Anyone ever hear of someone trying to do this? Obviously none of the flanges will be the same but maybe you could take an IS20 cartridge and put it in a set of R56 housings? I only ask because I'm part of a few GTI groups and lightly used IS20s are in great supply, and I have a spare Cooper S turbo kicking around that I'm not doing anything with and I can't bring myself to just sell it with my stock turbo coming up on 100k miles.

The IS20 off the EA113 was a Borg unit so that would probably have the greatest chance of working how I'm thinking. These are all the IS20 specs:

MK5 Golf GTI 2.0T EA113
Borg Warner
6/6 Blade Cast Compressor Wheel & 11 Blade Turbine Wheel
41 mm Inducer / 54 mm Exducer - Compressor
40 mm Exducer / 45 mm Inducer - Turbine

MK6 Golf GTI 2.0T EA888 Gen 1
IHI
6/6 Blade Cast Compressor Wheel & 8 Blade Turbine Wheel
40.2 mm Inducer / 52.5 mm Exducer - Compressor
41.0 mm Exducer / 45.0 mm Inducer - Turbine

MK6 Jetta GLI 2.0T EA888 Gen 3
Honeywell
6/6 Blade Cast Compressor Wheel & 9 Blade Turbine Wheel
39.0 mm Inducer / 53.7 mm Exducer - Compressor
39.1 mm Exducer / 43.8 mm Inducer - Turbine

MK7 Golf GTI 2.0T EA888 Gen 3
IHI
6/6 Blade Billet Compressor Wheel & 8 Blade Turbine Wheel
42.5 mm Inducer / 54.0 mm Exducer - Compressor
46.8 mm Exducer / 50.4 mm Inducer - Turbine

 

Our turbo cartridge (center housing) also has two oil and two coolant connections that need to be matched. Your best bet would be to find a scrap unit, disassemble it, then compare it to your spare. Chances are, the conversion costs won't be worth the slight performance gains.

 

The only way I could see it being worth it is if the IS20 off the Mk5 is using a same/similar cartridge to the JCW or the JCW 42mm upgrade turbo from Borg, and you could just bolt the compressor and exhaust housings onto it no problem. It was just a spitball idea and I was wondering if anyone had tried it.