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My experiment with an eBay turbo build (in progress)

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ebay turbo
101K views 343 replies 58 participants last post by  Tritton 
#1 ·
Well guys I know this is going to be interesting to see the responses I'll get, but here goes nothing. In November I destroyed third gear in my STi and decided to put that car on the backburner to show the Sentra some love. As a result, I've decided to turbo my Spec V aka the daily driver. I know the general consensus on here is that eBay sucks and I accept that. I've had good luck with eBay parts in the past so I've decided to use as many eBay parts as I can. I already have the eBay exhaust and some other parts. I am also planning to reuse my eBay 3" cold air intake as a charge pipe to the throttle body (seen this done many times). I am doing this not only to turbo my own Sentra, but to also help others who may follow this path. My goal is to show that eBay parts can function as they are intended to as long as used properly and their flaws are addressed. Almost all of my research on eBay turbo parts has come from the KA24DE-T community who seem to have good luck with them AND the owners are just as cheap as we are :D. To keep with the original intent of this, I have substituted an eBay part in whenever possible. Let's get started, shall we?

Aside from the Summit Racing and Treadstone parts, everything on the parts list below has been sourced via eBay whether or not they are name brand.

Parts List as of right now:
Innovate Motorsports LC-1 Wideband with DB 52mm red digital gauge - $155.94
Emusa T3/T4 hybrid .50 trim turbo with polished compressor and .63A/R hotside - $149.99
Emusa 38mm 2-bolt flange wastegate (appears to be a Tial knockoff) - $59.58
Emusa RS BOV (obvious Greddy knockoff) - $39.99
Emusa Universal 25"x12"x3" delta fin intercooler - $69.99
eBay cast Sentra QR25DE T3 turbo manifold with 38mm wastegate flange (obvious Treadstone knockoff) - $179.99
3x eBay 2.5" to 3" silicone intercooler couplers (intercooler inlet/outlet to piping) (3@$7.75) - $23.25
1x eBay 2.75" to 3" silicone intercooler coupler (intake to throttle body) - $7.99
2x eBay 3" to 3" silicone intercooler coupler (for replacing rubber couplers on eBay cold air intake) - $13.98
1x eBay 2" to 2.5" silicone intercooler coupler (compressor outlet to piping) - $8.75
eBay 2.5" universal polished aluminum intercooler piping kit w/black couplers and t-bolt clamps - $116.99
2013 Subaru STi 565cc top feed injectors with <10k miles on them - $0 donated by the good folks at Goodspeed Performance here in Scottsdale
AEM FIC-6 (bought this used) - $220
2J-Racing 5 bolt downpipe with wastegate dump tube plumbed back in - $160 via @Nismo062
Treadstone oil feed line (with fittings) - $35.28
Treadstone .065" journal bearing turbo oil restrictor (important to the life of any cheap journal bearing turbo) - $11.55
Treadstone Standard T3/T4 Oil Return Drain Flange -10AN - $15.75
Treadstone Stud Kit (no gaskets) M10 X 1.25 and M8 includes copper lock nuts and washers - $18.00
Auto Meter 1/8" NPT Female to 1/8" BSPT Male fitting (to adapt feed line t-fitting to oil pressure sensor port) (ATM-2269) - $11.97
Summit Racing straight hose end -10 AN hose to female -10 AN aluminum Black Anodized (SUM-220090B) - $8.97
Summit Racing Braided Stainless Steel hose -10 AN 3' Length (SUM-230003) - $19.97
Summit Racing 45 Degree Hose End -10 AN Hose to Female -10 AN Aluminum Black Anodized (SUM-220086B) - $15.97
Summit Racing Straight Male -10 AN to Male 3/8" NPT Aluminum Black Anodized fitting (SUM-220046B) - $5.97

Parts that I already have on the car (some are from previous owner):
eBay/OBX lightweight crank pulley (previous owner installed)
JWT BSR kit (previous owner)
eBay/OBX throttle body spacer (previous owner)
XS-Power 4-1 header & midpipe
eBay 2.5" catback
OBX 14" & 18" resonators
OBX Forza muffler
eBay 3" cold air intake (will be reused as charge pipe)
eBay aluminum radiator with dual eBay 12" electric slim fans

Now for some pictures of the parts. I will preface this by saying I am very impressed with the quality of the Emusa parts and that is why I have chosen them for all of the major parts. I seem to be finding a lot of d-series turbo Hondas, KA24DE-T 240s, V8 guys (LS1Tech), and even some Supra guys using their parts.

