Anyone Have A Rb25 Highflow From "sliding Performance"?

[paulr33]

perhaps some of this should be moved to a

Plain/Journal/Bush Bearing Vs Ball Bearing

as some of the dicussions items have nothing to do with Slide's product.

I guess its a bit like building a new system server with good hardware and then installing a Pentium Pro 120mhz with 8kb cache. Kinda a bit 1980's style really

but again some of the drawbacks may be acceptable for others, other may not

[Tangles]

perhaps some of this should be moved to a

Plain/Journal/Bush Bearing Vs Ball Bearing

as some of the dicussions items have nothing to do with Slide's product.

I guess its a bit like building a new system server with good hardware and then installing a Pentium Pro 120mhz with 8kb cache. Kinda a bit 1980's style really

but again some of the drawbacks may be acceptable for others, other may not

c'mon be real Paul (said in my nicest voice possible!!) - this is a forced induction performance modification.

People just want to know whats the best value for money FOR THEIR SITUATION

Not everyone here races, not everyone here drags, not everyone here has a manual gearbox and hence a PowerFC, plus not everyone here is made of greenbacks - Im sure as hell not! Personally I have a total 30k budget including car, so I want to fit as much in as possible for the best price, ie best bang for buck.

Its that simple really.

I mean, I want 200awkw, but if I can get away with paying half the price of a BB hiflow unit, thats going to be reliable etc etc etc - then why not? but that sort of decsion (for me anyhow) isnt taken lightly, Id also personally like pice of mind (hence BB), although Slide does offer a warranty (Im sure I read that somewhere!). I highly doubt a warranty would be offered on a dodgy product.

Its all about research - and if this thread helps people to make up their mind either way, then so be it.

My -2c worth (yes thats right, Im that poor LOL).

Brendan

edit: although, if I can broker a good deal, then Id love to go BB hiflow, its just so HARD!!! lol

Edited June 7, 2006 by Tangles

[Sydneykid]

i know that is goind to sound stupid - im driving the family round and ocasionally giving it when out with some of the fellas....a little lag wont hurt i dont think with 4WD and 3200 stall and shit kit..1750kg...if its just for fun and not serious 'i want to fully slaughter everyone bro' racing then its ok ???

ture Gary has offered alot of info as usual,, thanks ... but im talking street car not track sierra's or mad GTR's...

any thoughts on the GCG ceramic comment??

thanks Ian

Hi Ian, as far as I know the balls are 100% ceramic, used for their insulation and hardness properties.

Why GCG have removed it from the web site I have no idea, maybe it gave away info on what type of core they use to their competitors. Maybe there are using ceramic balls in the turbine bearing and steel balls in the compressor bearing. So the ceramic balls comment was confusing. Maybe some punters out there thought ceramic balls were the same as ceramic turbines and failed under high boost.

Moving onto the plain bearing story, I gave some easy to understand examples from my world. It doesn't take much effort to extrapolate them to someone elses world. Let’s try this one, I am driving down the M5 with my mates on a Friday night, giving it a bit. We come across an accident in the airport tunnel and have to stop suddenly, the tunnel waring light flashes “turn off your engine”. Why? Well maybe it’s a fuel tanker involved in an accident, or maybe it’s simply just too much pollution in the tunnel. Am I going to sit there and wait for my turbo to cool down for 2-3 minutes? I don’t think so Tim.

Think of the times when you have had to turn off your engine suddenly and then think about maybe having to pay for a turbo rebuild. Once a year, maybe twice, not every day.

Roll the dice, it’s your money.

cheers

[Tangles]

Roll the dice, it’s your money.

cheers

Yeah Gary - totally hear you! Nice example. Its just a *hard* financial decision to make; hell whilst Im leaning to this particular turbo myself, Id rather a BB turbo for piece-of-mind.

Are bushbearing turbos that internally fragile? Turn off engine quickly and chances are turbo's siezed? Hell, another example, if you have a crash youd most likely need to turn the engine off pretty quickly too!!!

[666DAN]

"Hell, another example, if you have a crash youd most likely need to turn the engine off pretty quickly too!!!"

While we're at it why don't we all paint our cars white so the repair bill isn't as much if we possibly one day have an accident, maybe, never!!!!

lol

[Slide]

Many times in testing we have had to do a rapid engine shut down, puching the envelope and getting stuck in the sand trap is one reason. I have seen 3 GTR’s kill plain bearing turbos from oil surge related starvation. Since we went to ball bearing turbos we have not had one failure. I have NEVER seen a seized ball bearing turbo due to premature (sudden) engine shut down.

My view on plain bearing turbos may well be tainted by 15 years of experience with them failing, regularly. On the Sierras we used to have to change turbos up to 4 times in the course of a race weekend. I can still remember loosing 2 races because of turbo failure, even though we changed the turbo between races.

