Thread: ebay turbo's....questions and "stuff"

OK....im sure this is a subject topic that has been debated to DEATH. ARE ebay turbos worth using? AND if so, which ones, and what would you be looking for? I know ive been on the loosing side of this arguement with my cheap ass friends for a LONG time. BASICALLY, im looking to see what people with REAL WORLD experiance have found. Im usually a turbonetics guy, or any decent garret, precision, REPUTABLE manufactuarer for that matter. But recently ive been seeing impressive results from friends using ebay "crap". Last year i sold a t25 turboed nx to a friend who decided the t25 was to small.....got an ebay "t28" and the car was SICK. Im afraid i can only use street examples, as he nevr dynoed it, but ive had a gtir setup that couldnt have touched his 225 dollar ebay, boost level to boost level. i think he had it on 17 psi. another friend had a "60 trim" ebay t3/t4 garret knock off on his gsr eg.....car made 303 i think at 11psi. again, car was SICK. now, ive got another friend with a ebay "18g" or "20g" (at this point ive forgotten which" on his 06 subaru(i know, i think hes nuts). so far so good, still waiting on a tune. You get the idea. I personally put together a 1990 m6gt with a ebay 60 trim, and after i was done with the build, the car was VERY fast for the 12 psi i was running. I did have it rebuilt with garret internals , but the guy at the turbo shop i took it to was impressed....said it was great quality for what he was used to seeing (they do commercial accounts, deal with lots of diesel turbos).
I guess what im asking is, ok, fine, i know name brand is what we all want. But if i personally am looking at something like a gt30/gt35 for my nx and feel so inclined, am i nuts? Its hard to find people who actually KNOW. they have oppinions, i want people who have used ebay knock off turbos with good/bad results. shaft quality, bearing quality, compressor quality, bla blabla. hopefully i dont just get bashed for even askin, lol. those fake gt35's look pretty nice. lol.

Do you have to ask?

ok ok ok.....i guess i am a bit nuts, on so many diffrent levels. im ONLY asking because ive seen quiet a few setups like this that worked damn good for street cars. Im JUST asking out of curiousity. Out of PRIDE id probably never use one...if anything just wanted to know the cons for argument purposes?

Really depends. "Chinese" turbines are coming up in quality. Technically, a lot of "chinese" turbines are actually Korean turbines, that you find on Fleabay.

I'd still prefer something with solid quality vs. something you can buy cheaply.

Then again, a Blousch 19T upgrade is less than $400...

Buy it, install it, dyno it and make it last for over a year and you will have an entire forum following. No one on this forum has really done it but most of us know some honda owner that has and we can only base our opinions on someone else's experience. I've seen an ebay turbo blow in less than 300 miles but that was in 2006, we rolled to honda tech last year and the same guy had put an ebay T3/T4 on a different honda, I thought he learned his lesson. However the turbo is still boosting fine 8 months later, only time will tell but at least they are lasting longer these days.

If you look at it from a money only point of view, a brand new GT????R costs $300 on Ebay and a brand new Garrett unit costs about $1200. You could buy 4 Fleabay's and have back up turbo's and extra parts galore once you blow one...

lol.....yeah. i always am worried about the compressor failing and ruining my motor. used to just use random de's, but i have a built det and dont want to trash a nice motor if it does fail. but yes, thats what i was thinking...300 bucks for a claimed ball bearing gt35 knock off seemed interesting to say the least.

I would try it on a stock de, but not a built motor for the same reason. If it holds up on a stocker, than maybe try it on the built motor.

I also have a Honda friend who has used nothing but eBay T3/T04 turbos at $150 a pop and has actually had a very good success rate with them. His last Civic made good power, easily kept up with our SR crowd. He finally saw the light and traded for a GTi-R swapped Classic. He wants to go ball bearing, he said he wants to go name brand this time - but I highly doubt he will lol. I have another friend with a fully built KA and an eBay GT35 - hasn't been fired up yet, but he's got enough trust.

For the price, it may be worth the experiment.

I think I would buy a PTE budget line turbo for like 500.00 first ....just me though

eBay turbos are hit or miss in my opinion . I ran a t3t4 on my 83rx7 for four years and lots of trips down the quarter mile @18psi and no problems at all . On the other hand a neighbor of my girls mother slapped a eBay turbo on his 2000 civic si and it failed with in the first month .