The chinacharger thread
- Thread starter 2.0t03speed
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2.0t03speed
Member
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- 08.5 CWP Speed 3
look at his site in his sig it's a t3/t4
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- 2003 mazdaspeed protege
I tried it wanted me to log in
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege
How much power are u gonna get when its all said and done?
2.0t03speed
Member
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- 08.5 CWP Speed 3
no idea dont care to be honest. as long as the car feels good to me i could care less
I know it's not a MSP, but I've had my EMUSA $120 turbo on my Civic for 700 miles without any issues. I used a .064" oil restrictor - many ebay turbos will blow the seals before anything else happens because people don't run a restrictor. It sees 12psi daily and shaftplay is non-existant.
Before anyone flames me, I have 2 Garrett T3/T04E 50 trims sitting in my garage right now. Some asshat "rebuilt" a turbo for me and kept it instead of returning it, so I bought the Ebay turd to get me by until I got these Garrett turbos. I'm just surprised it's lasted so long and hasn't shown any signs of failing yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pZqffLqfj4
Before anyone flames me, I have 2 Garrett T3/T04E 50 trims sitting in my garage right now. Some asshat "rebuilt" a turbo for me and kept it instead of returning it, so I bought the Ebay turd to get me by until I got these Garrett turbos. I'm just surprised it's lasted so long and hasn't shown any signs of failing yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pZqffLqfj4
2.0t03speed
Member
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- 08.5 CWP Speed 3
i'll update the thread as soon as i can. i had some unexpected problems that wiped out my car fund money.
well i took the plunge.
I met a guy who rebuilds turbochargers and he walked me through the "generations" of chinachargers he has seen over the past 5 or so years.
First up were the POS chargers that are glued together. These are what started the whole "chinacharger" term according to him. He showed me one that literally was glued together and failed very quickly when the compressor housing fell apart under heavy boost. Yes some guy in china is laughing his ass off at anyone who bought these. im gonna quote here "dumb americans".
Next he showed me 3 different chinacharger turbos he had that all had bearing failures due to improper installation. These were being sold as "kits" that had either A: no restrictor on the oil inlet or B: turbo drains that had improper drain lines that were either too small for proper drainage or had drain lines that kinked or tried to run uphill. Yes, the ebay ad shows these setups installed on the car, however the seller is assuming you will know that there are important steps to installing that a certified mech would know. Keep in mind these were "kits" that were labelled as being vehicle specific and caused lots of problems. With these kits the biggest issue was that the installer did not know they needed a restrictor, the proper size of a restrictor for their turbo or how to properly mount a drain line to the oil pan. He says most of these came with a warranty providing a certified mech installed them, and since nobody bothered to get a mech to install them (quote: people think they know what they are doing because they read something online think they can build 10 second cars in their driveway with no previous turbocharging experience) the large majority of installers F'd their own cars and wanted to blame China as that seems to be the easy thing to do when people in NA makes stupid mistakes.
Then he started showing me some turbos that are of newer construction from china. All of them, whether BB or journal are "much better" than what most people are expecting. He went on to add that many of the housings have great machining, some have genuine garrett components, and pretty much all are head and shoulders above what was being sold from ~2000-2008 era from china.
Now, dont think that you still cant get screwed. Always check the return policy of the seller and make sure he knows that if the turbocharger isnt 100% perfect, your sending it back, and expect a full return ASAP or else there is going to be problems. This is online sales of car parts, there is no law saying some guy cant sell you junk and try to get away with it. It doesnt matter if its car parts or baseball bats, there is always the chance of some prick trying to rip you off. You are "just a dumb American" to many people in the world (80+%?) so dont be surprised when someone wants to rip you off for trying to buy a $2000 turbo for $150. (i think i told him I was canadian about 10 times but that didnt change his tone lol) He went on to add, when you see the same turbo selling on ebay for $150, $250 and $350, the difference is whether or not the interals of the CHRA are actually garrett parts, the quality of the castings, and whether the wastegate is junk(worth $5) or not(worth $35+). If the ad sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If its a well know journal bearing turbo (say a t3/t4 50 trim) with a warranty, expect to pay $250-$500 for something that will last 3-5 years 50,000 to 100,000kms. If you get more out of it, great, if not, dont pretend like its a big deal that your inexpensive turbocharger wore out. A good pair of shoes is $150-200 nowadays. If you cant afford $150-200 every 3-5 years, then sell your car and go get an education. If the thought of changing your turbo out every 3-5 years makes you cringe, then get off your ass and go buy an OEM or quality BB aftermarket turbo. With oem or a high quality aftermarket turbo with good installation you can expect 5+ years and 200,000kms of regular use. Anything past that is good karma kicking in. (you dont see many OEM turbochargers lasting past 200,000KMs unless they have been very well maintained and taken care of (think turbo time, synthetic oil, no extended boosting/ track day use) and not overboosted past a safe turbine rpm)
I was very interested in how the newer turbochargers were constructed (the only turbocharger I have ever taken apart was a saab t25 that died on me shortly after install in December. It had bad seals and leaked oil everywhere) so before I even talked about buying one I wanted to see what makes them tick. He tore down a BRAND NEW T3/T4 from ETD motors and showed me how nice and simple they were to rebuild if the turbocharger ever did fail, and showed me several other examples of customers turbos that did die for various reasons from sucking in pebbles, to coking of the bearings from no coolant lines hooked up + no turbo time, to oil starvation from a leaking feed line. I honestly never thought I could learn so much about chinachargers in the hour or so I was there, but being able to hold and see all the broken parts myself I really learned something about the ebay turbo industry.
