Jump to content
HybridZ

has anyone bought one of those turbo/intercooler kit things off ebay?


nzarano

Recommended Posts

Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/T3-T4-T3-T4-T04E-Universal-Turbo-Charger-Kit-WASTEGATE-INTERCOOLER-PIPING-/390750137211

 

comes with t3/4 turbo, an intercooler, some piping, a waste gate, and some other goodies….

 

 

Im mainly interested in it because it seems to be decently comprehensive and cheap… on the other hand I'm skeptical of it for the same reason…. i know the intercooler will be crap but I'm probably only going to be running 10psi or so, so i don't need the best of the best but what do you guys think about the turbo and the other parts? and in general opinions of ebay things like this?

 

 

-thanks 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Garbage in. Garbage out.

 

 

I'd pretty much only trust the piping.

 

Wouldn't it suck to blow up your motor due to buying this kit, "Cause it's cheap"?

 

Piece the kit together yourself. You'll save money, and have actual QUALITY. And something that fits!

Edited by OldAndyAndTheSea
Link to comment
Share on other sites

' Knew a guy who pieced one together on another forum.

 

Intercooler is actually like a radiator. As long as it is sealed, it is kind of hard to mess up. It is probably one of the few things that you probably don't need to worry about. If you get really serious there are of course arguments on efficient design and pressure drop and all that, but for modest boost applications, the ebay stuff seems to be ok, as long as they don't have any manufacturing tid bits rolling around in it, that specific one is pretty short, you can fit a taller one in the s30.

 

BOV was junk, machining in the sealing hole/face was bad, o-ring of inferior quality. Constantly leaked.

 

Waste gate had bad casting marks, didn't run it so no info there.

 

Turbo, he rebuilt using garrett internals and seals. Found that the center section isn't rated for modern oil pressure, had to run a restrictor to limit the pressure. There are reports of the impeller blades chipping once more modest levels of boost is reached. Install of the kit was boosting 9psi, didn't seem to have a problem.

 

Piping, intercooler, and couplers were ok. The couplers are 3 ply usually, they will hold pressure but definitely have a bit of flex/ballooning in them.

 

Turbo timer, generally not needed, unless you plan on boosting all the way to your destination and turning the car off right away. Unless your ebrake is really good, also presents the problem of being unable to park in gear.

 

Boost controller, it is a simple system, and some have found success with the e-bay stuff. At worst they are suppose to fail open to revert to stock wastegate pressure, so not much danger, but also kind of a concern there. If you use this in conjunction with the unknown wastegate, then you may have problems.

 

The gaskets, hoses, fittings, pipes, intercooler, and all that is pretty conveniently packaged, but the rest of it is pretty much a waste of time. A lot of honda people have tried the kits, and ended up swapping a lot of the parts very quickly. 

 

And just to be clear, I have bought a lot of stuff from ebay, some of the stuff is pretty decent. But a lot of the things aren't. What happens is that parts orders are placed. Once it is fulfilled, they have all this tooling. So they decide to release parts on their own. The proprietary info is taken away, or shortcuts are taken that the original manufacturer wouldn't have allowed, and the products are flooded onto the market. Sometimes you do indeed get a decent part, but at other times it really is a mere shell of what the part should be.

Edited by seattlejester
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Consider me lucky.  Ive a relatively "cheap" (think I paid 200 bucks for it, picked it up in person) china t3/t4 turbo from a company known as CX racing (can google them quite easily).  Stock block and head (albeit rebuilt), and that turbo is supporting a happy 300 whp and 360 wt @ 17 psi and hits full boost by about 3k rpms.  The car was a daily for awhile until I moved away to australia and has seen quite a few thousand miles.  Some of my piping was from them, as was my bov.  Intercooler however was an isuzu npr.    While it usually is a good indicator, theres more to quality than price.  You can pinch some pennies and still get something decent.  My turbos by no means a baller ass high performance turbo- But for the money, ive been pretty damn happy.  Just my 02 cents anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are generally two thoughts when buying cheap turbos, the first being "hey if it blows, I only paid $200, and can get 4 or 5 more before I even come close the price of that garret I was looking at". The next is "this is only temporary until I do get that nice garret I was looking at" 

 

As long as people know that what they are getting can potentially grenade, I'm not one to say anything, For the people that do complain, well their just living in a make believe world.

 

Sideways how long have you been at those boost levels?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You get what you pay for. I've heard that there are Chinese turbos that have increased in quality and do actually last--but I'm not sure how you tell if you got one. However, the thing all the eBay stuff has in common is it's all based of reverse-engineering the specs of decent manufacturers and then attempting to copy that. So, the company that spent the R&D doesn't get a penny while the company that basically stole their products rakes it in.

 

That said, some people have luck with them. Also, I've heard nothing but misery when people seek warranty replacement.

 

And I tried that eBay catch can that's listed there, it's a total piece. I cut it open--no baffling or filter of any sort.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are generally two thoughts when buying cheap turbos, the first being "hey if it blows, I only paid $200, and can get 4 or 5 more before I even come close the price of that garret I was looking at". The next is "this is only temporary until I do get that nice garret I was looking at" 

 

As long as people know that what they are getting can potentially grenade, I'm not one to say anything, For the people that do complain, well their just living in a make believe world.

 

Sideways how long have you been at those boost levels?

If my memory is serving me atm, since late 2009- But by early 2010 for sure,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm rockin' a CXRacing Intercooler.

It's working great pushing 12psi on the stock turbo and I hit full boost at 2400rpm.

 

I am however using a Hallman Pro Boost Controller and GReddy RS BOV.

I only went cheap on the parts that won't destroy my engine if they fail.

Wwweeellll, fwiw, I have personally seen "cheap" intercoolers that have had welding slag snap off somewhere deep inside, and then do a nice number on the engine after it tried to eat it.  Even intercoolers deserve a careful eye.  But that said, CX racing usually makes good stuff for the money (Dont believe they ever made it into production but last time I was there they were working on a set of titanium housings for rotary engines, very beautiful)

Edited by Sideways
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wwweeellll, fwiw, I have personally seen "cheap" intercoolers that have had welding slag snap off somewhere deep inside, and then do a nice number on the engine after it tried to eat it.  Even intercoolers deserve a careful eye.  But that said, CX racing usually makes good stuff for the money (Dont believe they ever made it into production but last time I was there they were working on a set of titanium housings for rotary engines, very beautiful)

 

I did not even think of that slag thing. I just figured CXRacing was at least one grade above ebay quality at least.

Other than that though, the intercooler has performanced amazing for the last 3 months I've had it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Where is the sticky about these turbos!??!

Do you really want something that cost maybe $100 to make to be contaminating your oil and force feeding your precious engine with air?? It can easily cost you ten times the price if it fails a certain way. Do a Holset if you want cheap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...