This may be a dumb question, but I want to learn. What do the different turbo housings do? What benefits do they make with the truck? I have the stock turbo now on my 99. ???

 

The way I hear it HG is that different sizes help cooling and help the turbo spool quicker to reduce low speed lag. Not sure which size to go with really on a truck like yours but on the first gen I traded in I was running a 14 cm2. Housings are a relatively inexpensive bomb when you consider what you pay for injectors and boxes etc.

 

Size does matter!!

;D ;D

Turbine (the rear end, hotside of turbo which exhaust gases flow through) sizes what you are referring to can be larger or smaller.
The larger turbine housing size allows more exhaust volume to flow through, and will reduce back pressure and keep temperatures in check. Also this will reduce turbine speed, which will save turbo life over time and provide cooler turbo temps which will allow for cooler compressed air from your turbos compressor housing.

A smaller turbine housing will allow less volume to flow through, which will allow for quicker speed up of the turbine also known as "spool up" and will usually yield more boost* pressure from your compressor side.

Wastegating turbo's allows for turbine slow down once a boost pressure is reached to activate a control arm that opens a door in the turbine housing to directly dump exhaust gases into your tail pipe and bypassing the turbine (slowing it down), the more the set boost is exceeded the more the wastegate opens.

*high boost numbers from an oversped turbo provide hot air with low density and will not be effecient and will actually cause a loss in power.
More boost is not more power.

--Justin