I whined about refurbished turbos and I don’t really like rebuilt/reused/refurbished things unless it is under supervision of Hajes Racing superior machining, repairing and design skills/experience…but there is sure few more masters around but they rarely do it commercially.
After some high speed fun on German Autobahns (highways) my turbo started to whin permanently not just sometimes…it has been caused by my first experiments with engine calibration and I screwed up fuelling in low revs around 1500-1800rpm. It sure sounded great like taking-off chopper and it accelerated like hell but it damaged turbo bearing.
My friend gave me a price quote for a brand new VW Garrett turbo and I wasn’t happy about >1000€ price tag for a new turbo. But it gave me an opportunity to carry on my experiments because I still didn’t have optimal ECU calibration for my engine. I learnt from first mistakes and also wanted to explore durability of refurbished turbochargers.
My friend told me “price about 400€…turbo is refurbished either in Germany or most likely comes straight from Garrett. I’ve already sold some turbos and no returns so far…but you are psychopath and I want you to destroy it if you can.” Who will say no? 😀
Furthermore, I never changed turbocharger on my car Hilda HR I and I wanted to learn more…I’ve done almost everything on my car except some “advanced” stuff on engine…I’m not auto-mechanic 😉 I’m professional “Senior CNC Machinist” and designer…hobby alpinist, extreme athlete, adventurer, photographer, racing driver and car mechanic.
I didn’t want to take engine off despite it would be much easier…I had no time for driving to geometry…it took me three days of swearing 😀 If you don’t how to touch her…I mean Skoda right…you have to use brain and think…if you must think you have no idea what you do…know is do.
I also found some nasty stuff in intake manifold and throttle body caused by wonderful EGR valve…no surprise EGR causes more long term damage than helps.
I just forgot to tighten up one bolt and last 10 minutes was tense…before I discovered it was just EHS. Boy, my brain was flooded by rage that I will have to dismantle the whole thing again…funny feeling 😀
Then we were finally on something with latest engine calibration HR_v5.12 on new turbocharger before previous sub-optimal remaps wreck turbo again.
All gained knowledge was put into guides about how to choose right chiptuner or even better how to learn calibrate your engine by yourself as I did. Because SocNet is full of crap and eExperts…boy they like to talk about what they have no idea about. Always learn from masters.
[…] – due poor calibration and playing with AFR below 18:1…my turbo died and it was caused by changed EGT limiter and AFR below 16:1. Not only DPF was clogged every […]