All of the Emusa parts came very nicely packaged in black boxes bearing their name and logo. Emusa seems to take pride in their products. This is the wastegate box



The most important part of any turbo kit, the turbo. It is an Emusa T3/T4 hybrid .50 trim with a .63A/R turbine housing. Pretty nice looking unit. Notice that material has been ground off the nuts that hold the compressor and turbine wheels on. These turbos actually come balanced. The shaft spins freely and has 0 play. Seems to be of really nice quality. Time will tell.






Emusa 38mm 2-bolt adjustable wastegate. I've read several good reviews online that these hold boost accurately without creeping etc. Came with several different springs, vacuum fittings, two weld on flanges, gaskets, and a fire ring to put in between the wastegate and flange. I am really impressed that the Emusa logo is laser engraved on the top. I disassembled the wastegate and found no metal shavings as some other reviewers had mentioned. I installed the weakest springs which I believe is supposed to be 4 psi.




Emusa RS BOV. Seems to be the pretty standard eBay Greddy knockoff. I've compared it to regular no-name eBay RS clone BOV and the Emusa seems pretty similar. The machining seems a little nicer on the Emusa unit. Emusa also has a similar mushroom shaped design diaphragm housing on this making it look like the wastegate. In the box it came with some vac line, bolts/nuts, tiny hose clamps, flange, and gasket. The Emusa logo is also laser engraved on top like the wastegate. I plan to recirculate this in the future and have a 1" recirc adapter fitting on the way. I also ordered a better BOV flange because I'm not too impressed with the cast one it came with.



Emusa 25"x12"x3" delta fin intercooler. Seems to be of good build quality. The delta fin design is also a plus. Just like the wastegate and BOV, the intercooler bears the Emusa logo as well. What I find most impressive about the intercooler is that the Emusa logo is actually stamped/embossed onto the top and bottom of the intercooler core. Once again it seems like Emusa is going to pretty great lengths to brand their parts. All in all welds seem okay, core looks nice, and the endtanks are solid enough. I am going for a stealthy look (recirculated BOV/non-dumped wastegate) so I went ahead and painted the intercooler flat black using Rustoleum flat black high temp BBQ grill spray paint. I taped off the inlet/outlet fittings and laid on light coats spraying from an angle as not to paint the inside of the fins.





eBay cast QR25DE turbo manifold. I believe this to be the same manifold that Godspeed sells on eBay, but either Godspeed does not brand their products or this is just another clone of the Treadstone manifold. Flanges seem to be machined flat, but the casting still seems very rough. You can tell only the most minimal of efforts were made to clean up the casting lines. I am going to use my die grinder along with my deburring bits to clean the manifold up on the outside and inside.





AEM FIC-6. I picked this up used via craigslist. Bought it from a mkIV Supra owner who got this in a trade from a fellow Supra owner who pulled it off of his Evo VIII. I have no idea why someone would run this on an Evo as there is a huge Tactrix cable/open source tuning community. Seems to be in great shape and the harness isn't cut to shit which is whats important lol.



That's all for now. Will continue to update this thread as I receive more parts/start installing parts. The intercooler piping kit is supposed to come in today so if it does I plan to start making the intercooler mounting brackets and start figuring out the piping situation.
 
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#13 ·
I'm a pretty thorough person so I wanted the parts list to be thorough as well. Thanks.

someone using cheap parts that is probably going to make the most of it instead of going in half cocked and blaming the parts.
This ^^ I've found a lot of the people that have issues with eBay parts are the people that go into it expecting a $60 wastegate to work as well as a $250 Tial. As long as you have the right expectations going in, you can make the most out of the parts you have.

I have no doubt that the parts will work, but my interest is how long will it work for.
Well that's what we intend to find out, right? :D

hmmm....interesting. If this works im sure many other people will do this.

Seeing as he already did the research on which ebay parts are reliable.
I like the b15u community so this is my opportunity to give back. I figure if it is a success others can use my build path to turbo their own cars............ or if it is a failure we can at least conclude that eBay parts don't work even when given every opportunity to do so. I intend to do this properly.

