Theres the TTE 300 thats sold over in the UK. Idk about the quality of though. As for the JMTC turbos, they are hot garbage. The compressor and turbine wheel in their S42 aren't sized correctly and wont make anything over 19psi even when you request 26psi. They also get their center cartridge from some china turbo manufacture, as well as the turbine housing since its steel. No one should be spending $1k on a re-branded china charger, absolute joke.

 

TTE from Germany seems popular in the EU especially with the German manufactured cars like the VW, BMW & Mercedes and is one I opted for instead of the Owens development one.

Also other people have used the Chinese & Taiwanese turbos on their builds without much problems when on a budget.

 

There are also people that don't use a boost gauge. If you are not monitoring the boost fluctuations, you'd never know that your turbo is over or under boosting. I know I've beaten the mechanical boost gauge into the ground, but if I didn't have one, Mario would have blown my motor. The OBD said a steady 22.5 when in reality it was 27. And I know what his response would have been that it was my motor, not the tune.

Edited to add: I'm not saying budget turbos are a bad thing. Do what your budget allows. My point is this: vendors should be ashamed for selling budget components as premium.

 

My understanding is that Mario just did the tune and the Turbo was off the shelf hybrid turbo.

Most of these hybrid turbos on the market are not brand new units and are just rebuilt from the core exchange units customers buy and return their old one, similar to the rebuilt engines. This will probably have a higher percentage of potential problems that can occur compared to brand new units.

Also, maybe this is the reason why the Owens developments hybrid turbos cost more than any other hybrid turbos as they don't request core exchange unit and I assume they are hybridised from new units but cannot confirm this as so little info on them.

 

You can actually just buy a kit to convert your own turbo to a K04 sized one online from the usual places like eBay and Amazon. You reuse the core and throw on the Chinese housings, wheels, and other stuff. I’m sure those Owens turbos on the other hand are the real deal though since they’re pretty well respected on other forums and have their hands in a lot of different Motorsport series.

 

He told me that he built it himself. Or rather, he heavily implied it by saying "my turbo". I guess it was more of a lie of omission. He also told me that it would be fine on the track. He knew what I was going to use it for and still sent me a garbage product at a premium price. The first time it failed (because he had the wrong hotside attached) he tried to blame it on me using it on a track. Like, dude, I literally told him that's where it was going to be used and he assured me that his 43mm was perfect and would be fine. Also, I'm not certain he does any real tuning. As I understand it he tells RPM what the customer wants and what mods they have, and RPM sends him a file to flash to the DME.

 

Not something I would do personally as doing a hybrid turbo properly needs more than just putting in a kit nor do I have the technical skills and/or machine to do all the balancing work.

 

Who is going to be the first to build up one of these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-Cooper...l/113755846124

 

They actually don’t require any machining or anything, the components all get balanced individually so you can just slap it all together in any position. But some of the hybrid K04 turbos out there are probably just those kits and someone assembles it for you and sells it to you. I’ve run them before on other cars, if you can work on an engine then you can put them together. With something like that though you have to know what you’re getting into and set your expectations accordingly. I’ve fooled around with $100 eBay turbos before on a friends Honda, we set it up properly with correct oil flow and it was fine for 800 miles until we decided to turn the boost way above what the seller recommended and the compressor wheel decided to have a fight with the housing. That car made 330whp on a complete eBay setup though with a lot of issues. It’s fun when you know what you’re getting into and it’s just for laughs but it sucks that there’s vendors out there that would let you believe it’s a high end product when it’s not.

 

They've sold some so should be someone along shortly .

 

He doesn't actually make the tune file. He's the middle man that has all the canned tunes on a laptop and can just pick what map will work with X mods and flash it to the ECU. The guy up in Canada actually does development and tuning.

 

Yeah, basically the same thing he was doing with Manic.

 

I have been through quite a few setups. I agree with the sentiment that the JMTC turbos don’t work. I am currently running a Garret GTX2867R ll and it works great!

 

What is the turbine A/R?

 

 

RPM Tuners are located in Italy.

When they did mine, it was done in Canada, and was on a Dyno, baselined, ECU data emailed to Italy, waited some time for coding changes, sent back flashed, verified, then sent off for a revision and flashed again. Did 230/270 through an auto on 20.5psi, with mild ignition timing suitable for 91 octane (my request).

That's why you go to the Dyno with the middle man. Canned tunes are always problematic, even on a load based ECU for a variety of reasons. Without a Dyno it's literally hope and faith, and nothing more.

JMTC Super42 - almost 50k miles so far. I did specifically pay extra and wait a bit longer for a brand new exhaust housing. One of the clamps was installed in a bad orientation and needed moving, but otherwise, very reliable. I autoX my car, run 9/10, 10/10 through favorite isolated mountain roads etc, never misses a beat.

Rebuilt ko3 often have a lot erosion on the wastegate flapper area, its not reversible, and it is a guaranteed failure point on all ko3s eventually. IMO it's not a suitable turbo design to rebuild, for this reason,and sell to the public.