Chinese made turbos

[wrx_lou]

i ran a dsr t3t4 on my car car for just under a year. laggy as fuck but never had problems.

[Munkvy]

I have no personal experience running chinese turbos - but I have a few friends who have run DSR turbos on Nissans mainly and had no reliability issues. And some of those cars are making reasonable power (ie 300kw+) and get given a proper hiding on a regular basis.

DPI - sometimes spending $2000 on a turbo is also not value for money. I personally would never run one as I see it as a waste - not because I cant afford to buy one, but because a $2000 turbo wont last much longer (if at all) with anti lag and launch control than a $200 wrecker TD05 or a $500 chinese turbo - its rather a lottery as to how long they will hold on for. So in my opinion it really is related to the application as to whether its justifiable to spend the money.

[DPI]

 driftrex said:

alot of personal opinions here but not many that actually have experience.

Yeah, right, cause none of us have ever heard of chinese parts ****ting themselves... :

Don't know where the $2000 turbo came from, i never mentioned one...

I am just pointing out that there are a lot of products coming from china that are total sh1t. They don't care about quality, proper materials or anything, just getting the money in their hand. They are ruthless bastards, i know, i've worked with them, screw thier own sister if theres a profit in it...

I know it, you know it, everyone knows it, so, do some research before buying a chinese product

[driftrex]

 DPI']

[quote name='driftrex said:

alot of personal opinions here but not many that actually have experience.

/quote]

Yeah, right, cause none of us have ever heard of chinese parts ****ting themselves... :

lol we all hear of parts ****ting themselves, most arent chinese either, doesnt make us all experts on the matter, theres no substitue for personal experience which is what wild turkey has asked for here. go read the first post again DPI.

and the $2000 is what it would cost at a minimum to replace a $500 chinese turbo i have with a genuine garrett or whatever.

infact theres quite a few posts here now confirming they have run cheap turbos without huge issues. like i said experience.

[DPI]

According to MY count, thats 4 negative and one positive response from people who actually have had them...

Hmmmm, kind backs up what i was saying huh...

[driftrex]

 DPI said:

According to MY count, thats 4 negative and one positive response from people who actually have had them...

Hmmmm, kind backs up what i was saying huh...

have any of them been massive failures?

come on man theyre $500 turbos i know they aint gonna be perfect but they arent as bad as what you make out. although i agree there is some crap out there.

i will update this once i get mine running.

[Guest boostcut]

i havent had a chineese turbo, but we used to fit them to 13b and 20b engines when i built them. similar in size to a to4z etc. never had problems other than the lack of a lip on the outlet of the compressor housing, thus causing the intercooler piping to pop off.

driftrex? does that count for personal experiance?

the turbo is essentially the same, its just the little details that they dont look at.

[driftrex]

 boostcut said:

i havent had a chineese turbo, but we used to fit them to 13b and 20b engines when i built them. similar in size to a to4z etc. never had problems other than the lack of a lip on the outlet of the compressor housing, thus causing the intercooler piping to pop off.

driftrex? does that count for personal experiance?

the turbo is essentially the same, its just the little details that they dont look at.

haha yes you have fitted them to cars, i class that as experience, good info.

oh and mine has a nice lip on the outlet so i shouldn't have that problem. were they dsr ones that you used or something else?

[dubbedup]

yep I have a $440 turbo fitted to my car and yep as above bit laggy and made in china but it seems to be mint so far, also know of several other people who have put cheap turbos on daily driven cars (some more track orientated) and not one has fucked out, so far out of all the people i know who have put "unnamed Chinese" parts on, only have had 1 external wastegate fail which was replaced under warranty...

have heard thru mates of mates of one turbo failing due to improper oil feed.