I have an jnnovate just lying around I would sold you for like 80 bucks...
Tony. Once again, I hate you lol. If you didn't strike me down over the oil feed line, I would have hit you up to see if you had anything on my parts list. Oh well it was only $155.

Nicely written.

I'm curious to see how the ebay stuff holds up.

This has the potential to destroy a very old, longstanding theory about ebay parts (or your motor).


Good luck man. I'll be watching out of curiosity.
My goal is exactly what you stated; to destroy the "all eBay parts are crap" mentality. I'm sure it won't perform as well as a top dollar turbo (like the Precision PTE6466 on my STi) but I am fairly confident it will at least last a few thousand miles on low boost. I only plan to run maybe 8 psi. Thanks.

In the honda world, godspeed/emusa turbos are seen quite a bit. Its hit and miss, some smoke after 5k miles, some have been abused for 50k miles without failure.

Time will tell, I personally love a good budget build. Even if the turbo shits out, the rest of the kit is most likely sound...you would just need a decent turbo.
This is a valid point as well. Even if the turbo were to take a crap, which I highly doubt, I can still just buy a cheap Precision and be done with it. Through my research in the Honda and 240SX communities, I've come to the conclusion that Emusa turbos are more or less an eBay/Godspeed turbo that has been machined more precisely and has also been balanced. A lot of the guys in the Honda community claim that an eBay/Godspeed turbo will hold up to 20+ psi of boost for thousands of miles as long as a .065" oil restrictor is used (to protect the seals from high oil pressure) and as long as the turbo is disassembled and balanced. Emusa clearly already balanced my turbo so I'll just try their balancing.

I've seen a ton of guys put these ebay turbos on cheap race cars, a lot of guys swap a chevy truck motor, toss two of these on it and go kick ass. I dunno about trusting it on a daily, but hopefully you'll have some good luck. Cheap to replace anyways.
I've never been a huge import guy so most of my friends are V8 guys. I am myself a V8 guy really. Hot Rod magazine made the eBay turbo craze on LS1Tech. Once they discovered you could take a junkyard 4.8 and slap an eBay 78mm turbo on it and make crazy power, everyone listened. A lot of the cheap turbo drag car builds use Godspeed or Emusa wastegates even if they use a nice Precision, Turbonetics, etc turbo.

Thats what i was thinking....if you want to upgrade you can do so in stages.

New better turbo, WG, BOV....whatever. The hard parts should be fine
Yep. The only thing I can really foresee as possibly needing to be replaced is the turbo, but I doubt I will have to. Everything seems really nice and solidly built including the turbo. With that being said, I highly doubt the wastegate or BOV will present issues.

Subscribed.
Thanks

Very interesting. I really want too see this works out with someone who did his research and knows lots about turboing a car.
That's my goal. I want to help the community by actually trying the eBay parts and using them PROPERLY. I am not going to hack this together. I do things the right way. One look at the engine bay of my STi will show that.

Don't let the decal fool you the engine bay is all me. They just built the motor :)
 
#5 ·
hmmm....interesting. If this works im sure many other people will do this.

Seeing as he already did the research on which ebay parts are reliable.
 
#7 ·
Nicely written.

I'm curious to see how the ebay stuff holds up.

This has the potential to destroy a very old, longstanding theory about ebay parts (or your motor).


Good luck man. I'll be watching out of curiosity.
 
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#8 ·
In the honda world, godspeed/emusa turbos are seen quite a bit. Its hit and miss, some smoke after 5k miles, some have been abused for 50k miles without failure.

Time will tell, I personally love a good budget build. Even if the turbo shits out, the rest of the kit is most likely sound...you would just need a decent turbo.
 
#10 ·
Thats what i was thinking....if you want to upgrade you can do so in stages.

New better turbo, WG, BOV....whatever. The hard parts should be fine
 
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#14 ·
Just a little update for today. The universal 2.5" intercooler piping kit came in. I am really impressed on the quality of this. The piping is thick and is most definitely solid. The couplers are actually 4-ply which are nicer than the various 3-ply reducer couplers I ordered. Going to hopefully start making the intercooler mount brackets tonight and start running some piping. The snow storms in the midwest/east coast are slowing down all of my shipments so I don't have some of the reducer couplers I need.


 
#15 ·
I think that the main concerns with boosting your car is the wastegate. If that thing goes bad unexpectedly, instead of running 6-8 psi, you could spike to 20 which would then damage/kill your engine.

