VARGAS STAGE 2 + PTF E-Tune

[1SER135]

Hey guys,

So long storey short I took a leap and decided to buy the Vargas Stage two turbo's from Tony. I optioned with the upgraded trust arm and also a billet aluminium compressor wheel (normal design not GTX). Tuning was done remotely via a PTF etune (Jake did mine and ill get to a review of them later).
My Car and current mods are below:
2008 135i Manual 55000km's
AR Downpipes (Ceramic Coated)
ER COMP Intercooler Black Anodized
ER Charge piping
Forge Diverter Valves (Yellow Spring)
RB PCV Valve
BMS Oil Catch Can
NGK 5992 Spark Plugs
Quaife Diff
Custom DP back exhaust with quad tips/Hartge diffuser.

Ok so on to the turbos, im going to go to the negative first, there is a slight (I an very picky so 99% of people wouldn't notice it) hint of lag over the stock turbos. Ok now that the negatives are done, THESE TURBOS ARE F**KING AWESOME!!! They pull so well all the way to 6000rpm and im only running Shell V-Power and not e85 or Meth, the power delivery is fantastic and linear (thanks to Jake @ PTF), three "side effects" of these Turbos that is AMAZING is that the wastegate rattle is gone and you can here the brilliant whistle of the turbo's that just draw a tear to your eye, also my exhaust sounds orgasmic, it sounds so Deep yet N/A that without the sound of the turbos you wouldn't guess its a turbo-6.

Now....Vargas Turbos themselves...Tony at Vargas turbos is a no bullsh!t kind of guy, which I absolutely loved, he responded so promptly and gave me straight up answers to me questions (of which I had a lot), the turbos arrived to me well before I was expecting them which was great, but also meant that I was dying inside having to look at the box every morning before my setup was installed.

Ok now on to PTF, first of all I have previously had an etune done by PTF for my FBO setup, and just on that setup alone I would recommend that EVERYONE get a PTF etune as the difference between them and the Cobb OTS maps is night and day, Jake made the car feel exactly how I wanted it, from power delivery to the throttle mapping being perfect for my rev matching down shifts.


With the Vargas setup, Jakes talents shine.....it took him a total of 4 revisions to get the car almost perfect (it is as smooth or smoother then factory now), after a few weeks I will data log again and probably get 1 or 2 more revisions from him if he thinks that he can push them a little further or maybe make them even smoother (If that is possible).

I have driven about 500km in the last 3 days on them and so far no hiccups apart from the standard WOT misfire around 3000rpm that a lot of N54's seem to get, going to do walnut blast and injector change later in the year.
For anyone in Perth that would like to hear a testimonial Adrian at RAMP Auto Group (They did the install of everything I have had on the car so far) has always been a sceptic on the smoothness of our cars when tuned (he has worked on few of the N54's on this forum) and he was blown away on how smooth the car was after it was tune and how strong it pulled after the 4500rpm mark that we usually fall at when running only 98 Octane.

I really dont know what else to write about as I am so happy with the setup so far that all I can say is people should seriously consider Vargas Turbos, and regardless of whether your upgrading turbos or not, do yourself and your car a favor and get an e-tune!

[Curare86]

And the dyno??

Originally Posted by 1SER135

Hey guys,

So long storey short I took a leap and decided to buy the Vargas Stage two turbo's from Tony. I optioned with the upgraded trust arm and also a billet aluminium compressor wheel (normal design not GTX). Tuning was done remotely via a PTF etune (Jake did mine and ill get to a review of them later).
My Car and current mods are below:
2008 135i Manual 55000km's
AR Downpipes (Ceramic Coated)
ER COMP Intercooler Black Anodized
ER Charge piping
Forge Diverter Valves (Yellow Spring)
RB PCV Valve
BMS Oil Catch Can
NGK 5992 Spark Plugs
Quaife Diff
Custom DP back exhaust with quad tips/Hartge diffuser.

Ok so on to the turbos, im going to go to the negative first, there is a slight (I an very picky so 99% of people wouldn't notice it) hint of lag over the stock turbos. Ok now that the negatives are done, THESE TURBOS ARE F**KING AWESOME!!! They pull so well all the way to 6000rpm and im only running Shell V-Power and not e85 or Meth, the power delivery is fantastic and linear (thanks to Jake @ PTF), three "side effects" of these Turbos that is AMAZING is that the wastegate rattle is gone and you can here the brilliant whistle of the turbo's that just draw a tear to your eye, also my exhaust sounds orgasmic, it sounds so Deep yet N/A that without the sound of the turbos you wouldn't guess its a turbo-6.

Now....Vargas Turbos themselves...Tony at Vargas turbos is a no bullsh!t kind of guy, which I absolutely loved, he responded so promptly and gave me straight up answers to me questions (of which I had a lot), the turbos arrived to me well before I was expecting them which was great, but also meant that I was dying inside having to look at the box every morning before my setup was installed.

Ok now on to PTF, first of all I have previously had an etune done by PTF for my FBO setup, and just on that setup alone I would recommend that EVERYONE get a PTF etune as the difference between them and the Cobb OTS maps is night and day, Jake made the car feel exactly how I wanted it, from power delivery to the throttle mapping being perfect for my rev matching down shifts.


With the Vargas setup, Jakes talents shine.....it took him a total of 4 revisions to get the car almost perfect (it is as smooth or smoother then factory now), after a few weeks I will data log again and probably get 1 or 2 more revisions from him if he thinks that he can push them a little further or maybe make them even smoother (If that is possible).

