Help! Turbo nightmare :(

[Lithium]

I've had a quite a shit year all round this year, but two of the biggest *car related* events being my R33 blowing up its standard turbo late last year... and more recently being involved in a nasty car accident caused by someone else which resulted in the daily driver being written off, leaving us completely carless until I can get my car running again or when the other party pay us for a replacement car - and of course we find one.

I had been intending on getting a larger turbo, but only just recovered from the costs of other crap thats gone down over the last year - so at such late notice the best I could do was buy a turbo comparable with the stock one to get myself on the road. It was brought to my attention that there was a freshly rebuilt turbo from a VG30ET motor available, and that it would be able to be pretty much a bolt up job to get the car up and going again. Sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me, so went with it.

The turbo arrived yesterday - had a look at all the bits and at first glance it was pretty much as I expected, the compressor housing A/R and wheel were visible smaller than the R33 unit but the turbine size was visibly larger. It all looks very clean, and freshly built as I had been advised.

HOWEVER, these are 3 things aren't quite as I would have hoped:

1/ Oil feeds are different to the R33 ones. This isn't that much of a hassle, it costs money but probably worth while doing anyway. I would normally overlook this.

2/ The outlet from the compressor housing doesn't have the flange that R33's have to attach the piping which heads for the intercooler to, pretty much in the r32 Turbo style. Again, not a biggy - that kind of stuff is to be expected when you get a turbo from a different car.

3/ The wastegate assembly is mounted in the factory Z31 (??) dump pipe, as opposed to in the turbine housing!!!

I had no warning for this bit, and would NOT have bought the turbo if this was bought to my attention as I can't afford to pay for the engineering required to work around it. I've never heard of this, and the previous owner never mentioned it. I wanted something I could just bolt on and get the car mobile with (which the person who sold it to me knew) and

I really don't have the money to get an external wastegate, and I'm also going to have to get oil lines made up for it as the oil feeds on the core for this turbo as well as rubber hosing to connect to the compressor outlet. That all makes getting the turbo running a LOT more hassle than it is worth.

I'm not too sure how much luck I'd have selling this off as I'm too considerate to sell it to someone with a Skyline without telling them its going to be an expensive pain in the arse to get running.

I'm guessing I'm clutching at straws - but if I managed to get my hands on a .63 a/r internally gated Garrett T3 style turbine cover would it be something that could be swapped with the one that came with the VG30ET turbo? I can't see why the shaft or wheels would need to be touched, but knowing my luck it'd still fit into the "Too hard to be worth the effort" basket...

The guy who sold it to me has refused my plea to send it back to him for my money back - even though I would have still been out of pocket for freight and he'd be in no different position to where he was before I had it. The turbo has hardly been touched since being in my care, let alone fitted to anything.

Any other suggestions? At the moment I'm $750 out of pocket when I was at a stretch just to pay for this turbo... and still without a running car.

[PT]

Why not contact GCG and ask them what your best option would be, I'm sure they could help you out.

[mabru]

Ok, even if you get an internally gated garrett turbine housing it will NOT have the proprietary Nissan 6 bolt exhaust flange that bolts to the downpipe. You will still need to get a special downpipe made up to bolt to the turbine outlet. Not trying to rain on your parade, just warning you. I have a T04E/T3 hybrid waiting to go on my RB25DET because I had to order a flange to fit and have a pipe welded up. The T3 internal gate housings usually have a 5 bolt or 3 bolt exhaust flange pattern and don't come close to being bolt-ons.

-Matt

[Lithium]

Getting a downpipe made for the exhaust flange wouldn't be so much of a hassle though - its the fact that there is no wastegate in the actual housing which is causing me issues

GCG are in Australia - it'd be hellishly expensive for me to work with them, and unfortunately I've stretched budget to get this far. It looks at the moment like I am pretty much screwed and just have to accept it.

[R31 POWER]

Any chance of pics of the Turbo? I know VLT's have the same wastegate in the dump stlye so tracking down a VLT dump pipe might be the go.Also I've seen a VG30det turbo and it had the same wastegate setup as normal RB's so maybe you even have a VLT???

[Lithium]

Any chance of pics of the Turbo? I know VLT's have the same wastegate in the dump stlye so tracking down a VLT dump pipe might be the go.Also I've seen a VG30det turbo and it had the same wastegate setup as normal RB's so maybe you even have a VLT???

Its definately not a VLT, because the dump pipe is quite obviously different to the kind you'd get hanging off an RB - but that sounds like a really good suggestion. Are the turbos on the old 2l Turbo R31's any similar in the wastegate setup to the VLTs? The dump pipe from one of those might be easier to find.

pics:

Sorry about the quality of the turbine housing pic - PXT phone struggling with the dark/light contrast.

[R31 POWER]

I'm not a turbo expert but someone on here must be able to tell ya what turbo that is.All RB turbos have the same set up except the R31 GTS-R wich had a T3/T4 turbo from factory and it had a wastegate set up like the VLT and your's.