[Guest boostcut]

they wernt a dsr or driven performance i dont think, well we didnt buy them off them, i think my boss imported them thru a guy called geoff nicholson at dynopower in tauranga as he found an agent in china for cheap gear, he runs one on his lexus v8 racecar and has had no probs after 3 years of 9000rpm limiters, if anybody knows geoff they will know his passion for high rpm

[driftrex]

 dubbedup said:

yep I have a $440 turbo fitted to my car and yep as above bit laggy and made in china but it seems to be mint so far, also know of several other people who have put cheap turbos on daily driven cars (some more track orientated) and not one has ****ed out, so far out of all the people i know who have put "unnamed Chinese" parts on, only have had 1 external wastegate fail which was replaced under warranty...

have heard thru mates of mates of one turbo failing due to improper oil feed.

sounds like good feedback to me. i have also heard of turbo oil seals going because of improper oil feeds, but thats human error not the turbo itself.

i also have a $170 dsr wastegate on my wrx, has been on there 2 years with no issues at all, and until now that was my sole boost control, no boost solenoid, mbc or ebc.

your running quite a large turbo arent you dubbedup? thats why you have lag, mine will be the same i expect.

[Guest]

I've been inside many china and masterpower turbos. My first thoughts are that they are made from very poor quality metals, the thrust colar and main shaft seem to ware out faster than the bronze bearings. Another thing would be the compressor casting, they just look simple compared to the wheels they were copied from like uniform blade thickness and so on. Another little thing is that they copy the gt35 ball bearing turbo but make it plain bearing, this is no problem but they keep the very short shaft so there is a lot of loading on the bearings with big wheels on each end. Also seen wheel to housing clearance problems out of the box.

All in all they are a piece of junk, i have seen some last but i've seen a lot of totaly flogged ones were a name brand one would still be going strong. Also bearing sizes are all over the place meaning rebuilds are a pain in the but, although most people just get another one but by this time they should have got a real one to start with.

[DPI]

Ahhhh, a voice of reason...

[Guest DMSREX]

Finally a post from someone who's actually pulled them down and looked around inside them, you get what you pay for,

(an old chestnut i know) my wifed used to work for someone who imported lots of Chinese knock-off electrical stuff, great prices but quality was questionable at the very least. Its no different in the auto industry unless of course the Chinese make it under license to the original manufacturer/designer even then there needs to be a close eye kept on what the licensee is doing. Personally i would rather save and get the real thing than cheap imitations, it all comes down to personal choice and expectations.

[Shale]

It's always going to be a case of WHAT sort of Chinese-made goods is in question, no matter the end product. They all flow through the same issues. And it's like this through many parts of the 3rd world and developing world. A company with cheap labour is given a contract to supply genuine goods for a western corporate that wants to make mega bucks (this has been said a few posts back)... but doesn't really care that countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand et al don't have the same strict copyright laws as the West (okay, for the most part they have NONE).

All it takes is an employee, the company itself, or a few samples to sneak out and hey presto. There begins the issues with low quality. Because it's no longer within the limited controls of the original corporate, there's no compulsion to comply. These people work for a pittance; they are going to increase their margin by whatever power is given to them - or whatever power they take.

A fine example of how this all works: go to Vietnam for a few weeks. Use up all your clean clothes. Fail to find a laundromat. Give up and send your clothes in to be professionally washed/drycleaned. Receive wonderfully cleaned, folded clothes. Bugger off to the next country. Look on your scarf, shirt, pants and jacket to find....all the f**king genuine brand labels have been carefully picked off!!

You can guarantee if you bought yourself an expensive pair of Levi jeans that are now missing their label...hundreds of other people are now cursing the Levi brand for shoddy workmanship, not realising for some reason that the 'super cheap' Levis they bought are NOT the genuine article; just a very, very good facsimile from inferior materials.

On that note, I would rather get knock-offs from Vietnam than China; the work ethic is different. Chinese are all about the dollar. ALL about the dollar. Trust me I know this! The Vietnamese need more money as the average wage is $30US a MONTH per capita... but they are a prideful people focused on a good impression and ingenuity. Their knock-offs are often a bit different to the original, complete with engrish, but the uniqueness is often good. Either that, or you'd never know...

Before you throw the arm around and announce, this stuff is Chinese and therefore crap...remember, what kind of Chinese is it? Is it the strictly-controlled original from a company that is too cheap to support their local economy and is essentially employing slave labour, or is it a knockoff thereof? If it's a turbo from a reputable brand, sold through official channels, it may have passed through China. If it's being sold new from an unexpected source, at a surprisingly cheap price... AVOID. You can guarantee the product isn't the original and as thus, doesn't have the same quality control. No two items will be identical and this is a BAD thing.

