Chinesium turbo install

[xvinx87]

How funny it is ! New member just reply to my post I never specified that I ordered on Ali but I sent the link to this post to the seller Well try mister isppedytech but instead of take time to answer here you better have to send my money back... You're a liar and a scammer.

Goodness, this is probably the reason why I only lurked in the forum for the past year. Too much of mistrust and straight away the worst is assumed in people. I post to help someone alleviate their anxiety, and get called a liar immediately....

Anyways i'm sure not everyone here is like that, so to explain a bit:

I created this account in 2018 to communicate with jyamona when he first came out with flexfuel. Only used it to read the forum from time to time to see what's new since then.

I've attached a screenshot of my order on AliExpress for the turbos and inlets and communication with the seller ispeedytech.

My turbos and inlets have since arrived and are under my table in my office, waiting to be installed. I'll take some pictures of them and post here when I'm back in my office tomorrow.

A bit about myself:

My name in Vin and I'm from Singapore (where cars are stupidly expensive) and I drive an 2007 e93 335i. I'm an automotive engineer and I design emergency and special vehicles (fire trucks/ambulances etc) in Singapore.

back to topic on these Chinese turbos:

My initial thoughts on these ispeedytech turbos is that they did come with a balance sheet where the balancing is supposedly done in the UK. I find it highly unlikely that they were balanced in the UK as the items were shipped out straight from China to me here in Singapore.

Despite this, i do however believe that they actually are balanced, as it's quite obvious from where the nuts are ground down to remove material and balance the entire assembly. How well the balancing is done I'm not too sure though.

I'm considering getting a quote from a local workshop that does turbocharger rebuilds and balancing to tear it down and check the balance. There are some cons to this though, main one being additional costs and possible problems being introduced if the turbos were to be torn down, rebalanced and put back together. It would not make for a true "as is" test with regards to reliability of the turbos.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Rob09msport]

Goodness, this is probably the reason why I only lurked in the forum for the past year. Too much of mistrust and straight away the worst is assumed in people. I post to help someone alleviate their anxiety, and get called a liar immediately....

Anyways i'm sure not everyone here is like that, so to explain a bit:

I created this account in 2018 to communicate with jyamona when he first came out with flexfuel. Only used it to read the forum from time to time to see what's new since then.

I've attached a screenshot of my order on AliExpress for the turbos and inlets and communication with the seller ispeedytech.

My turbos and inlets have since arrived and are under my table in my office, waiting to be installed. I'll take some pictures of them and post here when I'm back in my office tomorrow.

A bit about myself:

My name in Vin and I'm from Singapore (where cars are stupidly expensive) and I drive an 2007 e93 335i. I'm an automotive engineer and I design emergency and special vehicles (fire trucks/ambulances etc) in Singapore.

back to topic on these Chinese turbos:

My initial thoughts on these ispeedytech turbos is that they did come with a balance sheet where the balancing is supposedly done in the UK. I find it highly unlikely that they were balanced in the UK as the items were shipped out straight from China to me here in Singapore.

Despite this, i do however believe that they actually are balanced, as it's quite obvious from where the nuts are ground down to remove material and balance the entire assembly. How well the balancing is done I'm not too sure though.

I'm considering getting a quote from a local workshop that does turbocharger rebuilds and balancing to tear it down and check the balance. There are some cons to this though, main one being additional costs and possible problems being introduced if the turbos were to be torn down, rebalanced and put back together. It would not make for a true "as is" test with regards to reliability of the turbos.

What are your thoughts?

Don't let this deter you we all read the initial post that said company and ebay or aliexpress so your post made sense as you had a 50 percent shot of using same platform and 100 percent same seller with facts on hand. Also the seller is the important factor imo who cares if its ebay ,amazon or a forum. You were just trying to ease someone's fears and most of us saw that and imo of you were a lurker and made a acount finally just to do that then your good in my book.

 

[xvinx87]

Don't let this deter you we all read the initial post that said company and ebay or aliexpress so your post made sense as you had a 50 percent shot of using same platform and 100 percent same seller with facts on hand. Also the seller is the important factor imo who cares if its ebay ,amazon or a forum. You were just trying to ease someone's fears and most of us saw that and imo of you were a lurker and made a acount finally just to do that then your good in my book.

No worries, I do hope to learn from this forum and share and contribute what I can too. I've bought loads of stuff from AliExpress and so far thankfully haven't had any non delivery issues with any of the vendors. Even the tracking for the turbos and inlets don't show full delivery yet they are already under my office table. These things happen. A little patience goes a long way.

