Upgraded T04 turbos for less $ than stock! Wtf? Link inside
- Thread starter Mightbaal
- Start date
Rob@RBTurbo
Lieutenant
You're going to have to be patient sir, REALLY patient, if you are wanting some meaningful feedback.
Although the manufacturer/vendor will know much sooner it is most likely you (and the rest of the masses) will not know the real story (on all products from most vendors for that matter) for somewhere between 1 through ∞ years.
Rob
This is the thing. I got GCs coming up to 2 years ago. I've seen about 1 guy saying he got something like 650whp out of his. I've seen about 2 or 3 reviews of the lites where they hit aroung 550 to 600whp.
The car modifying scene in the UK is an absolute fraction of what it is in the states. Like 95% of people don't modify their cars if you don't count just a remap and wheels. So I never encounter anyone with GCs in the UK.
Where are all the GC customers? Where are their results? Where are the online reviews? They say they've sold like 150 pairs or something like that. Even on facebook I don't seem to see dyno results. Then you hear VTT will refuse to help anyone who's posted negatively about their turbos.
I've done a fair bit to my car and really I'm limited by other components before I can go for more power.
I've trapped at 129 mph but with misfires from about the last 3rd of the track. I now have an M4 flywheel to fit which apparently could be the solution but I'm sceptical.
I need uprated DCT clutches and probably axles. Plus it may be at the point where the engine needs sleeves \ go closed deck etc.
About a month or 2 after my GCs were installed a friend of mine had his lites destroy themselves. The turbine blades delaminated or something like that.
So with the complete change in the now V2 version of the GCs I'm left wondering if I have a ticking time bomb.
I've got quite a few miles on mine but I run alot of water\meth keeping the temps down when on fairly high boost. I've only really pushed them hard occasionally.
So good luck to the guys with the China Turbos. You haven't got a huge amount to loose. It's a shame we can't just bolt on some Garrets.
With the shtty RWD I'd ignore the ETs and focus on the trap speeds.
About 135mph is the fastest I've seen on after market twin turbos. Which yeah, isn't much better than 5 years ago.
Most people don't post. By far the majority of people that I interact with are lurkers or just sort of doing their own thing (which makes sense given the platform). Also it seems most people tend to either buy turbos RIGHT NOW because theirs are gone, or the buy them and don't install for some significant time. There are plenty of results out there -just depends on where you look. Not to mention lots of guys will do a street tune, never actually put it on a dyno, and go about their business with a moderate but healthy power upgrade.
As for hearing that VTT will refuse to help anyone who has posted negatively, this is patently false. We have never stated that, never will, and more importantly have never acted on that premise.
Chris
Jack, no-one hardly tunes here past a remap and FBO because of the cost of getting the shit sent from the States with shipping and duty.
Secondly RB Turbos... you should take a look at your RHD outlets coz most of the ones I have seen in the UK are junk. for £500 ($680) just for a pipe i would have expected a far superior quality. Just saying...
Secondly RB Turbos... you should take a look at your RHD outlets coz most of the ones I have seen in the UK are junk. for £500 ($680) just for a pipe i would have expected a far superior quality. Just saying...
This is where the Internet is our greatest information gift and greatest information curse, our greatest community gift and our greatest community curse, all in one breath.
From my limited experience talking to people, this post is spot on - lots of lurkers, not many post. And Chris said it with grace, where I'll say it more bluntly - "which makes sense given the platform" - a fair number of people are outright intimidated to post, given the way interaction can go on the forums.
We seems to take the 10% and treat it as the 90%. Most vendors are trying to do the right thing, and most consumers are not completely stupid. This is a shortcoming of the "community" - it's hard to enter it. I'm pretty new to the N54 world, and come from a few other communities where the experience was pretty different. I'm pretty good at sorting this kind of stuff out, and I'm challenged. I empathize with the lurkers.
Filippo
Rob@RBTurbo
Lieutenant
We’ve sold a ton of these around the world over 2 years and have heard of 1 reported issue (which was about a year ago) to date.
And the cost is $249 plus $100 for heat shield and wastegate solenoid bracket- last we checked that adds up to $349 USD.
Really? My experience is the opposite. I think most of the consumers on this platform ARE stupid. That's why modding coils is a big deal, why PR has to redesign theirs to make it as PnP as possible because most of the retards modding these cars are trying to stick a square peg in a round hole. If you want a good representation of the "lurkers", go look at some of the shit for sale on CL. Everything is so ghetto rigged, very few people are taking pride in this platform anymore. The ones that are are the OGs posting in the if you had to do it again thread.
Typical N54 owner: Buy car for cheap as possible, skip over maintenance, install JB4 and ebay mods right away. Throw in more E85 than the car can handle, start having injector/coil/HPFP/water pump problems and sell car because they have no ability to maintain anything and they couldn't afford the car in the first place. Honestly this car is like the B5 S4 all over again, only with a much less mechanically inclined generation purchasing it.
I guess it’s time for an update. Turbos are on and car is running. First few miles I put on the car these things smoked like a freight train, white smoke was pouring out from under the hood and out the exhaust.
