Our engineers have been very busy designing and implementing a Gen 2 turbo kit for Stages 1 & 2 that takes advantage of "ball bearing" and liquid cooled turbos. Here are the surprising results...
Goal:
The goal of this project was to see if we could pick up even more low end torque while still maintaining the incredibly smooth and powerful top end by utilizing Garrett's latest ball-bearing and wheel technologies. We also wanted to switch to a water cooled turbo for better heat dissipation inside the bearings. Our hope was that we could make our Gen 1 & 2 turbo kits even better with a fairly minimal $350 increase in price and utilize a ball-bearing turbo that could possibly out-last a journal bearing turbo.
Testing:
The first turbo we tried was the exact replacement turbo for the journal bearing 67 using the S-cover. We were excited because this turbo was supposed to be identical in every way except the center section and was supposed to outperform the journal bearing 67 we had been using in all of our kits so far. We then designed a new oil feed, water feed and return lines as well as a junction block to get the coolant back into the motor. We then installed and tested this new turbo on a customer's M3. We put this M3 on a dyno and noticed that it spooled ever so slightly faster (100rpm) but lost 25rwhp!
As this customer's M3 had never been dynoed with our turbo kit we weren't sure if it was the car itself or the turbo. After a day or two of testing other factors we determined that the best way to determine the cause was to try another ball-bearing turbo on another M3.
The next test was done on another M3 that had been dynoed before with a journal bearing turbo so we could compare the results. We built another set of coolant and feed lines and installed "another new" ballbearing turbo on "another" M3. After testing, this car was also down 25rwhp at the big end compared to the standard turbo. We then overlayed the graphs and worked with the manufacturer to determine why these new ball-bearing turbos are underperforming their journal bearing counterparts. The first thing our techs noticed was that the turbine wheel on the ball-bearing turbo had one more fin than the journal bearing turbo which could have restricted top end flow.
The manufacturer advised us that there's an even newer gen 3 turbine wheel, exhaust housing and wheel from Garrett that we could use that would make more power. So we overnighted a 3rd ball-bearing turbo with a newer exhaust housing, built another oil feed line, coolant lines and junction block and installed it on a 3rd M3 in our shop to further verify the results among different cars. After several more hours of labor and another $1000 worth of more turbo parts, we found this turbo to also make less power by around 25rwhp.
Results:
The 67 series of journal bearing turbos we're running are already outperforming all Garrett ballbearing turbos within the same size constraints even though the claims suggest otherwise. We're not going to release a Gen 2 kit that's going to underperform our existing Gen 1 kits and cost more. This was an exercise in futility, but atleast we learned something and I wanted to share the results with everyone.
So now we have 3 M3's in our shop that we're taking out all of our new feed and coolant lines, removing these new turbos and installing our standard journal bearing turbos which will be done later this week. The manufacturer is allowing us to return all of the test turbos and get credit towards more journal bearing turbos.
During this process we implemented two more processes to protect the journal bearing turbos on all of our kits (one to eliminate back-fires at the rev-limiter, and one to leave the oil pump running for 3 seconds after the vehicle shuts off scavenging all oil out of the turbo while it is still hot). One is a simple resistor swap and the other is a simple EMS reflash. We believe these changes will allow journal bearing turbos to last the lifetime of the car. If you have our turbo kit and hear backfires when you hit the rev-limiter, let us know and we'll send you the new resistor, and can reflash your EMS to leave the oil pump running for 3 seconds.
We're always trying to improve on our products, and have been relentlous in our pursuit of perfection. If anyone has any suggestions about our turbo kits or other products they would like us to bring to market, feel free to let us know. We'll continue to stay on the leading edge of technology and will continue to support the BMW community.
Take care,
Chris
Goal:
The goal of this project was to see if we could pick up even more low end torque while still maintaining the incredibly smooth and powerful top end by utilizing Garrett's latest ball-bearing and wheel technologies. We also wanted to switch to a water cooled turbo for better heat dissipation inside the bearings. Our hope was that we could make our Gen 1 & 2 turbo kits even better with a fairly minimal $350 increase in price and utilize a ball-bearing turbo that could possibly out-last a journal bearing turbo.
Testing:
The first turbo we tried was the exact replacement turbo for the journal bearing 67 using the S-cover. We were excited because this turbo was supposed to be identical in every way except the center section and was supposed to outperform the journal bearing 67 we had been using in all of our kits so far. We then designed a new oil feed, water feed and return lines as well as a junction block to get the coolant back into the motor. We then installed and tested this new turbo on a customer's M3. We put this M3 on a dyno and noticed that it spooled ever so slightly faster (100rpm) but lost 25rwhp!
As this customer's M3 had never been dynoed with our turbo kit we weren't sure if it was the car itself or the turbo. After a day or two of testing other factors we determined that the best way to determine the cause was to try another ball-bearing turbo on another M3.
The next test was done on another M3 that had been dynoed before with a journal bearing turbo so we could compare the results. We built another set of coolant and feed lines and installed "another new" ballbearing turbo on "another" M3. After testing, this car was also down 25rwhp at the big end compared to the standard turbo. We then overlayed the graphs and worked with the manufacturer to determine why these new ball-bearing turbos are underperforming their journal bearing counterparts. The first thing our techs noticed was that the turbine wheel on the ball-bearing turbo had one more fin than the journal bearing turbo which could have restricted top end flow.
The manufacturer advised us that there's an even newer gen 3 turbine wheel, exhaust housing and wheel from Garrett that we could use that would make more power. So we overnighted a 3rd ball-bearing turbo with a newer exhaust housing, built another oil feed line, coolant lines and junction block and installed it on a 3rd M3 in our shop to further verify the results among different cars. After several more hours of labor and another $1000 worth of more turbo parts, we found this turbo to also make less power by around 25rwhp.
Results:
The 67 series of journal bearing turbos we're running are already outperforming all Garrett ballbearing turbos within the same size constraints even though the claims suggest otherwise. We're not going to release a Gen 2 kit that's going to underperform our existing Gen 1 kits and cost more. This was an exercise in futility, but atleast we learned something and I wanted to share the results with everyone.
So now we have 3 M3's in our shop that we're taking out all of our new feed and coolant lines, removing these new turbos and installing our standard journal bearing turbos which will be done later this week. The manufacturer is allowing us to return all of the test turbos and get credit towards more journal bearing turbos.
During this process we implemented two more processes to protect the journal bearing turbos on all of our kits (one to eliminate back-fires at the rev-limiter, and one to leave the oil pump running for 3 seconds after the vehicle shuts off scavenging all oil out of the turbo while it is still hot). One is a simple resistor swap and the other is a simple EMS reflash. We believe these changes will allow journal bearing turbos to last the lifetime of the car. If you have our turbo kit and hear backfires when you hit the rev-limiter, let us know and we'll send you the new resistor, and can reflash your EMS to leave the oil pump running for 3 seconds.
We're always trying to improve on our products, and have been relentlous in our pursuit of perfection. If anyone has any suggestions about our turbo kits or other products they would like us to bring to market, feel free to let us know. We'll continue to stay on the leading edge of technology and will continue to support the BMW community.
Take care,
Chris