I have driven about 500km in the last 3 days on them and so far no hiccups apart from the standard WOT misfire around 3000rpm that a lot of N54's seem to get, going to do walnut blast and injector change later in the year.
For anyone in Perth that would like to hear a testimonial Adrian at RAMP Auto Group (They did the install of everything I have had on the car so far) has always been a sceptic on the smoothness of our cars when tuned (he has worked on few of the N54's on this forum) and he was blown away on how smooth the car was after it was tune and how strong it pulled after the 4500rpm mark that we usually fall at when running only 98 Octane.

I really dont know what else to write about as I am so happy with the setup so far that all I can say is people should seriously consider Vargas Turbos, and regardless of whether your upgrading turbos or not, do yourself and your car a favor and get an e-tune!

[froop]

+1, would love a before and after dyno.

Though everyone will have to take into account that this is without E85 or meth so most likely won't be pushing huge numbers.

Thanks for the review!

[BMW86]

Nice writeup. Keen for some numbers or even better... some 1/4 times How much boost are you running on 98RON?

[drjekl]

Soundclip & pics please

[1911A145]

Waiting for some before and after dynos as well.

Something else to note...

Anyone else feel they were in an infomercial or something? I feel like buying turbos and getting an etune right away. lol

[adevangel84]

Awesome review. +1 on dyno numbers.

[Sarge135]

Awesome review. Gotta start saving cash!

[alexmtl_135i]

Nice review ! Now I want to see some videos or dynos too

[cheshirecat79]

Tony from Vargas really is a great guy. 30 years experience building and selling turbos speaks for itself, plus the numbers coming out of these things are pretty crazy.

And... the price is pretty good.

it's a winner in my book.

[Tab135]

So I went for a ride in this over the weekend, made my decision for turbos that's for sure, this car goes like shower of shit

[1911A145]

post some vids in action!

[Colt]

Originally Posted by 1911A145

Anyone else feel they were in an infomercial or something? I feel like buying turbos and getting an etune right away. lol

Yea, made me look over to my money I have stashed in my safe so far for the stage 2s lol

Jake and Tony both are quick responding to e-mails from my experience as well. As many e-mails as they probably get they sure do get back to you quickly.

Been really wanting a tune from PTF....keep hearing how different it is compared to the cobb maps; trying to get done a walnut blast and the midpipes before the tune though

Get a couple videos up and a dyno

[1SER135]

At this stage its 305rwhp and 370ft lb of torque, peak power around 6000 and peak torque at 3200rpm (OH YEH!) and then drops at a rate of 30ftlb per 1000RPM which is amazing.

The HP number may not seem insane but considering that its peaking at 18PSI its actually really good. Me and Jake are going go another few revisions again as he isn't completely happy with where its at and beleives he can still push it further.

For the guys in the US this dyno I was on is very "honest" dyno. To give you a good idea, the same datalogs went into "Virtual Dyno" which gave me 475hp and from what ive seen "Virtual Dyno" gives very close numbers to Dynojet numbers.

I will put a Dyno chart up once I get on the dyno again


On a side not, when we compared my Pre-Vargas Chart to the current setup, I gained about 30rwhp peak power but about 50-60rwhp through out the mid range, not to mention that it pushed my peak power up about 1000rpm

[foghat]

Originally Posted by 1SER135

At this stage its 305rwhp and 370ft lb of torque, peak power around 6000 and peak torque at 3200rpm (OH YEH!) and then drops at a rate of 30ftlb per 1000RPM which is amazing.

The HP number may not seem insane but considering that its peaking at 18PSI its actually really good. Me and Jake are going go another few revisions again as he isn't completely happy with where its at and beleives he can still push it further.

For the guys in the US this dyno I was on is very "honest" dyno. To give you a good idea, the same datalogs went into "Virtual Dyno" which gave me 475hp and from what ive seen "Virtual Dyno" gives very close numbers to Dynojet numbers.

I will put a Dyno chart up once I get on the dyno again


On a side not, when we compared my Pre-Vargas Chart to the current setup, I gained about 30rwhp peak power but about 50-60rwhp through out the mid range, not to mention that it pushed my peak power up about 1000rpm

If the dyno says you are putting down 305whp after a turbo upgrade and all your other mods, that's not an honest dyno, that is a broken dyno...

That said, sounds like a great upgrade. What did it cost to get things shipped out there. You do the install yourself?

[FrozenM3nace]

305 whp is only around 380 hp so it's a very unreliable dyno

[BMW86]

I've seen plenty of N54's running a JB4 with no other mods getting more than 305rwhp. Either the dyno is broken or something is wrong with your car.

[1SER135]

On what boost?

[BMW86]

Originally Posted by 1SER135

On what boost?

Around 12 psi. Very conservative.

[135Pats]

Wait so you’re only requesting 12 pounds of boost midrange?

And as others have said, 300ish at the wheel is VERY low for your setup. A FBO car on heartbreaker dynos puts down a good deal more power than that, I’ve never seen such a low whp figure for a FBO N54, let alone one with STG2 turbos and a protune. Get that sucker on a dyno jet and crank up the boost. What sort of WGDC are you seeing with your current maps?

Regardless, seems like very nice hardware. Please let us know if any smoking, oil loss, WG rattle etc crops up. Still on the fence about which way to go for turbo upgrades, but have to decide in the next couple months. Mine are on the way out and smoke like a chimney.

[cheshirecat79]

The numbers here do not add up.

[135Pats]

Originally Posted by cheshirecat79

The numbers here do not add up.

They’re not even in the ballpark of adding up. The most conservative mustang dyno on earth isn’t going to read 300WHP on a STG2 protuned car. Unless OP is actually running a tune that requests 12psi peak, then things would make a lot more sense. But that gets me to another issue, why buy STG2 snails to spin them well within the efficiency range of the Stock TD setup? You really need to spin the hybrid turbos to get gains, so I’m not seeing what the point is.

OP please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not questioning your honesty or the quality of the turbos….Just confused over the numbers I’m seeing.