Hello,
I've just bought a coupe (my second one after a few years absence) and it's come with a nice SS exhaust, but it has no Cat. I can see from the receipts that it had a new turbo fitted at the same time as the exhaust but I don't know if it's a standard turbo or not so unless there's an easy way to tell I'm going to assume it's standard. So the no cat thing must be bad for the turbo seals?
So what if I have a sports cat fitted to the decat pipe? Would that be enough to protect the seals or would I need to go back to a restrictive standard cat or change the trubo to run a sports cat?

Can you help?

I suspect if it has a decat fitted, its a hybrid turbo of some kind, i'd find out what turbo it is exactly before buying other bits n pieces, as they could adversely affect the turbo if not correct for it.......

What's the best way of finding out?

Would i be looking for a stamp or plate on the turbo?

Is there good access for this from underneath?
What if i remove the heat-sheild?

who as it bought from?phone them,give them invoice number,hopefully shed some light

The receipt just says "fit new turbo" and the cost suggests that it's one the previous owner supplied + I can't get hold of the previous owner.

Thing is arnt all hybrids just replaced internals and outer casing the same as standard.
Pretty sure you would only no its different if its a larger turbo.Im sure someone with more know how and knowledge will confirm this though..

That's what I thought.
does the normal turbo have it's model no. on it anywhere, so that I know where to look?

Was the previous owner on the forum? A search back might reveal what company they used to refurb the turbo and you could call them direct.

Its the thrust bearing that needs to be upgraded to a 360 from the standard 270 to avoid the damage the lack of backpressure causes. As above theres no way to tell from the outside unless a completely different turbo was fitted.

I've been wondering about going to a sports cat myself and whether a standard turbo would be up to it. Given the sports cat is intended to reduce back pressure then I suspect it still shortens a standard turbos life. Without real world experience its hard to know by how much. Hopefully a "I've run a sports cat without problems for two years" post will appear

hopefully won't be flamed for adding such detail but the owner was John Sideras and the car is R5** XKP. He also fitted Tarox 6 pot calipers and two-peice discs up-front at a cost of £1400 at the smae time as the £400 exhaust; so I'm kind of hoping it's a better than stock turbo but who knows.

There's a plate on the central housing with some numbers stamped on it. The Garret number is 454154-1 for the standard turbo (at least it is on my 1998 20vt).

I think you have good reason to be optimistic

looks good, I am optimistic but I really want to make sure I get it right. Might take me a few days before I can get into it to look for the turbo details but I will report back.
Thank you