Ive had my 20VT Plus for just a little over a year now, and im starting to get a little fed up now.

I suppose most people know the story roughly so far, about the bad luck ive had with my car, but its just not ending.
Ive had the car keyed, the engine rebuilt (forged), with a new clutch, now today, my RSR seizes up after just 13,000 ish miles!

Obviously brakes get worn and need replacing, but just done new discs and pads all round last week aswell.

It has crossed my mind to get rid of it.

Any help on getting a new GT series turbo for a good price?

Thanks.

Really bad luck mate.

What happened with the turbo then? Did it just stop boosting?

Yeah, no boost what so ever, had a quick look into it, the turbine doesnt spin. Seized up.

I wonder if something has happened to the oil supply?

I think Garrett sell new cores for around £500

Thats the problem with modifying these cars to up the power, it comes at a price I think they then become ultra un-reliable, if you discount boost gauges, PRV's & non standard exhausts, all the coops I owned (4) have been standard & un-molested & apart from the coolant HOD + some minor electrics none of them have given me a days trouble

If you want reliability, keep em' standard & well maintained & they are no more unreliable as any other car

Sorry but I have to disagree with you there.

Turbo failure can happen to any turbo car. In fact the GT series turbos are probably more reliable.

Obviously I had my piston failure, but they weren't up to the job. Probably the only thing that isn't up to the power now is the gearbox and driveshafts. In the last 6 months of ownership I have only had one issue, the coolant hose of death which again could happen on any car. The car has also had 2 trackdays and been down the drag strip about 20 times. I'd say that was pretty reliable.

And now I'm off to hug a big tree!

I agree a turbo can go on any car.

However from my experience over the years on here, mostly watching,the majority of cars that have blown up in various guises have been cars where owners have upped the power.

It gives the appearance that the Coupe is fragile and unreliable and yet in it's standard form or with a remap/Gtec it is a real workhorse and not an unreliable over stressed money pit the highly tuned one's have become. False economy in my opinion, but I guess they are good whilst they work. It seems big power are becoming the exception rather than the norm.

Well you have done things properly, where as alot of people mod their coops to the hilt, but don't touch the engine internals.

Surely turbo failiure/reduced life-span is largely due to running it at higher boost?, I've got mine set at 1 bar max & have no intention of modding my 30K engine.

It's just engineering/physics theory surely - if you increase the work-rate/load of any component, it will reduce it's life span..? right from a pair of scissors to the most sophisticated engines.

I'd rather take the chance of keeping it standard, hopefully in return for better reliability/life span.

But I'm probably in a minority!, 220bhp is not enough for all the petrol heads/racers out there

Anyway, modifying road vehicles in he UK will probably become pointless within the next decade lol, because everyones average speed will be monitored, at all times, on all roads. thats the plan I believe.

I'm not trying to say a modified car is going to be as reliable as a standard car, obviously it isn't. But to say it is ultra un-reliable is a bit harsh.

And lets remember this thread is about a broken turbo. The turbo I run will probably be more reliable than most standard turbos running standard boost especially as the turbo runs 1.1bar on most days, it is only being tickled at that boost.

I don't blame people for keeping their cars standard, it makes most sense. But people enjoy modifying cars. Its a hobby, even though it can get quite expensive. But even though I have spent quite a lot and it is still a 10 year old Fiat, I have got a car that puts a very big smile on my face. It is a totally different car to standard.

I don't think that speeds will ever be monitored like you say, even if they were it would be a lot longer than 10 years away. And even then, there are trackdays where these cars should be used and abused!

Technics, this is not a loaded question - in fact I have always wondered where the car went as I would have quite liked to have bought it - was you car previously owned by Whittler on this forum?

Steve

I thought Whittlers went to a guy in Preston? Is this not alessandros old coupe?

It is very rare for a GT series turbo to fail like this, in fact I can count the number of times I have seen this on one finger

Pm sent!!

According to my trip computer, my average speed is 28.2mph

Just to contribute to the thread, my 20vt Plus arrived with a worn piston ring due to insufficient cooling. A rebuild and decent FMIC later and had no further issues at all. The GT28RS turbo had been on the car about 6 months when I bought it, and when I sold the car 2 years later it was still going strong and showing absolutely no signs of wear. The car was running around 320bhp with a conservative level of boost, in my opinion if you modify it sensibly and don't push it too far it'll still be reliable. The majority of problems come from cars where the owners have just turned the boost up, chucked a decat on, and then wondered why the clutch has slipped or the engine has blown.

