DavidDeco

For what it's worth, my turbos went the other week and they put "rebuilt" ones back on. I was out of the country and received a phone call that basically said "the new ones blew after about 2 miles of a road run". They put another set on. (hey for no charge - imagine that...) Got it back today. Haven't boosted past 8 yet (will test run tonight after traffic dies).

I paid $1300 for the turbos plus the labor was another $300. I just got back last night and picked the car up this morning. We'll see how long they last.

I wish I would have read this thread before and picked up the '99 spec new ones while I was out of town for awhile. We'll see....

Toddzilla

How much are the 99 spec turbos? If new turbos are, in fact, $3000, it seems to make sense to just ditch twins and go with a single.

Nathan Kwok

Well, I have a rebuilt set done through Mazdatrix, which I think contracts out to Turbo City, and its been about 14 months now and they're still working perfectly, so I guess they're not all bad. Only put on 4000 miles or so, but hopefully they'll last. The first set only lasted 39,000 miles , but I had a boost leak which I think killed them by overspinning them.

redrotorR1

Actually, it appears that it can be cheaper to go with the '99 turbos than buying new turbos from Mazda USA. The '99 turbos can be had for close to $3000 ... Mazda USA will charge you at least $3500 for new turbos; which will be non-RS/RZ turbos. As far as ditching the twins, that really depends on what you want out of the car.

DavidDeco

Precisely....myself, I'm just not ready to give up on the twins until I get the rest running smooth and benchmark my performance.

I also have a difficulty going single. Maybe I'll get over it but it seems half way to going non-rotary. I'm sure I'll eat those words but I like the twin concept and want to see if I can make it work for my purposes. It's truer to the car's concept (oooohhh, here come the flames...)

SPOautos

Most of the time the reason these rebuilds are not lasting is because of 2 things. One, the carbon seals are getting hard to find and some vendors use crapy ones or if your look "ok' they just re use them. Two, they reuse the bearing housing a lot of the time which is probably a pile of ****.

And just to add one more, there are a lot of shops in the US that dont take thier time, they slop thru the turbo and build a pile of crap

This is one of the main reasons BNR doesnt sub out like 95% of all the other shops and also why he is working on a replacement for the carbon seal. Hopefully in the next month or so he's going to be done with some bad *** turbos!!!! BTW - I'll tell you guys how they are as he is going to test them with my car!!!! I cant wait, I guess someone had to be the guinee pig lol I've been checking out the prototypes and lets just say they look pretty damn sweet so far!!!!!

STEPHEN

rynberg

Well, I think you are leaving out some "hidden" costs of going single but the cost isn't really the point. I don't want to go single or non-sequential because I like having low-end torque. I like the fact that I get full boost by 2800 or so in gears 1-3 and by 2000 rpm or so in 4th and 5th.

I think some FD owners get caught up in the horsepower game instead of considering what is actually more FUN to drive. Sure the single is great on the highway or track but for normal street driving?

kwikrx7

I know you can play with the tuning of single turbos to get them spooling quick but even the smallest of the decent single upgrades for the FD doesn't see full boost by 3500 rpms in 4th gear. Non-seq gets full boost at 3500-3700 rpms in 3rd and 4th gears but more like 5K rpms in 1st and 2nd gears. 5th gear seems worthless with a single or non-seq. A true healthy modified sequential FD is the funnest car on the planet to drive. Especially with upgraded twins.
BNR is close to big success with his turbos when he gets his project turbos rolling. Once he gets some dyno sheets (mine should be in a few weeks - going back to sequential) he'll be making a lot of FD owners happy.
The M2 Garett cartridges seem like the other route to go for the ultimate street FD. Full boost by 2800 rpms with the potential of those turbos sounds great. They need to work on a warranty though for the price. But from what artguy has experienced with them, they would be a great alternative to going single.
Single turbos involve a lot more than just slapping on the turbo and going - much larger injectors with fuel rail, front mount (most), FPR, and other odds and ends add up let alone the tuning. It's more reliable as far as boost issues but too laggy for town driving.

JspecFD

iTrader: (2)

The reason it didn't work is because you put bad links for the source address. If you check your links, you'll note that they start off with http://http:// which is invalid. Your new turbos look good! This is how you would properly link the pic:

redrotorR1

David, be careful with your rebuilt twins when you get your car back. If you even smell a hint of burning oil from the engine bay or the passenger compartment, I would take them back. As Stephen pointed out, the rebuilds are generally coming back crappy from everyone. Also, a new thing that some turbo shops are trying is using a TD25 Garrett cartridge with a piston ring as a dynamic seal ... much more reliable design for the HT-12 setup. For your modded setup, this might be right up your alley.

mjw

iTrader: (1)

You may be right on this point, and not having a single turbo I can't really supply any concrete info to discredit your claim (so why go on you ask? ). It seems to me that a nice little BB TO4E could easily spool to 15psi by 3500 rpm, especially in 4th gear.. the lower gears would be a different story I know. I had a 60trim TO4E on an I6 motor before and that thing would spool by 3500 rpm with no problem in 4th gear, given the high exhaust velocity of a rotary couldn't it match that sort of behavior? What about the guys with the RX-6 turbos, they seem to get very fast spool times..

I agree with your last statement regarding the twins, I have no plans to go non-sequential for that reason alone.

Matt

artguy

the m2 twins are worth the money. but they are garrett gt30 ballistics not the td25s as stated above

Toddzilla

Personally, I'd like to simplify my car as much as possible for street/open track/drag. I'm used to turbo cars spooling at 3500 rpm. When I got my FD, it was almost freakish how quickly it spooled. As soon as I get it back from the body shop I am going non sequential.