I already have intercooler, and charge pipe installed on the car previously. Also replaced the OEM coils with Eldor coils about a year back when the OEM ones went wonky. Also installed the Motiv flexfuel module with MHD at the same time previously.Is there anything else that I would need besides the OEM parts that I will replace during the installation like oil/coolant lines?

Just bought a 3.5 bar tmap sensor, 2" inlets, catless DPs and stage 2 bucketed fuel pump for the purpose of these turbos. Not planning to run Ethanol as access to Ethanol in Singapore is very limited and will be on 98 RON (93 Oct). Only looking for abt 450-500whp as this is my daily and it's an automatic transmission. My previous dyno results on a very conservative mainline Dyno with OEM turbos and MHD were 354whp.

Is there anything else that I would need that I have forgotten about?

 

[xvinx87]

Pics of the turbos attached. Castings are not as smooth as I would like, but considering the price, I think it's acceptable. Very little shaft play and overall it seems pretty decent. Only one balance sheet in the boxes, not sure why there isn't a balance sheet for each turbo, and I don't think it's a legitimate balance sheet either way. Looks generic without any serial number information so I wouldn't trust it

 

[JohnDaviz]

who only knew? Look what appeared on DHL tracking ^^

Tracking, Track Parcels, Packages, Shipments | DHL Express Tracking

DHL Express tracking - track a parcel, track a package, track shipments and check shipment delivery status online. Track parcels and packages now.

www.dhl.com

 

[fmorelli]

Goodness, this is probably the reason why I only lurked in the forum for the past year. Too much of mistrust and straight away the worst is assumed in people. I post to help someone alleviate their anxiety, and get called a liar immediately....

Don't let this deter you we all read the initial post that said company and ebay or aliexpress so your post made sense as you had a 50 percent shot of using same platform and 100 percent same seller with facts on hand. Also the seller is the important factor imo who cares if its ebay ,amazon or a forum. You were just trying to ease someone's fears and most of us saw that and imo of you were a lurker and made a acount finally just to do that then your good in my book.

I have been having issues with Aliexpress tracking information over the month. I have ordered A LOT of materials from China over the years and have a fair bit of experience with this. Many chinese vendors are helpful. But that said, some of the shipping has significant problems. Unlike some others have said, one can track a shipment at the point of despatch. But the vendor needs to provide that information - a lack of receiving that can be suspect. Some times the vendors have very incompetent people working customer service. It just depends on the circumstance.

On to the balancing. There is no way the turbos would not be balanced at all - they would fail quite immediately. The issue is the quality of the balance - who is doing it, with what equipment, and to what level of accuracy. We know from other posts that it seems the balance sheets being sent are not per turbo but copy/paste - here and here and summarized here.

@xvinx87 , back to your comment of too much distrust - I will assume you have lurked on forums an insufficient amount to understand why the distrust. There are MANY example of people having issues AND with vendors that can not stand behind their products. It cuts both ways, I assure you. Personally I don't find this to be a compelling reason not to interact in the community - hopefully you will rethink this line of reasoning.

As for balancing - and you've already figured this out ... back to mistrust: honestly you have been lied to. You bought a product with one balance sheet, and you know it doesn't even go with either of your two turbos. The second fake sheet is missing . This was done by the vendor to make you think your specific turbos have specific balance data. I'm not sure what you would call that ... but I find it hard to understand why you started on the "mistrust" dimension when, you in fact, you have been duped by the seller. Let me be clear - the turbos may be just fine. They may last 5k miles, 20k miles, 50k miles. But sending copy/paste turbo sheets is as disingenuous as my taking your car in for an alignment and giving you a random alignment sheet. That said, hopefully they last a long time for you!

If your local turbo shop is SUPERB, you could bring them there and see what it would cost to have them check the turbos out. This could be money well spent. But if your knowledge of that turbo shop is the same as the knowledge of the turbos with fake balance sheet ... then I would not suggest doubling down .

Let us know how it goes - and thank you for both helping and posting information here. Hope it goes well and please keep us abreast.

Filippo

 

[JohnDaviz]

I have ordered A LOT of materials from China over the years and have a fair bit of experience with this. Many chinese vendors are helpful. But that said, some of the shipping has significant problems. Unlike some others have said, one can track a shipment at the point of despatch. But the vendor needs to provide that information - a lack of receiving that can be suspect. Some times the vendors have very incompetent people working customer service. It just depends on the circumstance.

