Turbo Options for Street/Track Duty

[av.auto]

My car is a N54 135i with about 60k miles on it. Prior to my ownership, this car was heavily tracked (think 10-12 track days/races a year), and the wear and tear showed up on the turbos as the seals started to leak. I replaced the cores and rebuilt the wastegates with VTT's OEM replacement CHRA's and their upgraded wastegate kit. Upon my first track day at Buttonwillow (and around 3k street miles), the new cores started smoking heavily, and my front turbo wastegate is stuck... looks like I'm back at square one.

The car is still a street car, with about 10k miles a year on average, plus anywhere between 3-4 track days a year. I'm considering options ~$2000, and currently have OEM replacements, Pure600/Stage 1's, RB Ones, and DAW turbos on my radar. Aftermarket turbos seem interesting as a way to tone down the mid-range torque and pull to redline on track, as well as keeping turbine speeds lower with a conservative boost target. However, my biggest concern is reliability (I plan to have the car tuned fairly conservatively to favor seat time) as I really don't want to be swapping turbos on a regular basis. Wondering if I could get some anecdotes for longevity with aftermarket turbos or advice on what direction I should go. Thanks!

[ErvGotti]

I'd go pure or RB if you want good piece of mind warranty. I have the DAW turbos and actually they've held up fine, 15k and 2 years at 20 PSI on them and they've just recently started to leak a little oil. I don't track the car though, but drive spiritedly. But if you're going the DAW route, you might as well get the Chinese 17t VIV turbos. They are the exact same as DAW, but way cheaper and have a decent reliability record. I just got my 19t VIV turbo's to replace my DAW's and they are identical down to the balancing sheet that comes with them.

[Gneiss]

I have RB One's with inlets and they have performed well. They have a couple years of low mileage street use and maybe 6 track days on them. No smoking issues, car pulls very hard.

[av.auto]

Originally Posted by Gneiss

I have RB One's with inlets and they have performed well. They have a couple years of low mileage street use and maybe 6 track days on them. No smoking issues, car pulls very hard.

Do you know roughly how many miles you put on the car since you installed the turbos?

[Gneiss]

Originally Posted by av.auto

Do you know roughly how many miles you put on the car since you installed the turbos?

Yeah, found the paperwork, I have had them since Mar2019 and have put ~7000 miles on them.

[av.auto]

Originally Posted by Gneiss

Yeah, found the paperwork, I have had them since Mar2019 and have put ~7000 miles on them.

Good to know, thank you for checking!

[mike@x-ph.com]

The most popular option for our customers is the Pure stage 2.

We sell a lot of Vargas and Dynamic Autowerx as well.

[Afam28]

Vargas F-RB…

[Tyc0]

RB or Pure, but I have even heard of some Pure owners having some premature failures recently. I got RB twos and love them.

[av.auto]

Originally Posted by Tyc0

RB or Pure, but I have even heard of some Pure owners having some premature failures recently. I got RB twos and love them.

My RB twos should be shipping out any day now!

[Tyc0]

Nice man, your gonna love them…even more than me if you have any access to e85!

[av.auto]

Originally Posted by Tyc0

Nice man, your gonna love them…even more than me if you have any access to e85!

What tune are you running/what tuner did you go with? I will be primarily running 91 oct for now due to convenience

[Tyc0]

I am running a custom tune on 92 Oct from Justin Hubenak (V8 bait). I would recommend him as he does great work and he is the cheapest, but he sadly has retired from tuning. There are many other great options though.

I would recommend 93oct if possible, though that still won't make full use of the turbos.

[av.auto]

That's unfortunate, I was actually consider reaching out to him since I read pretty good things about his N54 tuning.