Ebay Turbo Kit

[smithboy76908]

-Cheap
-Reliable
-Fast

^You can only have two of the three at once. I wouldn't use a cheap chinese made, sand casted, ebay turbo kit if someone paid me to. A buddy of mine picked up one of these cheap ebay turbos for free a while back. After some sanding to the turbo housing, he found the casting to be porous and guess what was packed in the pores... sand! They had cast it with sand. Imagine that being blown into your engine. Last I heard, he was going to find a kiln that would go to 3,600*F in hopes of making a glass turbo of the sand casting... which I think would be pretty cool actually but of course as an ornament on a shelf.

Here's why I think the cheap ebay turbo kits are complete junk.

1) Cheap oil line fittings. Yes, they are NOT Earl's, Russell, Aero, or XPR. They are extremely poorly manufactured. I have held these side-by-side with the real deal and it's scary. The machining is horrible and not straight and these WILL leak and WILL cause your turbo to fail.

2) Crappy couplers. I bought a single coupler from eBay to compare with Brand Name 5 layer silicone couplers. I think the layers are non existent as these look like a single rubber piece. Good luck trying to add boost and having one of these blow off or apart.

3) Crappy, fake, unreliable turbo. The turbo is no-name. No specs are given, ever. Just a bunch of supposed specs without any flow rates, dyno's, etc. It is cheap and will fail, guaranteed. It will not spool NOR make good power NOR be reliable.

4) Knockoff Wastegates and Blowoff Valves. Some say these are fine to be cheap on, esp the BOV. If you buy a cheap fake BOV or WG and spend thousands on a kit, why cheap out now and get inferior products? What is another $100 when you've spent $3-4,000? Get a real WG and BOV and save yourself from problems later on when these fail.

5) Crappy intercooler. Some will say the intercooler is great. How do you know this? Do you have a picture of the intercooler from the inside of the hose end connectors to show how the fins are arranged to actually show it will flow and cool? You don't, nor do they ever show these pics, nor post how efficient the intercoolers are.

6) Intercooler piping is universal and won't fit. None of the pipes will fit your Accord. They are pre-made sizes. You will have to spend hundreds to make them fit and you'll more than likely need more piping.

7) Oil (feed) lines are crappy. I've had one of these fake ones. It's scary. Not flexible at all, very long and will not fit well or look good. The connector ends are cheap and just like the hose fittings, horrible cast and WILL LEAK. The line ends are also crimp so there is no way to shorten the line if need be. You will have to make your own line to have a proper one.

8) No oil return. How are you going to return the oil to the oil pan or block? You don't have an oil pan with a bung nor taps for the block to make one.

9) Gauges are completely crappy. No brand gauges. I wouldn't trust these to be accurate, look good or perform in any way shape or form.

10) Downpipe sucks. All of the parts are mild steel. They WILL crack. That nice silver shine will go away fast.

11) Oil catch can is a joke. No baffle, nor will they tell you info on it. If it has a "baffle" it will consist of a sponge inside the car. Really now, a sponge?

There is more but that's it for now!!

If the turbo fails, you've lost your engine. The money you would save buying this kit would be made up for when you would have to rebuild your engine.

[stretch JDM]

^ this is all true . a friend of mine and a decent mach. put a e-bay no name turbo on his car and lol it stays messed up . the kit has low grade parts and it only looks to be a good deal.DSM all the way on a budget build.

[93blackcb7]

nice!!!!!!! ive always heard knock off brand turbos can be crappy but it should last awile

[Joey GT-R]

If you save another 500 you can get the Treadstone or Vecco kits. Which is 100% high quality parts. You're already prepared to spend a G spend it right. Also check classifieds there are 2 very nice sets being sold for less than 1500 I believe.

[rexload]

-Cheap
-Reliable
-Fast

^You can only have two of the three at once. I wouldn't use a cheap chinese made, sand casted, ebay turbo kit if someone paid me to. A buddy of mine picked up one of these cheap ebay turbos for free a while back. After some sanding to the turbo housing, he found the casting to be porous and guess what was packed in the pores... sand! They had cast it with sand. Imagine that being blown into your engine. Last I heard, he was going to find a kiln that would go to 3,600*F in hopes of making a glass turbo of the sand casting... which I think would be pretty cool actually but of course as an ornament on a shelf.

Here's why I think the cheap ebay turbo kits are complete junk.

1) Cheap oil line fittings. Yes, they are NOT Earl's, Russell, Aero, or XPR. They are extremely poorly manufactured. I have held these side-by-side with the real deal and it's scary. The machining is horrible and not straight and these WILL leak and WILL cause your turbo to fail.

2) Crappy couplers. I bought a single coupler from eBay to compare with Brand Name 5 layer silicone couplers. I think the layers are non existent as these look like a single rubber piece. Good luck trying to add boost and having one of these blow off or apart.

3) Crappy, fake, unreliable turbo. The turbo is no-name. No specs are given, ever. Just a bunch of supposed specs without any flow rates, dyno's, etc. It is cheap and will fail, guaranteed. It will not spool NOR make good power NOR be reliable.

