I trashed my stock turbo today on the road working. Im in VA soonest I could get a stock turbo here was Tues. $1200 or close for a stocker. I have been looking at turbos for some time. I had D-tech overnight me one of their turbos the sell on ebay for 1099. I know, some of you are going to tell me you get what you pay for and all that. I just have to get back on the road to put food on the table. I will tell you good or bad what happens. Ive read other posts of people interested but no one bought one. I tow commercial, I have a 46 ft enclosed trailer and put about 80K a year on. I think it will be interested to see how durable the thing is.

 

How many miles on your old stock turbo?

How much boost did you run it to?

 

1200 for a stocker!!!!
wow... highway robery!

i know of alot of reputable aftermarket upgrades for under a $1k

 

the way i look at it is if your runnning stock crap you should be okay the issue with the cheaper turbos come into play when your dumping a chit load of fuel and running a good programmer like the smarty those loads will kill a cheap turbo but if your stock or darn close you should be good i would have check the classifeids for one as you can find them cheaper or made dodge eat the cost if you had the warr. left. good luck keep us posted times are rough all over man. do what you got to do im there as well

 

I have 180K on my truck, and I would have shopped around a little but at 2pm Fri I had to make a quick call. I will be back on the road this afternoon. I was running it up to 25psi it would spike to 30 but for a very short time. I pulled out to pass a semi and all hell broke loose, even pumped the exhaust full of oil.

 

Let us know how it does!

 

Looks like I wont get on the road today, Brett did his job and got the turbo here. I had it shipped overnight. I sent it to the mobile mechanic that is going to help me do this because the truck is still sitting in the rest area (did not want to pay the $600 highway robbery tow bill for 15 miles). Well we must have crossed wires and he thought it would be here Mon. instead of today and he was not at home to receive the turbo. Oh well just my crappy luck rearing its ugly head again.

 

Not very much abuse if you kept it under 30 psi most of the time. 180K, you must have gotten a turbo that was built on a Friday afternoon. My stocker had 230K miles with numerous 35-38psi runs. It also towed 95% of its first 170K.


Did the shaft break, lose a turbine wheel, or just got so loose it blew a seal?

 

If it can break Im the guy to do it that is for sure.

 

Finally made it home, mobile mechanic helped change out the turbo in the rest area where I was sitting saved me a $600 tow bill. I got it in and ran on down the road, I did notice the egt's were up higher than the stock turbo, upon further inspection the impeller in the exhaust housing on the old turbo was gone, the shaft had broke. This morning I went out and tapped around the exhaust and it is in the muffler creating a restriction and higher egt's I took the muffler off and ran it down the road, with my edge on the highest setting and the truck to the mat I could only get the egt's up to 1250. The boost was around 34 which brett had told me the waste gate was set for 35. So far so good.

 

Ok here is the update on the turbo, first off the customer service is great and I can't complain one bit about it. Second I had a boost problem and a egt problem , I called Brett and we talked about it and I pressure tested the system only to find a pin hole in the intercooler. One of the tubes had come loose and could not be repaired, I put a new intercooler in. Today my first impression is that according to my edge (which I dont know if it is correct) it seemed like the egt's were pretty high. I played around with it for a while and could only get the thing to pull around 32 lbs of boost before It would defuel because of the egt's I still have the stock exhaust and the stock 03 elbow on it so that could be causing some problems also. As I earlier stated with just a straight pipe the egt's were much better.

 

So I'm guessing that you aren't too happy so far huh?

 

Well I cant say that, I have so much other stuff going on I cant really say that. I just found out that I also have leaking injector and sent it off to Don at F-1 so dont judge yet let me work through this. The leaking injector would cause egts to be off so Im willing to give it a fair chance. So to recap stock turbo junked out, put new intercooler and turbo in, found out it was "making oil" so it is tore down again awaiting injectors so I will keep you all updated.

 

Ok here is a update, just got my injectors back from Don at F-1 put them in today. I had a bad case of black algae that I did not know about. Well I got everything back in ran the truck and it seemed sluggish messed around with the waste gate adjustment and that made a world of difference. I know my edge is probably not excact but I was struggling to make 23psi, he said the waste gate was set at 35. After messing with it I have it up to 40psi and of course my egt problem is gone. I will be hauling this week so I will let you know how it does.

 

sounds good, what did you do for the black algae ?