If you can live with the demonstrably slower response, the higher oil change frequency, the higher turbo maintenance and the greater risk of failure….then pocket the saving and move on. If you can’t, then there are alternatives.

cheers

Gary while everyone appreciates your input on your experiances this in no way affects the warranty that we stand by incase of a failure which has never happened.

The thread asks of experiance with our turbo's......

I do not know where your journal bearing experiances came from... Perhaps with cars that came from the manufacturer released with journal bearing turbo's.

Which you have not provided any background on.

And whilst every one of your posts has been biased towards GCG turbo's given the experience with them, You have not experienced these turbo's nor are you and Paul sticking to the topic.

Regardless of failures in your 15 year experience with bush/plain bearing turbo's technology changes and we move forward with it improving the life of the turbo and standing by the guarantee we provide with them.

If there was a problem with 3 GTR's that had oil starvation problems then you should have spoken to the mechanic and offered your knowledge on how to resolve these issues as its not only a problem for the turbo but the engine aswell and im sure the last thing on your mind when this happens is your turbo.

We provide the modification requirements with these turbo's and as far as i can see as long as they are carried out they can last a long time.

IF... they do fail they are covered under our warranty which is unlike any other turbo manufacturer.

We also sell the whole Garrett, HKS, Greddy, Biagio and Apexi range of turbo's aswell.

Keep in mind that mass produced cars with journal bearing turbo's in the early 90's and even up to date model cars used journal bearings and are still running now.

Trucks in particular cover thousands and thousands of kilometers on journal bearing turbo's.

Also good luck with your group buy Gary... Would you like me to discuss the advantages of paying half the amount for these turbo's compared to the GCG and disrupt your thread without me having any prior experience with them turbo's ?

[Slide]

Aron I'm not really sure what you mean by problems with shaft/housing/bush dimensions , I'm a bit rusty with plain bearing cartridges but I thought all those old T3's/TB31's/TA34's and small shaft TO4's used 1/4 shafts and a standardish bushes . I suppose the plain bearing T25/28's used a smaller shaft - um ...

As I'm sure you know buying Garrett cartridges can be cheaper than assembling one from new components though prices can be all over the place - worse than supermarket chains !

I know Garrett has been pushing what they call T3/T4R ball bearing cartridges cheaply in the US , they are basically the 76T TA 34 turbine with a choise of TO4E compressors - water cooled as well .

One different one actually uses a TO4 P trim turbine with the old 60T TO4S (60-1) compressor .

I sort of reckon the TA34 family are a good look for high flows but the GT turbines and compressors are far better aero wise . Having said that the Buick GN's were not so bad in some ways ....

I don't want to sound like a smart alec but those housing pics are Hitachi RB25 or VG30 , the only thing T3 is the mounting flange .

Gary's experience of more power EVERYWHERE with decent turbos is absolutly correct , mainly because the turbines in the Hitachi's are so woefully small . Anything you can do to offset exhaust restriction pays off from idle up , its to do with pumping losses and reversion I believe . When you start to compare the GT BB turbines with the ceramic Hitachi's they look much larger as do the passages in their native GT turbine housings . Anyone that ever put a 2530 on an RB25 found the difference hard to believe particulary since its compressor is slightly smaller than the Hitachi's - different story on the turbine side though .

Anyhow bush or ball I think response is better when the spec is slightly generous on the hot side and a bit conservative on the cold side . Had I realized this years ago my bitzer hybrid plain bearing turbos would have been more effective . On a last note take every old 8 blade TO4B compressor and hit it with a hammer , they should never be used in petrol engine hybrids .

Cheers .

The cartridges we use now are Garrett water cooled and oil lubricated and cooled.

We do not buy these in kits ready to just attatch the housings.

The Vg housing starts its life as the turbo on the right and after machining is like the one on the left.

This improves airflow by a huge amount and fiting the larger turbine and compressor wheel to fill the now highflowed housings greatly increases throughput of air.

The new Garrett cartridges are slightly smaller than the bearings that we put in them so the interior diameter of the cartridge where it holds the bearings as its the bearings that hold the shaft not the cartridge.

The housings used are indeed Nissan housings made by Hitachi

The reason for using new Garrett cartridges is because as far as we know we have exhausted all of our recources that supplied us with the older cartridges.

The T3 BB cartridges cannot be used in conjunction with new journal bearings.

I also might just add that we have exhausted all of Garrett Australia's supply of compressor wheels for these turbo's and have had to import from America and even New Zealand

Aaron

[WogsRus]

So the turbos are water and oil colled, or just oil colled. Don't care really still gona get me one of these sucers.