If your turbo goes, then you get a new one. If your wastegate goes, it could take your engine with it.

The main reason we tell people not to cheap out on certain parts is not due to ' if ' it will work, but more for ' how long will it be reliable '.
We know when to change our fluids and other parts, but no one has any recommendations on when to change your wastegate because it could be warn out.

I am in no way knocking your idea, but I am saying be careful. They are cheap for a reason.
Also, as said earlier, we could buy the same parts and yours could last for 50K miles and mine could die after 2K....:(
 
#16 ·
That's why I have been disassembling the parts to inspect them for any potential failures down the road. I am doing my best to address the weaknesses of parts like this.

On a side note. In all my years around turbocharged cars, I have yet to ever find a wastegate that fails closed. If the diaphragm is damaged/torn, the wastegate will fail open meaning it will at best hit spring pressure boost. Almost every failure on a wastegate will cause it to open prematurely rather than stay closed. The only way I can see this happening is if for some reason the valve itself becomes seized in the guide which I have no idea how that could happen.

Also some more parts came in today. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw my wideband is the new Innovate LC-2 wideband rather than the old LC-1. Also some 3" t-bolt clamps for the cold air intake/charge pipe conversion came in.


 
#17 ·
Glad that someone is trying this out. I've learned from past experience in firearms accessories that cheaper isn't always worse. And although a product may be lower quality than something 3x its price, there is a "good enough" threshold that one needs to consider if what they are using fulfills the needs of the project at hand. Subscribed!
 
#22 ·
That is what I'm after. I have found there is always something better out there, but there is that "good enough" threshold you speak of. We will see.

A guardian angel will fix this potential problem. Stratified Guardian Angel if you're inclined to search and see what it is.
This is just an electronic boost controller right?

Most wastegates are normally closed gates. The spring prevents the gate to be opened until pressure below the diaphragm is past the spring pressure rating. The positive pressure from the turbo will push the diaphragm up against the spring till it opens (thus the spring sits on it and against the top cover). So if a diaphragm gets ripped the spring will keep the gates closed permanently and will cause a boost spike.




However there are some truth to what you are saying about wg failing in the open position. If by somehow the valve stem manages to miss the spring and goes in between and that the wg is mounted upside down and that the exhaust pressure out the manifold pushes it open then you can say it failed and opened itself.
Yes you are correct. A damaged diaphragm would cause an overboost. I've personally never encountered a damaged diaphragm (I like Tials haha). Most common issues I've seen are when the plunger becomes too loose in the guide causing it to not seat properly which definitely causes an underboost. The plunger seating issue is actually what I've read is a common problem on Godspeed wastegates.

Staying tuned for sure !
Hopefully I won't disappoint.

You say it's balanced, but I see no evidence of it.

Unbalanced center section will certainly die a spectacularly quick death.
Some effort was made to balance it by removing material off of the nuts that hold the wheels on. The flash from my camera might make it difficult to see.
 
#23 ·
It controls boost, but to say it's just a boost control is pretty vague. Pretty much for any reason the wg fails by either clamming up or hoses falling off it will prevent boost from exceeding whatever you set it. Added feature it has is that it also allows you to run 100 percent VTA while running a pull-through maf setup. I use it mainly for overboost protection.
 
#24 ·
I believe the AEM FIC-6 can be configured to let it hit a fuel/ignition cut based on MAP voltage. That would be a form of overboost protection lol.
 
#28 ·
@Corinator

hey man, pretty stoked you put this together. i have always been a fan of ebay turbos, and when i saw the EMUSA box i knew you did the same good research i did. i, too, ran an EMUSA turbo, for several thousand miles (34k to be exact lolol) with zero problems. no one believed me, but i was very impressed. it flowed almost as well as my precision unit on the same boost and tune. the spool up was great, but it did feel like it was running out of steam up top (was running a 57 trim, 63 a/r), but it felt very solid. it was also much quieter than my precision when dead in it, which was nice for a sleeper factor (not that any of that makes any difference).

prove the haters wrong.

one thing, i heard in the past that emusa wastegates weren't very good, lots of leak issues and disintegrating internals. i hope this has changed over the years.
 
#29 ·
Turbos bought off ebay are really hit or miss; Cheap materials (wheels and bearings) and cheap manufacturing (not balanced properly). Some people can go thousands of miles while others can't go 100. Depends on how hard you are pushing it. But I'm rooting for you.
 
