Billet wheel ball bearing turbos...

Teej281

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Hey all, still looking at putting a single on my GT. I know, this is a cobra section. But for tech info, there isnt much info out there for GT's. So I come here for turbo help. I'm planning on using a Precision billet ball bearing turbo, but does anyone know why its almost double the price of the turbo to upgrade to a ball bearing instead of a journal bearing? I was looking at the PT6765 CEA and it retails for $1199. That all fine and I wouldnt mind paying that price. Then it says for ball bearing upgrade, add $911! I mean I want a ball bearing turbo for the sake of spool, but wow! Thats a lot compared to most other turbo ball bearing upgrades. Is it something with the design of the billet wheel turbos that make the upgrade that much more expensive? I'm just trying to get some answers here guys. Sorry for cluttering up the Turbo Cobra section with my GT banter. :beer:

Teej
 

SSeatr

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i think its more of a 'cause they can' thing.

ballbearing is a great option and flooded boards with praise, that companies can charge a ridiculous amount of money for this little upgrade.
 

gt347mustang

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Copied from another forum:

I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a Nazi company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)


From what I understand precision uses garrett cores for their turbos.;
 

brian97cobra

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So I don't have to quote all that. Precision uses a Garrett ball bearing from my understanding that is all.

I'll see if I can get precision to chime in here.
 

Satyr

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Despite my not owning a turbo at all, I have to say that HTT's practices are despicable...then again, they're all too common with US industry, nowadays.
 

ruthless

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As per the link that disappereed..

"Forged Billet Compressor Wheels are even better than standard billet wheels"
Well no crap! However I didnt know they were making them out of forged material yet.


I would also like to add that I can not a as big of a performance jump going from billet to a forged wheel because of the following. (Much easier to post up what they wrote but the process is the same on Billet and forged billet wheels.)
" Turbonetics uses Forged Billet to machine the compressor wheel on a 5-Axis mill, the nose and hub of the compressor wheel can be made significantly smaller to allow for a greater blade diameter for a givine inducer size. The nose is where the compressor nut gets fastened down and the hub is the area around the bore of the wheel that the impeller blades are attacheed to. A cast wheel has to have a certain size nose and hub to allow the wheel to be cast number one and secondly it has to be able to be pulled from the mold itself. So simply stated a 61mm Forged Billet turbo will flow more air and have the opportunity to make more power than the same 61mm turbo with a cast compressor wheel."


I just noticed that artical was posted on On December - 15 - 2009. If they have the better tech then why dont you hear about these turbos on here? The turbo I was recommended for my car is still considered the top dog for some reason.
 
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brian97cobra

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As per the link that disappereed..

"Forged Billet Compressor Wheels are even better than standard billet wheels"
Well no crap! However I didnt know they were making them out of forged material yet.


I would also like to add that I can not a as big of a performance jump going from billet to a forged wheel because of the following. (Much easier to post up what they wrote but the process is the same on Billet and forged billet wheels.)
" Turbonetics uses Forged Billet to machine the compressor wheel on a 5-Axis mill, the nose and hub of the compressor wheel can be made significantly smaller to allow for a greater blade diameter for a givine inducer size. The nose is where the compressor nut gets fastened down and the hub is the area around the bore of the wheel that the impeller blades are attacheed to. A cast wheel has to have a certain size nose and hub to allow the wheel to be cast number one and secondly it has to be able to be pulled from the mold itself. So simply stated a 61mm Forged Billet turbo will flow more air and have the opportunity to make more power than the same 61mm turbo with a cast compressor wheel."


I just noticed that artical was posted on On December - 15 - 2009. If they have the better tech then why dont you hear about these turbos on here? The turbo I was recommended for my car is still considered the top dog for some reason.

I think that both precision and turbonetics are good turbo makers. Either will net you good power.

My personal choice is the precision because of the dual ball bearing design and larger impeller so it makes more power.
 

TwinTurbo4vGT

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I think that both precision and turbonetics are good turbo makers. Either will net you good power.

My personal choice is the precision because of the dual ball bearing design and larger impeller so it makes more power.

turbonetics is easily able to put a larger impellar in a smaller housing, you just have to call them, real nice guys over the phone. both will net you good power :beer:
 

TwinTurbo4vGT

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As per the link that disappereed..

"Forged Billet Compressor Wheels are even better than standard billet wheels"
Well no crap! However I didnt know they were making them out of forged material yet.


I would also like to add that I can not a as big of a performance jump going from billet to a forged wheel because of the following. (Much easier to post up what they wrote but the process is the same on Billet and forged billet wheels.)
" Turbonetics uses Forged Billet to machine the compressor wheel on a 5-Axis mill, the nose and hub of the compressor wheel can be made significantly smaller to allow for a greater blade diameter for a givine inducer size. The nose is where the compressor nut gets fastened down and the hub is the area around the bore of the wheel that the impeller blades are attacheed to. A cast wheel has to have a certain size nose and hub to allow the wheel to be cast number one and secondly it has to be able to be pulled from the mold itself. So simply stated a 61mm Forged Billet turbo will flow more air and have the opportunity to make more power than the same 61mm turbo with a cast compressor wheel."


I just noticed that artical was posted on On December - 15 - 2009. If they have the better tech then why dont you hear about these turbos on here? The turbo I was recommended for my car is still considered the top dog for some reason.
regardless of who you choose, both will net good power, just pointing out that turbonetics has forged wheels :beer:
 

TravisM

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I have a precision 78 non billet but upgraded to ball bearing when ordering and it was just over $2000. Of course I bought this right before the billet wheel came out.

Anyone know If I can convert my 78 to Billet ?
 

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