[Slide]

Oil and water cooled and the stock oil and water lines line directly up the same as the origional

Aaron

[WogsRus]

Would it be simpler to get new oil lines, i think they are not to expensive, that way you will definatly have enough oil flow. Also i live in tassie so it's always dam cold, i plan to actually dust some cool air to run over the turbo. Anyways 3 days left till i'm off to Europe, expect a call mid August when i get back,

BHHAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAA, slap, slap. ALL good now.

[paulr33]

the point made of plain bearing is that if the engine is shut off instantly and the oil feed stops, there is a chance of bearing failure.

theres is nothing more or less to it

[VB-]

might not be the best places to post this but thile everyone is arguing about bush vs ball bearing, is it true that ball bearing turbos cannot be rebuilt? and if so, why not? what are advantages and disadvantages of both normal and ball bearing?

[paulr33]

they can be rebuilt but i think garrett would prefer you didnt and buy a new cartridge as they make more money

[Slide]

Would it be simpler to get new oil lines, i think they are not to expensive, that way you will definatly have enough oil flow. Also i live in tassie so it's always dam cold, i plan to actually dust some cool air to run over the turbo. Anyways 3 days left till i'm off to Europe, expect a call mid August when i get back,

Ambient temperature doesnt really matter in this situation.

Modifying the standard lines is inexpensive, they do the job when modified and most importantly they look stock.

they can be rebuilt but i think garrett would prefer you didnt and buy a new cartridge as they make more money

Cost is far too much to worry about rebuilding.

the point made of plain bearing is that if the engine is shut off instantly and the oil feed stops, there is a chance of bearing failure.

theres is nothing more or less to it

This is really not looking at the big picture.

It could be a long time before failure but what does damage is the shaft spining on no oil more so than the shaft not spinning on hot oil after the car is turned off.

There is still a lot of water in the lines and cartridge at the point when you turn off the car and it usually is around 80-90 degree's.

Greater oil lubrication and flow increase the life of the turbo.

Its as simple as that.

Being cautious is not only better for your turbo but your engine also which in this case is ALOT more expensive.

Maintaining the car is a necessity for the engine not just the turbo which seems to be the focus in some peoples statements.

Aaron

[WogsRus]

Hi Arron, Thanks a lot for all the info, for what it's worth i think for people like myself, who are just geting into the skyline scene, and don't have vast cash account, these are a great turbo. It should be fun. I think everyone need to give Aron a bit of credit, if i was geting hamerd with some of the questions that he is reciving i would simply tell you all to buga off. So keep up the good work mate. 2 Days and couting.

[satanic]

Yeah cut Aaron some slack... he's doing everyone a great sevice. From the amount of positive feedback here, I think it's self-explanatory. However, as with all things there will always be siding (particularly with different technologies) so each to their own.

On a major credit to Aaron, and something that hasn't really been considered... the price he is asking for the amount of work he PERSONALLY puts into each turbo is cheap as chips. Not saying that GCG don't, but seriously how often do you get to talk to the guy who markets, sells, builds and gives tecnical advice on the product?

Keep up the great work Aaron!

[discopotato03]

Generally the greatest drama is always the dollars . Just as there will be a choise of bush or ball bearing turbos theres choises in cross plys/retreads/radials etc .

There are many benefits from later designed turbos , it goes a lot further than the bearing system . It probably starts with materials that better resist heat corrosion and wear , continues with lighter weight internals which need less energy to accelerate , better aero wheels that create less exhaust restriction and impart less heat into the compressed air , use a bearing system that is far more durable with less drag and low pressure/volume oil supply . A huge advantage is that open bladed wheels and a high speed bearing system allows high gas flow abilities is a reasonably compact lightweight turbocgharger .

The sad fact is that trying to spin a shaft at high speed in bush bearings was never going to be long term reliable - mainly because the contact area of the supported shaft is quite large even on its oil film . Basically the bush itself revolves so its inner and outer surfaces are floating but create a lot of oil shear drag particularly at slow speeds . The thrust collar and plate type bearing to counter end float also has a lot of oil shear drag and is virtually impossible to make reliable in high speed high boost applications . If you get the chance look into the compressor of an idling engine with a bush bearing turbo and compare it to a ball bearing turbo . The "idle" speed of the BB one is much higher than the bush one and as many find the BB one turns for some time after the engine is shut down . I don't think its possible to get the transient response and durability from the bush/plate system . Annular contact ball bearings use hardened balls running on hardened surfaces so the point contact area is small , they require a lot less oil to lubricate and because the surfaces are hardened and not brass/bronze/aluminium stand up to the heat far better . I'm not sure where the "ceramic" ball bearing comes in . I did see a sectioned Turbonetic turbo once that had a "ceramic" ball race bearing on the compressor end and a bush bearing on the turbine end . I did enquire later and it was suggested that some high speed ball races have a cage to separate the balls within the races and the cage can be made of a ceramic material to resist heat and wear . Thats not confirmed just what I was told .