Couple of points:

Only 13,000 miles - why no warrenty ?
380bhp - is that not above what RSRs normally deliver ?

If the turbo has seized, it sounds very much like an oil supply issue of some kind

If this is the case, its almost certainly not the turbo's fault - ANY turbo will fail very quickly without the right oil supply

Hope you get it sorted

Ah, the standard vs modified debate for a change...

Agree with the pro-modding comments above and Lucifer's sums it up perfectly for me, the ones that tend to blow are the ones that have been done on the cheap. It's been said before, Coupes are cheap to buy, but like any performance car, getting extra horses out of it isn't budget. Not properly, anyway.

And I believe that ultimately performance cars will be effectively outlawed, one of the saddest bits of motoring journalism I've seen was Clarkson reveiwing that Aston at the end of an episode of Top Gear, when he talks about the fact that one day cars like that may well not exist. I'm getting my kicks now before that time comes.

Yeah, was alessandros old car. As for warrenty the turbo was already on the car and i have nothing in the records. It was through barbz, but probably a couple of years ago by now. . . .

Ive seen 3 GT series turbos do this now, mine lasted 9k before it seized

The coupe has always been a good car to mod, providing you've got the budget to do it properly
(which is the case here).
The trouble is that for most,unless you begin with a engine rebuild,the starting point is a quite old car thats done a fair few miles.
This means that increasing the power with soon find the weakspots.
IMO For a faster and more enjoyable road car uprated brakes and suspension are a safer bet.
However there's heartbreak and goodtimes with a coupe whether you mod or not.
It's all part of the...........FUN

Hope they were not all yours Taffy?!!

No only one of them was mine, I have another on the way so im hoping it will last a little longer

RSR have not warranty with Garrett as they are not part of Garrett official line-up it’s a mix of RS and R so if you do get any sort of warranty (which I doubt) it will be with the people that hybrided it in the first place.

As for normal deliver since there is not compressor map for this turbo you don't know how it will behave so you don't know if the turbo is in surge/choke especially pushing high boost. But thats the risk you take when you off steer past the official tested route. This is by far the most powerful RSR i have seen and maybe turbo overspeed could be the cause.

Did you fit an oil restrictor? Did you fit an inline oil filter? Did your oil pressure drop maybe sucked up air?

Who knows, I would suggest the next turbo you buy be the RS or 2871R just to be safe.

TurboJ - I was thinking about going for an RS or even a 2871R, just so its not pushing itself all the time, I could get similar power with less boost, which is less stress on evrything.
At the end of the day though, I was speaking to a guy at Owen Developments today and he said you can run upto 1.8 bar through it safely, but he was still very suprised at the power my car made with the RSR.

Technics - Check if the oil feed is kinked or crushed.

a seized shaft can only be due to oil starvation, or poor build using 'too tight' bearing sizes.

The latter however would have shown up a lot earlier than 13000 miles.

Id be inclined to try and free it up using some pliers on the end of the compressor wheel nut, ive had seized units in the past and this has un-seized them for a short period of time.

It does need a rebuild to fix it permanently though.

I've had a GT series turbo fail as well! one of the ball races spewed out fortunately only into my exhaust.

If you got it from TD I think it will have a 12 month warranty but more than likely it is a problem with the piping. Although I do know someone who had a restrictor block on a GT3037S which caused the same failure

Since it happened there is a funny tinny vibrating noise coming from my exhaust.
Its about 2 years old.

Just had one fail on me the other day.
Noise got louder and louder in a few days followed by seizing solid.
Checked the feed supply and its as should be.

But usually especially on the diesels at the moment its always due to supply.

If you checked the feed supply and its as should be, then what was the problem? If you know, did you see anything else when you investigated?

No,i saw nothing at all that would suggest insufficient oil pressure.Its also using good quality mobil 1 as well.
Even the return is good.
I would perhaps check where both you and MattM(whos car it is) bought the turbos from.And perhaps not go there again if its the same person.