4) Knockoff Wastegates and Blowoff Valves. Some say these are fine to be cheap on, esp the BOV. If you buy a cheap fake BOV or WG and spend thousands on a kit, why cheap out now and get inferior products? What is another $100 when you've spent $3-4,000? Get a real WG and BOV and save yourself from problems later on when these fail.

5) Crappy intercooler. Some will say the intercooler is great. How do you know this? Do you have a picture of the intercooler from the inside of the hose end connectors to show how the fins are arranged to actually show it will flow and cool? You don't, nor do they ever show these pics, nor post how efficient the intercoolers are.

6) Intercooler piping is universal and won't fit. None of the pipes will fit your Accord. They are pre-made sizes. You will have to spend hundreds to make them fit and you'll more than likely need more piping.

7) Oil (feed) lines are crappy. I've had one of these fake ones. It's scary. Not flexible at all, very long and will not fit well or look good. The connector ends are cheap and just like the hose fittings, horrible cast and WILL LEAK. The line ends are also crimp so there is no way to shorten the line if need be. You will have to make your own line to have a proper one.

8) No oil return. How are you going to return the oil to the oil pan or block? You don't have an oil pan with a bung nor taps for the block to make one.

9) Gauges are completely crappy. No brand gauges. I wouldn't trust these to be accurate, look good or perform in any way shape or form.

10) Downpipe sucks. All of the parts are mild steel. They WILL crack. That nice silver shine will go away fast.

11) Oil catch can is a joke. No baffle, nor will they tell you info on it. If it has a "baffle" it will consist of a sponge inside the car. Really now, a sponge?

There is more but that's it for now!!

If the turbo fails, you've lost your engine. The money you would save buying this kit would be made up for when you would have to rebuild your engine.

No offense... but some of this is complete bullshit.

1.The oil lines are cheap but they do NOT leak and they will last for a few years at least. I speak from experience here.
Also, most people run the $80 Stealthmode Performance oil line kit anyway, which is very good quality.

2. Any cheap ebay coupler will work just fine... even home depot couplers will work for most people. I have never seen any coupler "blow apart"

3. They do specify the measurement of the turbos. And even if they do not, most of them are replicas of brand name turbos so you know the ballpark figure of the specs. You can take them apart and measure to find out the exact specs. It is complete bullshit that these turbos "don't spool" and don't make power and/or are unreliable. They are very reliable and make power just fine. Sometimes they need some fine tuning, but guess what? Name brand turbos also fail sometimes.
Also Garrett parts work in these turbos. Take one apart, take the turbine housing to a machine shop, put Garrett seals in it and you've got a turbo that will perform maybe just a TAD worse than a real one... BUT it will cost you $500 less.
Also, most ebay turbos you don't even need to do anything with. I am running one and I did take it apart to inspect, but I didn't change anything on it. It is 100% stock and works just fine. Running the car daily. It is fine for my power goals (not planning on running over 400hp in a FWD econobox)

4. Some cheap BOVs are junk, I agree here. They need too much fine tuning/rebuilding to work properly. However, I am running a $50 wastegate and it works just fine. The boost is very stable and I've been running it for over a year and a half.

5. An intercooler is an intercooler. Not rocket science. The ONLY difference is size.

6. The piping will not fit an Accord but guess what? There are NO piping kits that will fit an Accord so we have to work with what is available. Not that complicated to cut a few pipes and get creative.



I agree about cheap gauges. They SUCK.



I don't agree about oil catch cans being junk. A catch can is a catch can! They are all just a can. You can use a freaking soda can and it will do the job just as efficiently AS LONG AS your catch can is setup properly.



I do NOT agree with the statement that "if the turbo fails, you've lost your engine" Everybody who hates on cheap turbos says that.
Let's thing logically. If a turbo fails, you don't make as much power as you should. That's it. Your engine DOES NOT blow in that case.
The WORST thing that could happen to a cheap turbo is if it keeps blowing seals. It will need a rebuild by somebody who knows what they are doing. That's all. Not rocket science.
I've even heard people claim that cheap turbos explode and pieces get "sucked into the engine" yet I have never seen any pictures of anything like that happening PLUS it is VERY unlikely that these "pieces" would get through the intercooler and make it all the way into the engine when you aren't building any boost.

Anyway, no offense but I love Chinese turbos.

[rexload]

If you save another 500 you can get the Treadstone or Vecco kits. Which is 100% high quality parts. You're already prepared to spend a G spend it right. Also check classifieds there are 2 very nice sets being sold for less than 1500 I believe.

Do you think Treadstone and Vecco make the parts themselves? It is all China made...

[rexload]

^ this is all true . a friend of mine and a decent mach. put a e-bay no name turbo on his car and lol it stays messed up . the kit has low grade parts and it only looks to be a good deal.DSM all the way on a budget build.

What exactly is messed up?

When somebody says "I put an ebay turbo on my car and it isn't running right, ebay sucks" - it is clear that something else is wrong here when they don't specify what exactly is wrong. The car is either tuned incorrectly or something is installed incorrectly or it is completely unrelated to the turbo install.