I know what you are all saying I shouldn’t have bought them I got what I paid for.....well hold on a minute cause the smoke was temporary. The smoke under the hood was because these things come with a coating of oil on the cast manifolds so they don’t rust and the smoke from the tail pipes was residue oil from my old leaking turbos. Smoke from the manifolds burned off within 15mins and after I put about 50 miles on the car the tail pipes stopped smoking.
So far car is running great, I made switch to Rotella T6 because of the high Zinc and Phos content. My old turbos I was going through a quart of oil every 300-400 miles. These turbos it’s too soon to tell as I only have about 200 miles on them. I still need to figure out tuning I’m just running the basic setup Terry recommend for hybrid turbos. I’m using JB4 with MHD pump BEF.
Car pulls good but so far have only ran map 2. There might be a touch of turbo lag but this also could be just my tune. I was running E85 flash prior and currently just 91 pump gas. Our local gas station lost their liscense to sell E85 last month but I drove by today and looks like the pumps are open again so I may try to flash back to E85.
Current mods are: These stage 2 turbos, RB pvc, oil catch can, Phoenix racing charge pipe w/ Tial BOV and Phoenix race intercooler, BMS 2” China inlets, stage 2 LPFP, JB4 w/ MHD bef, 034 motor mounts, AR catless DP, M3 front control arms and sway bar.
Sitting in my garage but not installed: M3 rear bushings and rear sway bar, Wavetrac limited slip, MMP port injection.
I know what you are all saying I shouldn’t have bought them I got what I paid for.....well hold on a minute cause the smoke was temporary. The smoke under the hood was because these things come with a coating of oil on the cast manifolds so they don’t rust and the smoke from the tail pipes was residue oil from my old leaking turbos. Smoke from the manifolds burned off within 15mins and after I put about 50 miles on the car the tail pipes stopped smoking.
So far car is running great, I made switch to Rotella T6 because of the high Zinc and Phos content. My old turbos I was going through a quart of oil every 300-400 miles. These turbos it’s too soon to tell as I only have about 200 miles on them. I still need to figure out tuning I’m just running the basic setup Terry recommend for hybrid turbos. I’m using JB4 with MHD pump BEF.
Car pulls good but so far have only ran map 2. There might be a touch of turbo lag but this also could be just my tune. I was running E85 flash prior and currently just 91 pump gas. Our local gas station lost their liscense to sell E85 last month but I drove by today and looks like the pumps are open again so I may try to flash back to E85.
Current mods are: These stage 2 turbos, RB pvc, oil catch can, Phoenix racing charge pipe w/ Tial BOV and Phoenix race intercooler, BMS 2” China inlets, stage 2 LPFP, JB4 w/ MHD bef, 034 motor mounts, AR catless DP, M3 front control arms and sway bar.
Sitting in my garage but not installed: M3 rear bushings and rear sway bar, Wavetrac limited slip, MMP port injection.
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1 report?? Ok I can make that go up by 300% from what I seen, the pipes were junk. Also check your UK vendor. They are sold for £500. Thats why the UK modding scene isn't as big as the US, coz we get bummed on the pricing.
As I said, just saying, as I see you have quite alot to say yourself.
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Yes I got the VTT outlets and yours Rob. I will say your outlets are brilliant and they are the ones I chose to fit. Your design really helps with the RHD steering rack being in such a PITA location. I'm still amazed that silicon can survive being so close to turbos that if run hard will glow. The heat shield is excellent and the bracket for the solenoids was an awesome idea.
That's what I saw posted on Facebook. Fair enough if you say it's not true. I'll believe you.
So why the massive redesign of the GCs though?
Good job.
A proper tune makes all the difference, even on a stock car with stock turbos. What some tuners can do with the load targeting and boost mapping is just incredible. Transforms the car.
I do hope your turbos are properly balanced etc. You see a heck of alot of ebay turbo reviews on youtube. Eventually they just end up slamming the housing and falling apart.
Be interesting to see these in action after a tune! A video maybe? I wonder what the reliability is going to be like long term though 
Chris covered this in detail, when the new GCs were announced. First half of the first post on this thread covers it well:
https://bmw.spoolstreet.com/threads/2018-vtt-new-product-release-thread.2791/
Filippo
Rob@RBTurbo
Lieutenant
We are not going to control dealer pricing, and we offer them outright if one wants to go that route we are an email away. Not that you’d want them either way as it seems.
As for the issues apparently we have a great bunch of customers who don’t even report a problem when encountered and they just keep on referring friends to buy (we don’t even advertise these things). Start a new thread about it if you want, no worries; we’d like to see what’s said and also ask why there’s no reports to us about these issues of which you speak so highly.
No thanks, im not going to start a thread on this. i just find it humorous how you knock on other vendors when your own products are hardly worth shouting about.
The customers wouldn't report the issue to you directly as they buy from rip off merchants here in the UK who offer them exchanges and refunds. Anyways - thats another discussion for another thread.
The customers wouldn't report the issue to you directly as they buy from rip off merchants here in the UK who offer them exchanges and refunds. Anyways - thats another discussion for another thread.
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