Anyway I think the bottom line is all these things cost money which many don't mind spending provided it does the job and gives no trouble . I used to tell people that one you've had a bush turbo off and rebuilt a couple of times its cost more . I realise that people like to experiment with turbos in the quest for the holy grail but its a long labor intensive costly program . One thing you can be certain of is that hard worked bush bearing turbos will fail with monotonous regularity because of their bearing systems . The only alternative if you want reliability is to use larger capacity bush turbos that wont need the shaft speed or boost levels to generate the power - but this means larger heavier wheels and higher boost threshold and worse transient response to go with the extra weight and bulk .

As for heat and "oil coaking" this will depend on the temperature of the bearing housing via the turbine and housing . Water cooling generally fixes this because the thermal mass of the turbine and bearing housings is not that great . How well the high contact area bushes deal with the turbine heat is hard to say .

All turbos are a compromise - some more than others . I would have a conservative but good turbo before the 20" wheels or the 6 stacker or air con or the Louisville intercooler because my priorities run that way . I want the best end result so using a well thought out BB turbo is a necessity. I have better things to do than R/R turbos .

Best of luck but its not going to be easy building bush bearing hybrids based on older parts because they have been drying up for some time . If it were me I would be exploring one of the GT BB cartridges with sensible wheels for the Hitachi housings and doing production runs of the oil and water lines to make it bolt up .

Cheers A .

[Slide]

Thanks guys.

discopotato03 you have made some very good points there and we stand by the quality of these turbo's 100%.

For those that have commented on Journal bearing turbo's i welcome you to buy one and test it to then be able to comment on these with the experience gained by these turbo's and not OTHER turbo's.

These are not a backyard made turbo and behind them are 22 years of turbo experience and 150000 dollars worth of balancing equipment and flow testing equipment alone.

The Cheif engineer behind these has worked at Biagio, Turbonetics Research and Development (Along with Ray Tanaka), many years at Boral working on mining machinery turbo's truck turbo's and at East Coast Turbo's in California and is the mathematical genious behind the amazing flow that we get out of these turbo's.

Any questions you guys may have please dont hesitate to ask me.

Aaron

[paulr33]

hi,

i dont think anyone has commented they are backyard jobs. perhaps you are reading into it incorrectly. as far as i know there is really only one way to rebuild a turbo (or build) and thats correctly including balancing it. is it possible to skimp it and make it dodgy (i guess so?) but no one is implying you are.

can you comment on bearing failure if the car is suddenly shut off ?

[Slide]

Paul

From personal experiences with drifting an auto with an atmo bov it shuts down quite regularly.

Or on the occasion the car spins and runs backwards it automatically stalls.

After 24000 kays the shaft had no browning and it sat up at revlimiter for over 80% of its life.

Its more then recommended that if the car shuts down that it is started straight away even with BB turbo's despite what people may believe about them being indestructable and can run on no oil.

This is not true and have seen many carbon filled bearing cases from when they were scortched on the hot side and failed.

I cannot really comment on bearing failure as we have never had any fail.

No doubt that one has to eventually but the punishment i have personally given them and the results i have seen i cannot give an acurate time frame.

Even with ball bearing turbo's warranty is given but you cannot predict when something will fail.

The only cause of journal failure is oil starvation and we have solved this problem quite easily.

We have rebuilt a turbo up here from a turbo reseller that had a customers car fail.

It was a 180 sx and failed almost instantly because of the standard 1mm restrictor in the oil lines and banjo bolts.

Its very easy to tell how and why these turbo's fail.

These were designed to work with the standard ball bearing turbo's.

I make sure that all oil lines are modified with every turbo that leaves and has instructions for the ones that are obviously on the car.

This is why we provide such a warranty.

If the turbo is going to have problems due to oil restrictions it will happen immediately.

And Paul i think its obvious with certain posts regarding GCG where half the battle comes from if you know what i mean and fair enough competition is competition but filling a thread with examples of 4 failures with no background information on them is hardly justified and is a minority considering we have just shipped out our 300th turbo in 9 months and the numbers are rising at an amazing rate.

So as far as failure rate goes for these turbo's it stands at 0%

We have started shipping these to New Zealand now and seeing alot of happy people over there so i cannot contain my happiness for how things are going.

The only bad thing is we cannot keep up with demand and im sure other turbo businesses are feeling the preasure as we are using everyones stock.

As housing numbers run short though the inevitable will happen and we will have a solution to that when the time comes with a oil and water cooled turbo from Biagio available in ball bearing and journal and will be a straight drop in turbo.

This is in the Research and Development stage at the moment but isnt too far off and will still be using all Garrett and Turbonetic parts.

Aaron