Some of you may be aware that i have been a touch unfortunate with my cars reliability recently;

About 3/4 months ago my Aux belt snapped and took the cambelt out, destroying the engine. I had a new lump fitted, along with a few other bits.

Approximately a week after it was all done, the turbo became extremely noisy and developed about 5mm of play in the shaft.

I then shelled out £900 for a brand new GT28RS, and a week after fitting, this seized solid!

At this point, the relationship with my car had become very sour. I simply could not justify spending another £1000+ on buying another turbo and fitting costs, without knowing for definite why they were failing.

After a lot of hard decisions i decided to get rid of the car. Having just bought my first home, i simply couldn't justify the thousands i was spending on it. I was either going to break it for parts or sell it whole, and had a potential deal set up.

Until, one day, one of my mates suggested a cheaper alternative.

I managed to pick up a GT28R .86 for £150. However, it is not a Garrett turbo. This is one of the copy turbos which fly around the net.

I knew i could sell the housing from my seized turbo for circa £100, so it worked out at only a £50 gamble.

As this turbo is GT28R .86 it is a journal bearing and subsequently quite a slow spooler. However, it is very smooth and feels fast when on boost. The beauty of the journal bearing is that i don't need to run an oil restrictor (which is what we think may have blocked and destroyed my last turbo). It can also be rebuilt very cheaply if required.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to Yesterday, when i headed down to see Flea.

Leighton spent a few hours with the car, mapping, and then we took it to the dyno.

The results - 313bhp, 273lb/ft @ just 1.05 bar of boost.



The dyno couldn't provide enough load to see anymore boost, on the road it is hitting about 1.28bar max, so realistically it may be around 320bhp on road, but that is purely speculative.

However, the old girl wasn't happy until something else had blown up!

On the way back from the dyno, the Coolant Hose of Death split and emptied my coolant system all over the motorway. Leighton, managed to strip the area down, cut an inch off the hose and re-attach it to the thermostat, whilst being thouroughly watched by the traffic orificers, who decided to stop. Senny Dave also came to the rescue with some water and a tow rope if we had required it.

By the time we got back to Leighton's it was around 5:30pm. We went for a pint to see off the rush hour and I embarked the epic drive home, with my right eye pointed directly at the temperature gauge.

All in all an eventful day. Big thanks to Leighton, excellent service as usual, and breakdown assistance to boot! The mapping has made the car very smooth so i'm happy. Also thanks to Dave for helping us on the motorway, and johnnybravoturbo, who topped me up with coolant and pizza on the way home!

Comments welcomed

Matt, so glad you have kept it and got it mapped!

fingers crossed for your bad luck has ended!

i think we all need to look into a metal coolant hose of death!

other that that, a lovely power gain mate! 1 bar and its a nice power curve!

again Lovely work from Flea!

and again mate, well done for sticking with it and not tourching it out!!!!

I thought the head gasket had gone or something when i saw the temp gauge shoot up. Instantly thought the worse!

arr mate, ive never been there so i could only imagine what must of been going through your head!!

did you have a GT28R before the RS??

Yes, i had a GT28R .64 originally, then upgraded to a GT28RS .86, then another GT28RS .86, then ran out of money and went back to a GT28R .86 from China!

Great news that its back on the road again, Matt You really have been through the wringer with this one

Hopefully you've now used up your lifetime quota of coupe problems (and hopefully I've not jinxed you futher with that comment!)

'kin 'ell matt - what a saga again!! sorry to say, i read your posts through my fingers with teeth gritted expecting the worst, so it's good to see some good news at last.

glad you persevered mate, keep at it!!

luck really the car never went wrong for my time of ownership ! nor did owl10 car which now for me is leaking oil blowing hoses and stalling. do u want to swap

Fair play, Matt.
Happy that you got it sorted, enjoy.

Yeah i have got a comment for ya.
What the fccuk happened to my Pizza.

I know the Death hose went on you but many 20vts arent standing today because of that so hopefully your luck is on the way up with this car.

Spa will be the big test

So who sells these cheap gt28 turbo's then.
A worthwhile risk by the sounds of it.