In the end I bought a T3/T4 0.60 compressor, 0.63 hotside from him. He got the turbo new from ETD motors in Cali (he buys from them in bulk and then sells them locally for about the same rates as they have on ebay) and apparently there are many in our area (toronto canada) running in several cars outputting more than I ever will without failure. I also got a guarantee that if it did ever F it up I could bring it back to him, he would show me the reason it failed, and then rebuild it for me for the price of a rebuild kit + no labour. That sealed the deal for me as i dont know too many people willing to give up an hour of their time to rebuild something for a client if they knew it was going to fail sooner than later. Obviously the guy has some confidence in these newer china chargers if he is willing to do this.
So just to refresh, in his opinion the vast majority of failures are from incompetant installers who dont REALLY know what they are doing, or from poor sellers looking to make a quick buck on parts they KNOW are already damaged either from poorly shipping/stocking from their supplier, poor quality control(turbos that never should have left the factory, but did anyways, usually in an employees pocket) or their own incompetance (dropping/mishandling delicate parts). And if your turbo is glued together it was sitting on a shelf since 2000-2005 era and was just sold to you now lol
anyways, im excited to see how the hybrid t3/t4 0.6 / 0.63 works out for me. Power should come in late, but pull like a champ in the top
wish me luck lol if things go good, great, if not, im out a couple hundred for a rebuild and new exhuast hardwaregaskets. For me there is not much of a risk as my engine isnt worth any more than that anyways and i am pretty comfortable with this sort of situation. If I had the gtr motor or a built (pistons/rods) FS-DE in the car I may think otherwise.
And for those still not sure about "Chinachargers" he reccommended that instead you look into a OEM 14B DSM turbocharger, EVO III turbocharger, or Holset turbocharger (depending on your goal and displacement of your motor) as they can all be had for the price of a chinacharger, and if you can figure out the real mileage of the unit (IE you are buying it from a wrecked car or from a friends car) these can all be bought in the $150-$250 range and have OEM reliability, and can all flow more than 99% of users will need. Keep in mind, there are DSM guys running stock $150 14B turbochargers and making more power than 99% of our board members. Not bashing, just informing that there is no need to buy some hella quick spool BB top of the line worth more than your car turbo, when a $150 DSM OEM unit would suffice in the vast majority of performance builds of the FSDE
I will let everyone know how my personal experience with the ETD T3/T4 turns out once I have a manifold for it on the car.
I met a guy who rebuilds turbochargers and he walked me through the "generations" of chinachargers he has seen over the past 5 or so years.
First up were the POS chargers that are glued together. These are what started the whole "chinacharger" term according to him. He showed me one that literally was glued together and failed very quickly when the compressor housing fell apart under heavy boost. Yes some guy in china is laughing his ass off at anyone who bought these. im gonna quote here "dumb americans".
Next he showed me 3 different chinacharger turbos he had that all had bearing failures due to improper installation. These were being sold as "kits" that had either A: no restrictor on the oil inlet or B: turbo drains that had improper drain lines that were either too small for proper drainage or had drain lines that kinked or tried to run uphill. Yes, the ebay ad shows these setups installed on the car, however the seller is assuming you will know that there are important steps to installing that a certified mech would know. Keep in mind these were "kits" that were labelled as being vehicle specific and caused lots of problems. With these kits the biggest issue was that the installer did not know they needed a restrictor, the proper size of a restrictor for their turbo or how to properly mount a drain line to the oil pan. He says most of these came with a warranty providing a certified mech installed them, and since nobody bothered to get a mech to install them (quote: people think they know what they are doing because they read something online think they can build 10 second cars in their driveway with no previous turbocharging experience) the large majority of installers F'd their own cars and wanted to blame China as that seems to be the easy thing to do when people in NA makes stupid mistakes.
Then he started showing me some turbos that are of newer construction from china. All of them, whether BB or journal are "much better" than what most people are expecting. He went on to add that many of the housings have great machining, some have genuine garrett components, and pretty much all are head and shoulders above what was being sold from ~2000-2008 era from china.