Like DPI I've dealt with these people a lot, and to top it off I'm halfsies. And I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

[Guest keltik]

Well i guess this boils down to a simple question. Would you be better off buying a Chinese turbo, or rebuilding a used one?

Going to ignore the option of buying a genuine new unit as often they arent available or just cost too much.

[QRAF]

we had 3000 brand new pc come in before i went on holiday top of the line no money spared sort of job all bells in whistles now you'd expect them to turn them on before sending them out or 30 psu stuff out in the post 1100 motherboards were the wrong chipset so the image won't build on them and 4 just won't get past bio's.

i know its not related but it all came from overseas.

it also goes to show that brand new isn't always the best don't get me wrong we sorted it out but it's not going to be fully sorted till the say at least February

I got Oakley sunglasses for christmas they cost 0.50cents to make but she bought them for $200 go figure.

[wildturkey]

its been a great korero on this thread.........all your views and opinions are equally valid and helpful to me as well. So far a few things stand out:

# the consistency of build quality in Chinese turbos varies widely......it still seems to be a case of 'lucky dip'.........some good stories...some

bad

# the perception (accurate or not) that Chinese made turbos are junk, is still strong.......it took the Japanese 20-30 years to turn around a similar

perception of their products.......prolly won't take the Chinese that long but they still have some work to do

# the quality of build materials in the Chinese made turbo seems to be a bit dodgy still .......especially going on what RAC had to say

........always good to have that practical hands on mechanical insight

based on what I'm hearing from you guys..........my preference at this stage is probably to get a TD05 rebuilt to the spec I want .....by a well known turbo rebuilder we all know ......at around about the same cost as the Chinese product.

If you can live with less quality materials and inconsistency in the build........the Chinese built turbos are prolly a good 'value for $$' option..... I'm just not there yet.

Feel free to keep on posting

[Guest boostcut]

wouldnt a td05 cost more to rebuild/modify to the spec you want than an original unit, ive seen some of murches invoices and they start with a $1000

[BC5RA]

 boostcut said:

wouldnt a td05 cost more to rebuild/modify to the spec you want than an original unit, ive seen some of murches invoices and they start with a $1000

You have been misinformed.

[wildturkey]

 boostcut said:

wouldnt a td05 cost more to rebuild/modify to the spec you want than an original unit, ive seen some of murches invoices and they start with a $1000

apparently not........I have a quote from murch.......it's well under $1000

[Guest boostcut]

well it seems i have been missinformed then haha thats good for me too!!! i was trying to keep away from him for the prices but his experteese is excellent. i had dealt with graham clapham from bay turbos before aulthough he was a c0ck sucker his prices were low

[Guest crunchy]

i could post alot more to this but i think RAC has covered the minor points,

and the chinese are the reason for why the planet has seen better days !!!!

and the chinese market isnt where my business operates,and i dont want to try and nor do they effect my customer base around the planet

[nzkaosnz]

well. deja vu (i swear this has been done before), but im going against the grain here

Background:

We manufacture precision machines, ranging from $200k to $5mil, and use components from all across the world, (nz, aus, sweden, US, korea, vietnam, etc etc).

Our parts are both electronic and mechanical parts, both shelf items, and fully customised items.

Now from china, there are parts that you are lucky if they resemble what you asked for.

However, there have been several cases (one part was $20 from the states, and the rubber split if you coughed while holding it. We then sourced an alternative from china, for $4, which i cant break with fingers alone). The US one lasted 100,000 cycles before ripping, the chinese one still was going strong 15mil cycles later.

+1 for china.

Plastic components - got a tool made in nz, $20k, had a second tool manufactured in china for about a 1/3 of that, better machine work done there than here in kiwiland.

Its less the chinese capabilities, and more how well spec'd the drawing/instructions are that you give.

[DPI]

No, in China, it's pretty much luck of the draw...

Your part MAY be maufactured in a proper factory, with qualified machinists and by a company who wishes to make money and gain further orders

...or...

it may be bashed together in someones back shed sweatshop, from inferior materials by a fly by night cowboy who'll skip out once the check clears, leaving his workers out of pocket and the customer holding so much junk!