[s-cars] Garrett GT turbos

[CaptMagu at aol.com]

s-heads

I have seen my next turbo! It is the Garrett dual ball bearing GT R series. I 
dropped by to visit with Jim Latour of TEC today on my way to work and now I 
find myself typing away at 36,000 ft on my way to Hawaii. He showed me the new 
GT R series turbo and we've pretty much nailed it down to the GT35R. Garrett 
has done a complete overhaul of their turbo designations. Only the turbos 
ending with the R designation are the dual ball bearing turbos. The R denotes the 
"rolling" element found in the single cartridge, dual ball bearing design 
Garrett uses on all GT Ball Bearing Turbochargers contained in their Performance 
Products Catalog. Did I mention that I have a copy in my hot little Evahboost 
hands?

The inducer housing on both the GT30R and GT35R is a very hefty 4.08" in 
diameter. It features a very clever, for lack of a better term, outer bypass 
section that was actually copied from HKS. The major drawback for us in the 
Audi/Porsche crowd is the turbine section mount being a basic old T3 mount. This will 
prevent most of us from going this or any of the GT R series route. My plan 
now is to go with a tubular manifold with a T3 flange and hang that GT35R on 
the end. I needed a larger downpipe that had to be custom fabricated, so this 
plays right into that hand. I'm going to go with a 4" downpipe into my 3" 
Stromung and evaluate the results. I then might go with a dual 3" or 2.75" custom 
exhaust if there's too much restriction.

Some other dimensions are the compressor outlet on the GT30R at 2.0" and the 
GT35R at 2.57". The turbine outlet on both is a hefty 3.0". Both of these 
turbos are also available with a turbine housing in a 1.06 A/R and a .82 A/R. 
Another aspect of these turbos to ponder is what you have to do when its rebuild 
time. All the other Garretts and most other turbos for that matter allow a firm 
like TEC to rebuild a compressor or turbine section by pieces. In the case of 
the GT R series you have to plug and play with the whole compressor section 
to the tune of $600-$700. tHis is where the bearings are mounted and that's why 
they only sell the complete section. other than that it looks very sweet. 
Anybody out there looking for a used RS2 exhaust manifold and a Garrett hybrid 
turbo good for over 500hp? Oh well, I've got to get back to plotting maps out 
over the Pacific Ocean anyway;-)

Hap, not in Evahboost but Dreamland, Maguire