Diego area (SoCal).
That elbow is upstream of the kompressor so does see slight vacuum (more w dirty air filter), so leaks can suck in sand.

Yeah, I don't get the notion that it's fine for the engine.

I guess the easy fix for everything is to just run without an air filter?

-Rog

I have a crazy friend who did just that. He got fed up with the air filter housing on his daily driver, pulled it all off and has been running his 617 turbocharger to suck in all sorts of stuff from the outside air. The dude has been running this way for 7 years and drives 35 miles each way everyday as a diesel truck mechanic.

When he first did it, I told him he needed to get some sort of filter in there right away and every so often I would remind him. He'll keep telling me, yeah I'll get to it. At this point, I just shake my head when I see it.

Today the engine still purrs great and starts easily in cold weather (not as cold as you northern fellas, but it gets down to overnight low 30's here). The turbocharger turbine looks amazingly fine. No compression numbers. I wouldn't recommend doing this, but I am just amazed. I would love to be there to see the condition of this motor if whenever he decides to tear it down.


.

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1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

I doubt that is much different than the folks who choose to use K&N filters on their diesel cars.

Dkr.

That is an interesting data point.

__________________
79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles