A 94 RX7 that I am seriously considering buying has 112k miles on the original turbos and there is oil moisture starting to form on the turbos so they will need a rebuild soon. The seller has agreed to reduce the price about $1000 and he had an estimate for about $670 to do a rebuild on the stock turbos. I have a friend who works for Protech in Austin and he says he recently did a rebuild on stock turbos and it had a price tag of $1300 (had to replace O-rings, etc). Apparently when rebuilding turbos its not JUST the units themselves that need work and it can obviously vary between jobs.

Anyway, what cost range is typical in a rebuild of the stock turbos? If I did upgrade the stock turbos I would probably just go with the Efinis because this is going to be an almost daily driver - I dont want a 550 hp single turbo set up. What kind of costs are associated with an upgrade to efini turbos? Sequential or simultaneous set up effect price?

Pros/cons of sequential vs simultaneous? The current turbos are already set for simultaneous. I am going to test drive it next weekend.

Emissions are also very important. I live in DFW.

 

Rebuilt stock turbos are a high risk investment. Very few actually turn out well and last a long time. You are more likely better off buying a used lower mileage set or just going with new turbos. If you want to go with new turbos, Rotary Performance (www.rx7.com) has them for a good price.

 

The kits to rebuild the stock turbos run about $150 per turbo (so about $300 for the parts to rebuild both stock turbos from TurboCity). The other problem can be the manifold if it has bad cracks. I know people who have had the turbos rebuilt successfully. The key is to get the turbos balanced. Most people just get the rebuilt kit, rebuild them, and stick them in the car. They are out of balance and end up failing very quickly. TurboCity is one place that will rebuild, blueprint and balance the turbos for about $1000 total.

They bolt right up. The only costs are just buying the turbos and the cost for installation.

 

I personally had my turbos rebuilt by Turbo City (via Mazdatrix) around 40k miles and I'm at 50k miles now with no problems (been about 4 years too). At this point I feel like they've reached a steady state and sholdn't fail anytime soon, but I've also heard of sets from them failing rather quickly too. If I were you, with that many miles, I would go for a new set. The manifolds are probably pretty badly cracked after that many miles and that shortens the life of the rebuild.

 

Yeah I think I am going to go with Efinis or BNRs. My goal is to keep the 7 close to stock, reliable, and with a little more power. It already has a downpipe and boost controller. I dont want to have to bump the car up into needing a new ECU, fuel pump, etc by jacking the HP way up.

I talked to Gotham Racing today and they said they dont do rebuilds on stock turbos for the very reasons listed above. As many know, they wont do a job unless they will be satisfied with the outcome.