But apparently so

Quite a few T3/T4s appearing for less than £250 on ebay at the mo.

Any of them worth it or is a major false economy.

Mine's on its way out and my shoestring budget is stretching thinner by the day.

Welcome to try but not tried and tested as genuine units and from reading previous threads etc the failure rate of these cheaper aftermarket turbo's is much higher and frequent than a genuine new or proper rebuilt turbo.

Welcome to try and feedback tho... i can see why there tempting.

A while ago I trawled the 'net asking for views from people who'd used actually used these Chinese turbos. Seemed about 50/50. Some people had used them for months at 20-odd psi making good power with no probs, whereas others had failed very quickly.

Most of the failures seem to be down to not being balanced, or weak oil seals.

Replace the oil seals with genuine Garrett ones and get the wheels balanced (not very expensive).

I'd also be interested in feedback if you try it.

Bear in mind though, you'd need to modify the down pipe or make a new one because the flange is different.

-OR- maybe you could get round that by bolting the turbine housing from your original turbo to the new one.

I might give it a whirl then in the new year. I'll have a chat with JD at roar power when I'm next through at motormech about getting a downpipe made up.
How different is the flange on these turbos to the actual one on the 16VT? (at risk of sounding dumb - ah what the hell, I am dumb when it comes to cars)

I'm thinking that even with mods to downpipe (I could actually get a new flange machined up and welded on at work), replacement seals and balancing this is still going to work out cheaper than say a power italia one.

Also can work at this progressively rather than the full on 600 quid whack all in one go!

Seems I have my first mini-project despite saying I wasn't doing any mods at all.

Also, with that turbo, you will have to blank / by-pass the water feed, as it is only oil cooled

These'll make life easy:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-5-High-...sQ5fAccessories

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-5-V-Ban...sQ5fAccessories

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIAT-COUPE-2.0-01%2F95-11%2F96-FRONT-PIPE_W0QQitemZ140368501031QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxq20091219?IMSfp=TL091219202002r4347

Chop off the flange, add a 2.5" 90 deg bend, bit of cutting and welding, voila! Custom downpipe similar to my one (see my Project thread)

Cheers for those links kj.

Just been looking through your project - very helpful indeed! Unfortunately giving me more ideas that I can neither afford nor have the knowhow to perform

However should be able to persuade our maintenence lads at work to help me out with bends and flanges (they love me)

I fear I may now decide to take the coop off the road for a month or so and borrow a car until it's a little nearer to coupe heaven!