Building a budget Hybrid Turbo - Ebay T04 parts
 

I know I cant be the only one who thought about this. I recall reading in some old threads about guys building their own hybrids.

Figure with an ebay turbo, you would rip it apart anyways, so you could inspect the parts and make judgment on the quality and if they will work.

If you know what you're getting into then I'm all for it. It's always fun to see how ebay builds turn up. It's not for the faint of heart though.

If i had the funds I would do this.. in theory it sounds easy.. just adapt the stock hotside housing to the t04e, Im thinking you just need to shave it up a little bit to fit around the blades or something.

It is easy...

Just keep the stock turbo from the CHRA back. Rebuilt that and it's good as new. Just as reliable as it ever was.

Then just bolt on the backing plate, blades, and compressor housing. Your good to go. Most smaller eBay turbos will work. Some larger ones. Also Air Research and other Garrett and Garrett knockoffs.

Don't forget to balance it!

Oh, Garrett also makes a bunch of internal wastegate's that work nice on our turbos. You just have to extend the actuator arm a few inchs, And add the bend in the arm if its a S5. Look for the GT25/28 ones.

guess its just a matter of how long will the ebay parts hold up for

Well, air itself isn't going to grenade your compressor wheel. You're keeping the turbine shaft and oem compressor nut.

There isn't really much you can fuck up using the housing and wheel....

Ofcourse, send it off to get balanced. I WOULD NOT use an ebay turbine wheel. Rather just have the stock wheel clipped. Boost response may fall off a bit quicker but you'll have lower pre-turbine backpressure and more upper rpm boost response. You wont really notice it that much. You know, although my car does look ratty, you can hit me up on facebook and ask questions. If i dont know something, i wont try to bullshit like i know.

The only part you would be using from and "eBay" turbo would be the compressor and compressor wheel. They are all pretty good. The just mimic the Garrett stuff. The only low quality stuff are the bearings and clearences in the CHRA. But you just use the TII parts for everything else.

You will have a very reliable hybrid turbo. What do you think a BNR turbo is?

so what would be a good size compressor wheel?

how exactly does one go about balancing a turbo?... is it something that we need to send out and have them done or a DIY type of thing?

I believe you have to send it to s turbo shop. I haven't heard of anyone doing it at home. I believe the equipment is super expensive.

so when you factor in
the ebay turbo
a rebuild kit
your turbo
shipping both ways
balancing
arent you almost at the price a bnr turbo would cost? cause thats what is trying to be accomplished here correct?

^Not really

Use your stock turbo: Free
Compressor and Compressor wheel: $50-$200 (depending on what you want)
Balancing: $20-$100 (depending on where yo go)

I used a compressor and wheel i found on eBay for 50 bucks, used my turbo, and had it balanced for 20 bucks... Cost me a grand total of 70. But that's without rebuilding it. Mine was in good condition still, so i didnt need to.

There should be MANY shops no matter where you live that can balance the turbo. All you need to have is the shaft, turbine blades, and compressor blades. That's it. The turbo it self is not needed for that.

DO NOT do this if you don't know what you are doing. Get a BNR one if you are at all inexperienced with taking apart, and building a turbo. This could prove costly when you assemble it wrong and send metal shards into your motor...

ah! i thought it was going to be a arm leg and first born to balance them and stuff. cool stuff
subscribed

Hyper, I started thinking the same thing when I was looking at rebuilding my turbo. I started educating myself so I could make some educated decisions. But then I found a S5 turbo to replace my bad one and at least temporarily lost interest in learning.

I'm keeping my turbo that needs a rebuild and will eventually come back to this same idea you had. Subscribed! Would love to learn more.

Would this be too big???

Attachment 722534

compressor: exducer 72.9 and inducer 56.2

keep in mind the cheap turbos aren't nearly as efficient as namebrand turbos and the materials they use to make the compressor wheel are inferior. have it professionally balanced also, i wouldn't trust those cheap turbos to be balanced worth a damn.

they may be saving a couple hundred bucks but for an unknown turbo that is going to be less efficient. you could probably buy a used Garrett T04B for about a hundred bucks these days and build your hybrid off of that for the same price for a better turbo.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Used-...Q5fAccessories

sure it's dirty but the compressor wheel and housing can be cleaned up, this is the same type of hybrid my turbo was based off of and made decent power.

other than e-bay is there any other place where i can buy a compressor wheel, specifically a T04b V trim wheel. thanks in advance

yeah, from Garrett and Garrett suppliers.

How will you know that the compressor wheel will use the same shaft size as the stock hitachi unit?

On top of what was posted above, won't some machining may be required to make the backplate of the new compressor fit the Rx7's CHRA?

Garrett T3 turbos all use the same main shaft diameter as the HT-18, as well they use the same thrust bearing and utilize the same bolt pattern and sealing surface area on the HT-18 turbo CHRA. so they are direct bolt together turbos with no machining involved. the only machining that you may do would be if you upgraded the turbine wheel size, in which case the turbine housing would have to be machined out. for example, the T04B i showed a link to, you can literally unbolt the whole front half of that turbo from the CHRA and bolt it directly onto the HT-18.

That's amazing Karack, I never knew that they were so interchangeable. Hell, had I known that, I'd have done that instead of buying the used hybrid that I'm dealing with right now. Used turbos... always a crapshoot. :(

had i know that prior to buying my hybrid garrett i wouldn't have dropped $450 on mine and built it myself. but sometimes you have to pay to learn, i still felt it was a deal though considering BNRs start at about $650 and go up from there.. but all things considered you can buy a used stock turbo in good condition for about $100-150, buy a rebuild kit for another $100 and buy a used TO4 turbo for $100-200, spend another hundred on balancing and you still are coming out way ahead and you'll have some spare parts.

I may start looking into this since my turbo now needs a rebuild.
Is there anywhere I can find the size specs on the original ht-18 compressor wheel? Im looking at some wheels on ebay.

Reading on the bnr site, stage one is just a t04 wheel and the compressor machined to accept it.
Id like to build something capable of 300.

some other useful info i found on another forum