Ordering a lot does not equal to experience or knowledge about logistics in general. As i showcased the parcel was traceable from the beginning with aftership and once it reached Birmingham and was handed over to DHL, voila.. visible there.
Also the seller is usually not the one responsible for the lack of tracking transparency as the shop ppl don´t run the logistics company. I find you explanation wrongfully pointing to the sellers and you obviously have a lack of knowledge about the different logistic routes to get parcels out of china. Out of the 100s of orders i made i never experienced the issue with the seller. Except you were dumb enough to really buy from a scammer. Today in 99% of the offered items on aliexpress you will not be scammed.
In ~90% of the cases the buyer choses the logistics company by selecting the shipping method and the selling companies simply follow that chosen route as they think that the BUYER has the best experience with its chosen shipping decision.
Circumstances often are made from the buyer. Sorry. But you are so wrong with your statement.

 

[ShocknAwe]

I would not install any of these grenades without having them thoroughly checked and rebalanced if necessary. Might be possible to prevent wasted time and ruined hardware.

 

[MLars]

I’m interested to see how long these last. My car will be due for turbos in the next couple of months (30ff and crazy rattle, but no oil leaks) and if these work OK I may order a pair and have a local shop balance them. That should at least make them on par with something like what VTT offers

 

[fmorelli]

Ordering a lot does not equal to experience or knowledge about logistics in general. [...snip ...]
Circumstances often are made from the buyer. Sorry. But you are so wrong with your statement.

No need for apologies. Really.

You are right. I am not a logistics professional. I don't work for FedEx, DHL, etc.

What I am relaying, and where my knowledge comes from, is hundreds of packages shipped - most of them within 2 days I tend to see a record created, and usually between then and another day or two that the package has been dropped off (that is, received at the China end). Hand-offs thereafter are various and sundry in my experience. I'm not sharing my expertise in logistics knowledge ... if that's what you took away. I'm sharing my typical experience in visibility in package tracking. In that, I am not wrong, since it is my direct observation of my own shipments in the 100's.

Filippo

 

[xvinx87]

Let's try to steer things back to topic and spend the energy on a fruitful discussion with regards to these Chinese turbos

Prior to purchasing them, I did exercise some due diligence to read up on them, not just in this forum but across other forums as well.

Quite well aware that the balance sheets were very likely fake, but still decided to pull the trigger having seen a few people also verify that the balancing was indeed within spec after sending it to a 3rd party for verification. I would say I went in with my eyes wide open and aware of any potential issues that may occur with regards to balancing/longevity/reliability.

Despite that, I decided to give it a shot simply because the price justified at least trying it out. I'll get a quote to check the balancing again at a local turbo rebuild specialist workshop. Having done a bit of research on them, im inclined to believe that they should be quite decent as most of the other performance car workshops do send their turbos there to be rebuilt and balanced. If the cost is reasonable, and if I feel comfortable with their facilities and equipment, I'll drop it off and get it tested.

If I do so and even if the turbos fail early, we would then be able to possibly rule out the balancing as the cause of why these may fail. It would then more likely be a multitude of reasons including but not limited to build quality, clearances, insufficient cooling, lubrication etc.

As an engineer, I like doing things systematically, and I'll keep this thread updated as I progress. Intend to also do a Dyno once all is settled so that a clear before/after comparison can be made. I think this would be useful information for everyone.

In the mean time, let me go and see if I can dig up my previous dyno sheet....

 

[xvinx87]

Also just to elaborate a bit further with regards to build quality. I'm no expert on turbochargers even though I'm an automotive engineer. The engineering field is too wide and varied and I don't have enough experience working with turbochargers to make any claims that I fully understand all the design considerations that are required for good turbocharger design. Having done only an external examination of the turbos, I can't say that I've seen any major issues that lead me to believe it's not made or built properly.

Even a full teardown may not yield any strong conclusions as there are a variety of other things that can influence how reliable a turbocharger will be.

Things like heat cycling which cause expansion and contraction of the various parts can influence clearances, induce stresses and other issues if metallurgy/materials selected is not good. Vibrations on vehicles cause a whole host of problems on parts that would otherwise not fail if not subjected to these vibrations. It is certainly hard to quantify the build quality of a part just based on it's aesthetics.

The only way to really assess it is real world testing as even lab testing may not accurately reflect what the turbo is going through. I do hope that others can chime in with their experience with these turbos over time especially if they have put alot of miles on them, and let us know how they have been faring.

 

[xvinx87]

One more thing that popped into my mind having had a good shower after a long day of work.