Now, dont think that you still cant get screwed. Always check the return policy of the seller and make sure he knows that if the turbocharger isnt 100% perfect, your sending it back, and expect a full return ASAP or else there is going to be problems. This is online sales of car parts, there is no law saying some guy cant sell you junk and try to get away with it. It doesnt matter if its car parts or baseball bats, there is always the chance of some prick trying to rip you off. You are "just a dumb American" to many people in the world (80+%?) so dont be surprised when someone wants to rip you off for trying to buy a $2000 turbo for $150. (i think i told him I was canadian about 10 times but that didnt change his tone lol) He went on to add, when you see the same turbo selling on ebay for $150, $250 and $350, the difference is whether or not the interals of the CHRA are actually garrett parts, the quality of the castings, and whether the wastegate is junk(worth $5) or not(worth $35+). If the ad sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If its a well know journal bearing turbo (say a t3/t4 50 trim) with a warranty, expect to pay $250-$500 for something that will last 3-5 years 50,000 to 100,000kms. If you get more out of it, great, if not, dont pretend like its a big deal that your inexpensive turbocharger wore out. A good pair of shoes is $150-200 nowadays. If you cant afford $150-200 every 3-5 years, then sell your car and go get an education. If the thought of changing your turbo out every 3-5 years makes you cringe, then get off your ass and go buy an OEM or quality BB aftermarket turbo. With oem or a high quality aftermarket turbo with good installation you can expect 5+ years and 200,000kms of regular use. Anything past that is good karma kicking in. (you dont see many OEM turbochargers lasting past 200,000KMs unless they have been very well maintained and taken care of (think turbo time, synthetic oil, no extended boosting/ track day use) and not overboosted past a safe turbine rpm)
I was very interested in how the newer turbochargers were constructed (the only turbocharger I have ever taken apart was a saab t25 that died on me shortly after install in December. It had bad seals and leaked oil everywhere) so before I even talked about buying one I wanted to see what makes them tick. He tore down a BRAND NEW T3/T4 from ETD motors and showed me how nice and simple they were to rebuild if the turbocharger ever did fail, and showed me several other examples of customers turbos that did die for various reasons from sucking in pebbles, to coking of the bearings from no coolant lines hooked up + no turbo time, to oil starvation from a leaking feed line. I honestly never thought I could learn so much about chinachargers in the hour or so I was there, but being able to hold and see all the broken parts myself I really learned something about the ebay turbo industry.
In the end I bought a T3/T4 0.60 compressor, 0.63 hotside from him. He got the turbo new from ETD motors in Cali (he buys from them in bulk and then sells them locally for about the same rates as they have on ebay) and apparently there are many in our area (toronto canada) running in several cars outputting more than I ever will without failure. I also got a guarantee that if it did ever F it up I could bring it back to him, he would show me the reason it failed, and then rebuild it for me for the price of a rebuild kit + no labour. That sealed the deal for me as i dont know too many people willing to give up an hour of their time to rebuild something for a client if they knew it was going to fail sooner than later. Obviously the guy has some confidence in these newer china chargers if he is willing to do this.
So just to refresh, in his opinion the vast majority of failures are from incompetant installers who dont REALLY know what they are doing, or from poor sellers looking to make a quick buck on parts they KNOW are already damaged either from poorly shipping/stocking from their supplier, poor quality control(turbos that never should have left the factory, but did anyways, usually in an employees pocket) or their own incompetance (dropping/mishandling delicate parts). And if your turbo is glued together it was sitting on a shelf since 2000-2005 era and was just sold to you now lol
anyways, im excited to see how the hybrid t3/t4 0.6 / 0.63 works out for me. Power should come in late, but pull like a champ in the top
wish me luck lol if things go good, great, if not, im out a couple hundred for a rebuild and new exhuast hardwaregaskets. For me there is not much of a risk as my engine isnt worth any more than that anyways and i am pretty comfortable with this sort of situation. If I had the gtr motor or a built (pistons/rods) FS-DE in the car I may think otherwise.And for those still not sure about "Chinachargers" he reccommended that instead you look into a OEM 14B DSM turbocharger, EVO III turbocharger, or Holset turbocharger (depending on your goal and displacement of your motor) as they can all be had for the price of a chinacharger, and if you can figure out the real mileage of the unit (IE you are buying it from a wrecked car or from a friends car) these can all be bought in the $150-$250 range and have OEM reliability, and can all flow more than 99% of users will need. Keep in mind, there are DSM guys running stock $150 14B turbochargers and making more power than 99% of our board members. Not bashing, just informing that there is no need to buy some hella quick spool BB top of the line worth more than your car turbo, when a $150 DSM OEM unit would suffice in the vast majority of performance builds of the FSDE
I will let everyone know how my personal experience with the ETD T3/T4 turns out once I have a manifold for it on the car.
Last edited:
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- 2003 mazdaspeed protege
+1 nice write up.
2.0t03speed
Member
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- 08.5 CWP Speed 3
nice to hear you weigh in jeff. i'm hoping to get mine in sometime in the near future.
SeR_Cyclops
Member
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- Mazdaspeed Protege
Good write up!
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- 1989 RX-7 GXL Blaze Red
I'll be joining this club here this weekend. My stocker went out after 90,000 miles. Pretty impressive for a turbo that never ever had a timer!
hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
Garrett turbos are good units, mine sees 10 psi every day and it's still going strong after 124k miles. Honestly a coolant and oil-cooled turbo doesn't need a turbo timer.
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- 03.5 YLW MSP
true but it can't hurt either
hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
I will admit I let the car idle for 10-15 secs before killing it, and I kinda feel guilty when I don't... But I don't think you are running any risks not having one.