Good to hear a decent review of the cheap turbo's.Time is the test really tho

glad for you.. you deserve some good after all the recent woes...result though from that turbo..why is it that evrytime i spend loads of money on something shortly after someone finds a cheap alternative.....how does it compare to the original r? and how does it compare with the old rs?...id be really interested to know

I think Matt would be the first to agree that you would be better off with an original Garrett.

Turbo is available from ebay.

The turbo is very laggy considering the relatively low amount of power it's putting out. I'm not seeing full boost until about 4200rpm, whereas on the garrett gt28r i saw full boost at around 3000rpm.

The actuator is also dog turd, so this means i cant dial in anymore than 1.28 bar of boost.

This turbo does pull very well once its spooled, and it sounds like a supercharger for some reason. However, there are many better options available for this power.

The only reason i went for this cheap chinese turbo is because i wasn't sure why my car was killing turbos, this was a gamble and it looks like we might have sorted the issue.

I will probably go for another garrett roller bearing turbo sometime soon

Just to add my thoughts, while it is has a GT28R compressor i.e. 60trim, it is a journal bearing turbo with a 0.86 exhaust housing which does introduce an extra 400-600rpm in turbo spool compared to a 0.64 housing.

I would estimate around 325-330bhp @ 1.25bar so it does make good power at modest boost, and once on song it certainly zips along at quick pace which will be ok for track i.e 4000-7000rpm.

In an ideal world Matt would have his GT28RS on there, but Garrett turbos are not consumable items therefore as an interim turbo it's keeping him moving.

due to matt's turbo I've considered doing the same but I've made my own hybrid lol out of this turbo and the original t28 turbo.

click

i nicked the compressor housing of the fiat garrett t28, gave it a clean and it fits directly to the new turbo's chra, but unfortunatly the exhurst wheel is to big for the fiats original garrett's exhurst housing so I've had to keep the 5 bolt housing and have tracked down a vband adapter near by me, on inspection it looks to have been balanced so hopefully all should be well for a while

Matt, why don't you change the actuator for the one off the RS unit?

Doesn't fit marco. Completely different shape and fittings

I just tested mine out and so far it's not bad, it starts spooling at 3500rpm then on +boost at 4000 and just pulls all the way till the red line, smoother around town and just wooshes alone nicely, I've been giving it propper stick and so far it's not failed within the last 2hrs, it would be nice if it spooled up earlier but it will see me through till I get something better

I managed to fit my new coolant hose of death yesterday, and was able to finally give the car a good thrashing today.

Leighton has made it very smooth. I'm getting similar results to the audio guy. I'm seeing full boost just after 4k, and it pulls very well. Feels like a quick car now, which i'm happy about.

good times matt!

so fingers crossed it goes well for you mate!

also just to add, mate you considered a T28 hybrid?

after seeing DaveT's set up you could pull more BHP and over all power with a Hybrid!

posible a cheaper power out put for good money!!

I have a 5 stud flange welded to my 3inch downpipe, so it would mean messing around with the downpipe, plus the money for the turbo, would probably work out the same as a gt series turbo.

sorry to butt in, but reading this thread with some interest, and I have a coupe of questions ( dumb ones no doubt! ) - can someone tell me what the actuator does ?

I remember when L&M fitted my hybrid turbo, they said it has a "1 bar Forge custom actuator, 360 bearings, extra machined impellers and larger polished compressor housing"

can anyone tell me what this is likely to mean in english once I finally get my butt down to FC performance?...

cheers!

The actuator is basically a spring which controls the internal wastegate within the the turbo.
So in your case Rich, the turbo would spool to 1 bar, and then the spring would cause the wastegate to open and let some of the gasses out, meaning the turbo can only boost to a maximum of 1 bar.

However, introducing a boost controller into the equation means you can over ride the actuator and set the boost to what you want. BUT if the spring in the actuator is not strong enough to keep the wastegate closed, it won't be able to boost to the desired level, which is the issue i'm having.

At least that's what i believe, please someone correct me if i'm wrong

Sounds painful

Glad you got the car running alright now, and fingers crossed you have no further problems!