For all we know, it may not even be poorly designed turbos that are the cause of reliability/longevity issues. I do not know of any aftermarket twin turbos for the N54 that actually come with a compressor map. Without a compressor map, it's hard to know where you are on it. Running the turbos out of the efficiency islands is a sure way to reduce the lifespan of the turbos. Similiarly, riding on the surge or choke line is not healthy. These could possibly be reasons why people experience failures.

Even with the best case of a turbo from a big manufacturer for OEM turbos like Garrett or Borg Warner, that has a known compressor map and speed sensor port, how many people actually use the speed sensor along with other sensors to determine where they are on the compressor map and tune accordingly?

My personal opinion is this is also probably one of the contributing factors as to why everyone will continue to see turbo failures being reported whether on Chinese turbos or other turbos from established companies in the N54 turbo scene....

 

[langsbr]

I do not know of any aftermarket twin turbos for the N54 that actually come with a compressor map. Without a compressor map, it's hard to know where you are on it.

While my tendency is to agree here, I'd say most of the single turbos that people run (read: precision) don't come with a compressor map either. Sure, you can 'ballpark' it based on a similarly sized Garret, so there is that benefit. You don't get that luxury with hybrids. You can look at a stock turbo compressor map for a TD03-10T turbo - oof, that thing peaks out early, and you can look at a TD04-19T compressor map and say, wow look how much power it can make! But the truth is somewhere in between, because hybrids that use stock castings, or even stock sized aftermarket castings have a mismatched turbine housing. No one releases turbine maps, and each compressor map is only with a specific turbine map.

While it appears that both Mauricio and Rob know that, and both have attempted to rectify that with their own castings - it appears MMP went too large and created some lazy turbos in the 1Ks. Rob looks to have done a great job with the GFs, but he got himself kicked from the forum. All of the Chinese hybrids (save for the Zage ones) use stock sized (or smaller?!) turbine housings and likely reach a higher backpressure than would be ideal on a 19T turbo, or heck, a 17T, or a 16T since there are so many flavors or "stages" now.

What I'd be more interested to see is if anyone that has them has opened them up to check and see if they are truly TD04 sized CHRAs. I know plenty were saying it, and then shipping a TD03, because who cares, the sale is made.

 

[Torgus]

While my tendency is to agree here, I'd say most of the single turbos that people run (read: precision) don't come with a compressor map either. Sure, you can 'ballpark' it based on a similarly sized Garret, so there is that benefit. You don't get that luxury with hybrids. You can look at a stock turbo compressor map for a TD03-10T turbo - oof, that thing peaks out early, and you can look at a TD04-19T compressor map and say, wow look how much power it can make! But the truth is somewhere in between, because hybrids that use stock castings, or even stock sized aftermarket castings have a mismatched turbine housing. No one releases turbine maps, and each compressor map is only with a specific turbine map.

While it appears that both Mauricio and Rob know that, and both have attempted to rectify that with their own castings - it appears MMP went too large and created some lazy turbos in the 1Ks. Rob looks to have done a great job with the GFs, but he got himself kicked from the forum. All of the Chinese hybrids (save for the Zage ones) use stock sized (or smaller?!) turbine housings and likely reach a higher backpressure than would be ideal on a 19T turbo, or heck, a 17T, or a 16T since there are so many flavors or "stages" now.

What I'd be more interested to see is if anyone that has them has opened them up to check and see if they are truly TD04 sized CHRAs. I know plenty were saying it, and then shipping a TD03, because who cares, the sale is made.

This.

 

[Seb335i]

Went to the dyno today 533.6 HP 650 NM of torque.

Full E85 ran into a fuelling issue.

I will had a second walbro and order the Helix overdrive

Full specs are
09 335I N54 E93 DKG
Turbos TD04 17T
JB4 BEF E85
Walbro 450 LPFP
BMS Charge pipe
Dump valve TIAL
Wagner Evo intercooler
BMS DCI
OCC

We can clearly see the fueling issue

 

[Tiron]

I have ordered a set of these as well, will post in later once I get them installed.

VIV Autoparts TD04 17T.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JJZ9MBQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Went to the dyno today 533.6 HP 650 NM of torque.

How much boost were you running for that dyno?

 

[PupkinRacing]

So who has some more reports on VIV auto parts turbos. Iam looking to buy some right now.

 

[Seb335i]

So who has some more reports on VIV auto parts turbos. Iam looking to buy some right now.

I made 8000 km since the install and no problem I’m more than happy

 

[PupkinRacing]

I made 8000 km since the install and no problem I’m more than happy

Glad to hear! Iam probably going to pull the trigger. My stockers are toasted