RB Turbos DON'T

[_Ryan_]

Originally Posted by flinchy

I got a reply from Hypergear.. $2090 for the pair for all the machining, wheels, balancing, seals, CHRA etc. etc., wastegate upgrade

might come to a bit more in reality, but even + another $1000 with them underestimating machining headaches of the turbine housing, that's half the price of the Usuals...

GCG can do it too but want a set first for measurements.

anyone local to either with a spare set of stock turbos? I have a spare pair, but.. QLD...

GCG had/have a decent reputation in Nissan land. Hypergear seem to do okay too, but matured after I left that scene. Richo seems to have success running them on his WTAC R33.

There are enough decent builders around locally that I'm rather surprised that people haven't tried them.

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by _Ryan_

GCG had/have a decent reputation in Nissan land. Hypergear seem to do okay too, but matured after I left that scene. Richo seems to have success running them on his WTAC R33.

There are enough decent builders around locally that I'm rather surprised that people haven't tried them.

Hypergear seems to have a HUGE presence on SAU. GCG seems more like a 'bigger' company?

[JD75]

Originally Posted by flinchy

I got a reply from Hypergear.. $2090 for the pair for all the machining, wheels, balancing, seals, CHRA etc. etc., wastegate upgrade

might come to a bit more in reality, but even + another $1000 with them underestimating machining headaches of the turbine housing, that's half the price of the Usuals...

GCG can do it too but want a set first for measurements.

anyone local to either with a spare set of stock turbos? I have a spare pair, but.. QLD...

Advan has been down this road with GCG before, feel free to chase up Chris (a former employee) and ask him about the "low-flows" from GCG, he will surely have a good laugh.

FYI, Peter recently got a quote from GCG for simply rebuilding a set of RB's, it was around $1,600 which was a bit of a surprise to the both of us.

As for the quote from Hypergear it sounds to good to be true and you know what they say about that... But having said that there is only one way to find out.

I will be getting my hands on a pair of Hexon RR550's for a customer in NZ shortly, these might be the answer for those guys not wanting to chase max power who are also on a budget.

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by JD75

Advan has been down this road with GCG before, feel free to chase up Chris (a former employee) and ask him about the "low-flows" from GCG, he will surely have a good laugh.

FYI, Peter recently got a quote from GCG for simply rebuilding a set of RB's, it was around $1,600 which was a bit of a surprise to the both of us.

As for the quote from Hypergear it sounds to good to be true and you know what they say about that... But having said that there is only one way to find out.

I will be getting my hands on a pair of Hexon RR550's for a customer in NZ shortly, these might be the answer for those guys not wanting to chase max power who are also on a budget.

GCG not quite what you'd expect?

pretty expensive for just a rebuild, no machine work required.. when the parts aren't expensive to do it :/

definitely sounds a bit too good, but no harm in seeing what they say in the end. It shouldn't be too hard to come in under the price of a product from overseas with our terrible exchange rate etc.. assuming the product from the local shop is good.

I assume the price is a little below reality, but they do all the machining/lathing/VSR etc. in house, so there's a good amount of saving (RB/VTT outsource it)

Hexon's seem like a nice price for the product too

[martymil]

Not all rb's are bad, mine have been perfect and still going strong.

I think the problem is the stock inlets and the turbos are trying to suck air
past the oil seal when you pump up the boost as the stock inlets are so
restrictive and its trying to get air where ever it can and the weakest link would be the oil seal.


When running aftermarket inlets like the tft, there is no restriction and the turbos are happy
to make more boost without pulling oil past the seals.

I restricted my boost to 23psi on the dyno and 18psi on the track as the AUTO gearbox can't
handle the power before going into protection mode to stop damage before it happens.


On stock inlets the car could only make 357rwk
On tft inlets the car made 401rwk easily and without struggling

The pwm was sky high on stock and very low on tft's

So basically if you want to run rb's or any other aftermarket turbos on high boost on stock inlets
don't be surprised if they try to turn themselves inside out and cause smokey turbo time LOL.

[froop]

Originally Posted by martymil

Not all rb's are bad, mine have been perfect and still going strong.

I think the problem is the stock inlets and the turbos are trying to suck air
past the oil seal when you pump up the boost as the stock inlets are so
restrictive and its trying to get air where ever it can and the weakest link would be the oil seal.


When running aftermarket inlets like the tft, there is no restriction and the turbos are happy
to make more boost without pulling oil past the seals.

I restricted my boost to 23psi on the dyno and 18psi on the track as the AUTO gearbox can't
handle the power before going into protection mode to stop damage before it happens.


On stock inlets the car could only make 357rwk
On tft inlets the car made 401rwk easily and without struggling

The pwm was sky high on stock and very low on tft's

So basically if you want to run rb's or any other aftermarket turbos on high boost on stock inlets
don't be surprised if they try to turn themselves inside out and cause smokey turbo time LOL.

There are definintely good RBs out there but mine for sure aren't in that category. I think inlets will help for sure as the turbos won't be stressed as much however I don't think the restriction directly causes the leaky oil seal as the oil seals generally don't leak under boost but rather under vacuum. I've had the same thing with my old leaky stock turbos too. When running them hard under boost there's no smoke at all but once the oil has been warmed up and the oil is less viscous they get sucked through the oil seal under vacuum conditions, i.e. idle and especially coasting or deccelerating in gear.

That said, curious to see how much it would cost to trade mine in for some of those new "Stealth" RBs.