#30 ·
Here is the update for tonight. I pulled off the front bumper cover and the bumper beam itself. Unbolted the hood latch to get that out of the way. I went to Home Depot and bought some 3/16" thick steel in a 1"x48" strip to use to make the intercooler mounting brackets. Busted out the trusty old Harbor Freight desktop drill press, Dremel with a deburring bit, tape measure, and a gold Sharpie. The intercooler came with the little slotted silver bracket you see in the photos. I took the original bracket and bent it at a 90* angle. I then used the 3/16" steel strip to make a bracket to connect the two upper mounting points on the intercooler itself. I used the included hardware to attached my cross bracket to the intercooler and then used 6mmx25mm bolts and 6mm nuts to attach the 90* slotted bracket. There will be two bolts holding the vertical side of the bracket to the radiator support, but right now you'll see I only have one installed just to save time. I will have to remove it to mock up and fabricate the lower intercooler bracket. I am slotting everything to allow for some minimal adjustability for fitment's sake. I'm going to go ahead and call it quits tonight. Would have had both intercooler brackets done, but I was asked to come into work to cover for a coworker who's son came down with a 104* fever at daycare. Not sure if I'll make anymore progress tomorrow night because that is the normal car meet night for me.

Here are some pictures of the progress:


The cross bracket mounted on the intercooler to test fitment. Ignore the rusty air filter lol



The cross bracket hanging on top of the 90* bracket to test fitment and check for alignment



Marking off and drilling the cross bracket to bolt it to the 90* bracket





Here's the completed bracket. I'll be painting all the bracket with black spray paint once they are finalized.

 
#33 ·
Looks good. Wastegate is my biggest concern since it can really make or break the car. Honestly, everything else will work fine I'm sure, but when you buy cheaper products the quality and manufacturer service start becoming questionable.

This will be good to follow once you have it running



 
#34 ·
Been working 6 days a week so it is tough to make progress, but I would like to have the car running by Friday for the Southwest Sentra meet. The first thing I decided to address tonight was the turbo manifold. As I stated in the first post, the turbo manifold casting was very rough. I busted out my Dremel, Harbor Freight electric die grinder, and assorted carbide deburring bits.

The wastegate flange was machined nice and flat, but the actual hole in the center was not only drilled off center, but it was actually significantly smaller in diameter than the wastegate/gasket itself. These are the sort of eBay part problems I was talking about lol. As long as you are willing to invest your time into fixing the issues, you will be fine. If you don't have the time and/or the ability to fix the problems, you are better off just buying the real name brand parts. I shaded the area of material to be removed in gold sharpie.



The finished result. I also decided to clean up the runners a bit because they were extremely rough and had drips of iron in the runners. I am no pro at porting/polishing so I apologize that they don't look amazing. They are, however, significantly smoother than they were originally.






Once I had that all sorted out I decided to finish up the lower intercooler bracket. I designed the lower bracket to support most of the weight of the intercooler so you will see it is significantly beefier. Once again I busted out the 1" wide 3/16" strip steel. I heated a piece of the steel using my propane torch to make bending it 90* significantly easier. Once I achieved the shape I wanted, I fabbed up a second one of the intercooler cross brackets using the original as a guide to make duplicating it easier. I then mounted the intercooler using the upper mounting bracket and did some rough measurements to start drilling the lower 90* bracket. I took full advantage of the adjustability I built into the upper bracket which enabled me to be much less precise making the lower bracket.

Here is a picture of the almost finished lower bracket



And a picture of the intercooler actually bolted up. This the final design of my bracket. The only thing I will do is pull it back off to paint it.




I decided to test fit the bumper cover using zip ties. Keep in mind that the zip ties are not centering the bumper cover perfectly. I was quite pleased with the results :D




Unfortunately, that's all for now. I hope to start running intercooler piping tomorrow. The Treadstone parts are coming in Tuesday so I'll really be able to start making some progress.
 
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#37 ·
Thanks man. I am really pleased with all of the positive feedback I've been getting.

Definitely subscribing to this.

It's great to see someone local attempting such an awesome budget build, hopefully everything works out as planned. :1:
Thanks man. Hopefully you'll get to see it in person/running at the Sentra meet on Friday.
 
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