RB Turbos DON'T

[Kiwi Peter]

I have always recommend these things in the past. BUT no longer, i recon the whole RB experience has cost Advan well over $10,000 in lost labour and non refund of old cores.

It is such a shame as these turbos are a bloody good thing its just the reliability is crap.

Justin and myself have tried to sort this issue out with Rob over the last three or so years but it seems to have been a total waste of our time and a very costly exercise all round.

We have had all the talk and no action i am feed up with all the crap. Its time all the Aussie contingent knows whats going on.

Advan have fitted around 10-12+ sets of RB turbos and out of that lot 90% smoke.

The issue i have is who pays, the poor customer has just forked out $5500-$6000 and 10,000km later they smoke. (to the extreme)

OK so this is the latest, RB will fix the turbos. But it will cost you to remove the turbos and ship them both ways to the the US, total around $2,200 Bullshit i know.

So your RB turbo system has now cost you $8200.00 but wait, that's not all the smoke will come back.

What to do If you are thinking about turbos sit on the fence for the moment as the Pure turbos COULD be the answer.

Just so you all know i can NO LONGER RECOMMEND RB TURBOS.

Justin and myself are working on a local turbo shop to repair the RB turbos with much less down time. But will the smoke return ??? i don't know.





If you would like more information please ring the shop and ask for Peter i am happy to help where i can.

[Forced_downunder]

Thanks for the update Peter. Disappointing indeed with the smoking RB's. Thank you for all your support and I know Advan had born the brunt of a lot of the costs too. Will be interesting to see if a local shop can refurbish them better than Rob and finally make them reliable. The RB's do work well surprisingly even when smoking - yesterday mine were smoking pretty badly even with the cats back on at the race weekend in Temora.

Looking forward to the Pures and if they hold up like we all believe they will and is pushing the platform further forward here.

[ATTN]

Good to know Pete especially comin from you. I know there had been issues with smoke in the past but didn't think it was that bad and for you to create a thread and let the community know says a whole lot more.

Pure seems like a good option for people wanting to upgrade, looking forward to the first few people installing them at advan

[PG]

sounds like a Garrett ST set-up might be better in the long term then?

[Zen]

Good stuff Pete. Thank you for your update. I will be interested to know your thoughts on Pure once you get a few installed.

[JB4-335]

Originally Posted by PG

sounds like a Garrett ST set-up might be better in the long term then?

+1

[zeeth2800]

Sorry to hear that guys!

Stories like these are exactly why I went to a ST setup. The hybrids just don't seem to have the long term durability.

Take a look at Pure turbos if you're wanting to stay with a hybrid solution. They just released the stage 2s that look promising.

[T1M]

Why don't you guys call up Mark from GTpumps in Sydney who builds turbos for the evo crowd (where I come from) among others. He builds great turbos, proven on track and Tarmac racing events. He can source billet wheels, machine housing, balance, everything in house. I have no affiliation with him but I've tuned many evos running his gear and he's got great customer support when I or his customers have needed it. Just a thought.

[questionable]

I have been running Vargas stage 2s had them on the car well over a year! No issues

[Prolifik]

i 2nd mark @ gt pumps...
i to am from an evo background

[flinchy]

After seeing all the threads of smoking from people, with so many naysayers saying it's isolated/install issue etc. etc.

Interesting to see an actual shop with lots of install experience confirm it. Disappointing though :/

Have you seen much VTT stuff to report one way or the other?

Originally Posted by cryptik

Why don't you guys call up Mark from GTpumps in Sydney who builds turbos for the evo crowd (where I come from) among others. He builds great turbos, proven on track and Tarmac racing events. He can source billet wheels, machine housing, balance, everything in house. I have no affiliation with him but I've tuned many evos running his gear and he's got great customer support when I or his customers have needed it. Just a thought.

Would be nice if there was a local shop that could sort out the Australian community, especially with our nasty exchange rate, the potential hassle of shipping faulty products back as seen in this thread...

Surely one of them could, the ones i've seen (GCG/Hypergear) seem to do completely custom whatever you want anyway?

[BMW86]

Wow. Thanks for the heads up Pete.

If I decided to continue chasing power with my N54 I would have RB's by now so I'm glad I don't have this problem.

The only other options I'm aware of are Vargas and Pure.

[_ink]

My view is that this problem isn't so much isolated to RB's, but inherent to upgraded stock frames in general.

Let's not forget that VTT have also had their fair share of smoking turbos, and Pure's new offering into the market is exactly that, new.

RB have been in the upgraded stock frames the longest, so there will naturally be potentially more cases of failure. However in saying that, I honestly believe that RB have sent out a bad batch due to manufacturing error (which I was also victim to) which he has not openly come out to admit - this is very poor form, and has tarnished his reputation.

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by _ink

Let's not forget that VTT have also had their fair share of smoking turbos, and Pure's new offering into the market is exactly that, new.

As far as i'm aware, it's only the initial batch that were a huge deal, pretty much all failing straight up

Haven't read any horror smoke stories in the time since, though could be like you say, just less customers = less issues overall (though i think they're pretty popular turbos these days)

[_ink]

Originally Posted by flinchy

As far as i'm aware, it's only the initial batch that were a huge deal, pretty much all failing straight up

Haven't read any horror smoke stories in the time since, though could be like you say, just less customers = less issues overall (though i think they're pretty popular turbos these days)

Don't forget, it's only what we are aware of on the forums, customers could have gone straight back to Tony in these instances (same goes for RB's)

[OzJustin]

Thanks for the heads up Advan.

I too am keen to see a few aussie turbo options for N54/N55 owners. There is certainly enough engineering talent here to make it happen!

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by _ink

Don't forget, it's only what we are aware of on the forums, customers could have gone straight back to Tony in these instances (same goes for RB's)

yeah, but surely the shop's doing the work would be aware of any major problems like this thread points out, so be nice to hear from some shops that have dealt with the product lots like this.

[T1M]

Originally Posted by Prolifik

i 2nd mark @ gt pumps...
i to am from an evo background

GG 8MR right? Wondered where you'd gone to. EvocentriK here btw

[dh58]

Sucks to hear but thanks for sharing.

For those asking about vtt, I have vtt on the way and plan to get installed at advan. Will let you all know.

[_ink]

Originally Posted by flinchy

yeah, but surely the shop's doing the work would be aware of any major problems like this thread points out, so be nice to hear from some shops that have dealt with the product lots like this.

Advan are the first workshop to come out publicly about RB's in the world.

Hopefully, this is enough to start a precedence for all workshops.

VTT's are also only about 2 years new into the market, so their potential problems will need more time and scale.

[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...

[dh58]

FYI the new 10s run was on VTT stage2s. The guy said he was part of the initial batch which had smoking issues and Tony sorted it out and he hasn't had any issues since.