[martymil]

Seal will leak under boost if it has no where to go causing the oil seal to flex and letting oil into the inlet side, a drop of oil into the cylinder will smoke for a fair while. It doesn't take much oil to make it smoke. Once the oil is in the inlet it will suck or push it up into the cylinders causing smoke.

I'll bet a beer on it that's what is causing the problem.

Don't forget the turbine has to suck and push at the same time and its sucking air from behind the wheel where the seal is.

[135i2]

JD75 could probably furnish us with the numbers of good RBs v the smoker's of the sets he has sold.

Like Marty, mine seem to be a good set given the high numbers these have been making since install. They are not VSR balanced either.

Its an interesting time in turbo development land with some promising products from a few different corners that will see the power numbers climb with the right hardware.

[FLYN55]

Is it possible to fit a Garrett GT35r down there, if so I'll look into getting a mate help me make a custom exh manifold..

[FLYN55]

Is it possible to fit a Garrett GT35r down there, if so I'll look into getting a mate help me make a custom exh manifold.. As I've played with HIFlow Turbos before on Subaru's & Mazda, had great results with some and made good power increases and they would pull themselves apart.

[dh58]

Glad i'm going VTT..

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by FLYN55

Is it possible to fit a Garrett GT35r down there, if so I'll look into getting a mate help me make a custom exh manifold..

not low mount on RHD, steering rack in the way

top mount, for sure, but even getting the manifold and all that to fit in is a challenge.

[FLYN55]

Originally Posted by flinchy

not low mount on RHD, steering rack in the way

top mount, for sure, but even getting the manifold and all that to fit in is a challenge.

Wasn't what I was wanting to hear :-( didn't really want to go high mount attracts to much attention. So low mount is out of the question .. Was wanting a Garrett Gt35/82 they are such a great turbo have had such great results on Nissan and Mazda's ..

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by FLYN55

Wasn't what I was wanting to hear :-( didn't really want to go high mount attracts to much attention. So low mount is out of the question .. Was wanting a Garrett Gt35/82 they are such a great turbo have had such great results on Nissan and Mazda's ..

yup.. stock frame upgrades or high mount turbo for us.

[Eric82]

Originally Posted by FLYN55

Wasn't what I was wanting to hear :-( didn't really want to go high mount attracts to much attention. So low mount is out of the question .. Was wanting a Garrett Gt35/82 they are such a great turbo have had such great results on Nissan and Mazda's ..

I looked at doing a gt3582 low mount when I built the bolt on high mount kit, I believe it is possible to do but will require a remake of the engine mount bracket to make it work and also remake the water pipe other than that I believe it could be done!

[BMWhoarder]

Originally Posted by martymil

I think the problem is the stock inlets and the turbos are trying to suck air
past the oil seal when you pump up the boost as the stock inlets are so
restrictive and its trying to get air where ever it can and the weakest link would be the oil seal.


When running aftermarket inlets like the tft, there is no restriction and the turbos are happy
to make more boost without pulling oil past the seals.

interesting perspective. RB went out of their way to specify that the use of VTT upgraded inlets would not be endorsed, and potentially void warranty. Rob stated only the stock inlets were approved (prior to him then duplicating the VTT design). i'm sure he now promotes the use of anything as once again, it was proven that his latest scapegoat for smoking turbos was incorrect.

End of the day, to get any upgraded turbo over here, is going to cost 2x whatever the US price is + installation. I'd be making absolutely certain that i'm comfortable with the vendor's support policies before dropping a cent on anything.

[JD75]

Originally Posted by 135i2

JD75 could probably furnish us with the numbers of good RBs v the smoker's of the sets he has sold.

Like Marty, mine seem to be a good set given the high numbers these have been making since install. They are not VSR balanced either.

Its an interesting time in turbo development land with some promising products from a few different corners that will see the power numbers climb with the right hardware.

Hey guys,

here are a few facts based on my personal experience with RB's, both old school non-VSR balanced and the latest generation of VSR dynamically balanced turbos.

I have sold 12 sets of VSR balanced turbos in approximately the last 18 months. Of those I know of 2 sets that have failed very early in the piece, to the best of my knowledge the other 10 sets have been trouble free. I believe some of those haven't been pushed too hard, whilst a few sets have been run quite hard indeed on TFT upwards of 23/24psi and making big power on straight E85 etc.

Based on personal feedback of RB's from many of my customers both now and in the past, from what I can see if the turbos are trouble free within the first 5,000 kilometres they generally go on to lead a pretty long life, even at high sustained boost levels. As an example I have a customer in Melbourne that has put 40K on his turbos and drives the car daily in an aggressive manner whilst running on a tune that's far from conservative. His turbos are still in pretty good condition with little to no smoking and he puts down 350+rwkW on a DD dyno in Shootout mode whilst still using stock inlets, which is no joke.

The VSR'd turbos are much more reliable than the old school non-VSR'd sets, I suspect Rob will be the first to admit that. Unfortunately Peter's figures of a 90% failure rate are pretty accurate which is somewhat disconcerting, but having said that the majority of those turbos that failed in the past were not VSR balanced CHRA's. Time will tell as to how reliable VSR'd RB's prove to be in Australia and myself/Advan are in a prime position to see how things pan out as Peter and the boys have probably done more RB turbo installs than all the other workshops in Aus combined.

And yes, before anyone starts pointing fingers at the capability of the workshop, Advan MOST CERTAINLY know what they are doing. Peter can be a grumpy so and so at times but you would be very hard pressed to find another Master mechanic in Aus that has more knowledge and technical expertise than that bloody old Kiwi.

Thanks,

JD.