Imitation Ext. Wastegates
 

anybody using or have used those cheap HKS or Trust imitation
wastegates on Ebay?Crap or bargain?

im using the HKS "stlye" one, and it works fine. when i got it, i took it to a relative who has been doing castings for 15+ years and he was impressed with the overall quality of the casts.

I would be more worried about the internals. But I am curious about the quality of the knockoffs. It does however worry my about one of those knock offs failling and popping a motor. That could be a big price to pay trying to save a little money. My 2 cents.

if i knew someone with a "real' version i would compare the two, but alas, i dont know of anyone. eh, ill see what happenes. im taking to my friend whoes an electrical engineer to see if he can make a small device that kills the ignition if the boost creeps 2 or so psi past the tuned for level.

boost cut! yey

I have the HKS 60mm v-band imitation, quality is pretty damn good but haven't used it. yet.


If it was going on a rotary I'd change to an actual hks spring.

guess not many here using the knock offs.Thanks for the replies.Any more thats actually using them, just curious with the really low price and if they actually work

The main issue with the knock-offs is of the quality of the internals. Being that the wastegate is technically a part of the exhaust system, and exposed to tremendous heat, inferior materials may cause many problems - a blown motor may be one.

If you take apart a wastegate, the "plunger" moves up and down, which serves the function of bleeding exhaust gas. This plunger moves up and down through a sleeve, which is usually some sort of metal. If cheap material is used to make this sleeve, and the tolerances are not so great, the heat may cause this sleeve to swell. This in turn may bind the plunger. If you are lucky enough, this may happen under boost, wastegate doesnt function, uncontrollable boost builds, and you all know the rest ....

Cut corners in one place, you are bound to suffer the consequences elsewhere ..

I have the ssautocrome HKS superstandar imitation , I have been use it for 6 moths and I take it off and it was perfect.

I have been use it with a original HKS 6psi spring , cause it cames with a 14psi spring from the SSautcrome.

Inspecting it when it is cold and off the car will show nothing really. It's when it's hot that counts. Cheap metals can expand and cause binding. Who knows. I can just be rambling on about nothing. I would go with what works, time and time again, and under the most severe of conditions - Tial

i could find out what the metal used in the imation is and compare it to the HKS one, but that would require

1) a real HKS one (which then i wouldnt bother doing this if it had one)
2) my to not be lazy.

or i could find out what material they use in just the imiation and see what the properties of the materials used is.

Spring, and Diaphram material quality.. ??

I've been using the SSautochrome 50mm HKS style one for the last 2 months, it has seen over 5000kms and no problems. At first I had a 1.1 bar spring in there (16 psi) and it would creep to 18 in fourth gear. Now I have a 10 psi spring in there and it works fine. It's seen leaded avgas as well.

I will never go with knockoff stuff on something as important as a wastegate. It may work great the first 1000 times, but if it fails on the 1001th time, your motor is trashed.

15,000kms on a cheap HKS 50mm knockoff and it was still going strong.
However, I've just ripped it out and put a real HKS GT2 60mm in.. rather be safe than sorry!

i was worried about having to spend around $400-$500 on a 'proper' wastegate... instead of going with an ebay knockoff,...

but then one day, it hit me, that my microtech has a boost cut... :) so i cant overboost...

ahhhh the wonders of standalones :icon_tup:

as far as the units themselves, i know lots of people running them locally, especially my tuner, who is making 400whp in his street fc..(same range ill be at with mine)

hope the post helped..

cheers,Dan.