[Joey GT-R]

Excellent points actually. But there's nothing like chinese parts with a warranty!!!! LMAO. You know it's funny, everything in the free world is made in china but when it comes to automotive parts, we start getting angry, lol.

[stretch JDM]

What exactly is messed up?

When somebody says "I put an ebay turbo on my car and it isn't running right, ebay sucks" - it is clear that something else is wrong here when they don't specify what exactly is wrong. The car is either tuned incorrectly or something is installed incorrectly or it is completely unrelated to the turbo install.

the cheap turbo has broken the internals , the manifold cracked and the last time the head gasket blew too bits.he had the car running good for about two weeks. not a good deal to me .this is his second turbo car.first e-bay no name set up.

[smithboy76908]

My posts were from experience with other people's cars. I've seen the cheap oil lines leak, I've seen the crappy intercoolers causing 2,3, and even 4psi loss and not cooling like they should, and I've seen turbos come apart sending parts of the fins through the piping, making it through the intercooler cause the fragments were small enough and he was in boost, and the fragments got caught in the piston rings and scared the walls. He had tons of blow by and compression loss. He had to have the intercooler re-welded after the horrible welds at the tanks was causing a vacuum leak.

Again... Cheap, Reliable, Fast... you can only 2 of the 3.

If you like chinese turbos then that's your choice but I refuse to support a knockoff company that has reverse engineered someone else's R&D and done a crappy job of it at that. As far as an intercooler being an intercooler no matter what, do some research and you will find that that is far from the truth.

[alb_accord]

No offense... but some of this is complete bullshit.

1.The oil lines are cheap but they do NOT leak and they will last for a few years at least. I speak from experience here.
Also, most people run the $80 Stealthmode Performance oil line kit anyway, which is very good quality.

2. Any cheap ebay coupler will work just fine... even home depot couplers will work for most people. I have never seen any coupler "blow apart"

3. They do specify the measurement of the turbos. And even if they do not, most of them are replicas of brand name turbos so you know the ballpark figure of the specs. You can take them apart and measure to find out the exact specs. It is complete bullshit that these turbos "don't spool" and don't make power and/or are unreliable. They are very reliable and make power just fine. Sometimes they need some fine tuning, but guess what? Name brand turbos also fail sometimes.
Also Garrett parts work in these turbos. Take one apart, take the turbine housing to a machine shop, put Garrett seals in it and you've got a turbo that will perform maybe just a TAD worse than a real one... BUT it will cost you $500 less.
Also, most ebay turbos you don't even need to do anything with. I am running one and I did take it apart to inspect, but I didn't change anything on it. It is 100% stock and works just fine. Running the car daily. It is fine for my power goals (not planning on running over 400hp in a FWD econobox)

4. Some cheap BOVs are junk, I agree here. They need too much fine tuning/rebuilding to work properly. However, I am running a $50 wastegate and it works just fine. The boost is very stable and I've been running it for over a year and a half.

5. An intercooler is an intercooler. Not rocket science. The ONLY difference is size.

6. The piping will not fit an Accord but guess what? There are NO piping kits that will fit an Accord so we have to work with what is available. Not that complicated to cut a few pipes and get creative.



I agree about cheap gauges. They SUCK.



I don't agree about oil catch cans being junk. A catch can is a catch can! They are all just a can. You can use a freaking soda can and it will do the job just as efficiently AS LONG AS your catch can is setup properly.



I do NOT agree with the statement that "if the turbo fails, you've lost your engine" Everybody who hates on cheap turbos says that.
Let's thing logically. If a turbo fails, you don't make as much power as you should. That's it. Your engine DOES NOT blow in that case.
The WORST thing that could happen to a cheap turbo is if it keeps blowing seals. It will need a rebuild by somebody who knows what they are doing. That's all. Not rocket science.
I've even heard people claim that cheap turbos explode and pieces get "sucked into the engine" yet I have never seen any pictures of anything like that happening PLUS it is VERY unlikely that these "pieces" would get through the intercooler and make it all the way into the engine when you aren't building any boost.

Anyway, no offense but I love Chinese turbos.

preach brother preach..... lol. i also know a few guys around here that are running f22a in their civiic. they are running turbo kits that they bought on ebay. it's been 2 years or more and the turbo kits they bought are fine.

ps. people bitched and complained about these turbos because they were not running an oil restrictor on them. and the others have no experience what so ever with these turbos, they just like to talk shit about them.

bottom line, there are plenty of turbo kits out there that are very good quality that you can buy for $600 or $700 more. just do the math and make a good decision.

[deevergote]

Treadstone uses a brand-name turbo, last I heard.


Anyway, yes, if a turbo fails, you MIGHT not lose your engine. You probably won't. Unless it breaks into pieces and those pieces find their way into your engine. It's unlikely, but I've seen it happen.

The wastegate is something I'd worry about. If that fails, chances are good you WILL blow your engine.



Basically, if you have to ask, you need to do more research. If you don't know enough to determine what parts are safe to use, then you don't know enough to install a turbo system on your car and have it be reliable. Posting on a forum does not constitute research, because unless you know enough to know which statements are valid and which are complete crap, you could easily be misled. Of all the people that replied in this thread, only a handful actually have experience...
I am not one of them.