what about a To4B P and Q trim wheels 1.00ar

i slapped a TA45/51 with a 1.06 exhaust on mine with a 48 turbosmart it should be dyno'd this week hopefully i aint fussed about street it matters about times on the track more to me. ill be running 20+ with it though if i had the choice though i think i would go GT42R

GT35/40R - best street turbo hehehe ball bearing turbos are the bomb! Steve Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

So if a ta45 is laggy what about a ta51? Cause a friend has just bought one for his vl, its huge and looks mad! Why are ball bearing turbos that much better, I heard they are only about 10% better for preformance than plain bearing, and once they are spinning both are about the same. Only issue with plain bearing is the lastability. Dean

well i hope your friend is building an 800hp strip-only RB30 and running 35+psi to get there, otherwise he just bought the wrong turbo. roller bearing is more efficient, has less rotational inertia and hence spools faster and creates less exhaust back pressure. as for actual gains in terms of % who knows? not much i would imagine, aside from quicker spool.

Yeah sure cal-a kid, an RB30 is exactly the same as an old 149 red motor too. They both have six cylinders so they MUST be exactly the same right ? The difference between the old style turbos and the new ball bearing ones is like about 30+ years of technology improvement. Blade profiles and aerodynamics, low inertia wheels, and better speed/energy matching of compressor and turbine. Oh yes, and the ball bearings which can take far higher loadings with less friction and wear than sleeve bearings. I think I will trade my Pentium 4 with Windows XP, for a 1970 model 5Mhz 8086 green screen computer with DOS. They are just as good. An awful lot has happened in the last thirty years. They are vastly superior, not "just a little bit better". They have much faster response and a much wider and more efficient flow range. The only reason not to use a ball bearing turbo these days would be to save money on an old car that is really not worth spending decent money on........ And we have all had one of *those* at some stage, it is nothing at all to be ashamed of.

yes the wheels are a lot better design these days as well. comparing the same turbo with the same wheels but just different bearing core, spool time would be the most noticeable difference p.s. tony found a skyline yet? Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

And as a result of these quicker spool times... would give you a much fatter power curve, giving you more usable power earlier, which in a rolling race between 2 comparable cars on the street 1 running plain bearing the other roller, roller turbo equipped car would surely have the advantage and pull in front early on? Subject to so many variables I know......

Hi Stocky. I stopped looking for a Skyline a while back. As you probably remember, I am especially interested in the international financial markets. Some interesting things happening there these days, and my money is better invested right now. I will definitely get back into the supercharged 4WD Skyline project, but not for a while yet. How are the studies coming along ? And your project ?

it'd be nice to have money to invest, i hate being a student :angry: only a year and a half to go and i'm into the big money! woo! (40 grand a year is big money for me) the engine is nearly ready to be assembled, has some good gear in it. still need bolt-ons like exhaust manifold and turbo (thinking maybe a T70?) and a computer to run it. have bought all the little things now just need to get the big things together. should be fun when it's going, i'll send you some pics of the assembled engine on the stand.

Sounds good Neill. Yeah forced study is a real drag, but it will not go on forever. I am trying to scrape a pile of cash together big enough so I don't have to work any more. Not being able to splash money around on projects hurts, but later on, it will all be worth it. Saving is, and has always been the only path to financial independence.

I don't think he is chasing 800 hp probs more like 400-500 hp and is only gonna run 20 something pound of boost. Did he buy the wrong turbo? Well maybe he's still got along way to go but he'll get there eventually, I think you'll all agree it'll be worth it in the end. I only asked a question and thanks for answering it stocky and warpspeed, im not ashamed of my car, and I don't give a ***** that it's got a plain bearing, dinosaur t04 on it. It spools and does the job. If you guys know so much about turbos why are you both looking at supercharging or have already supercharged? Dean

Plain bearing turbos certainly work, no argument about that at all. I have run T3 and TO4 turbos myself many times on various engines over the years. It is just that the newer ball bearing designs give a lot better response and drivability, especially for a road car. I turboed my first car way back in 1972, and have been doing it pretty much ever since. Personally I prefer a supercharger because of the many advantages of doing it that way. I have run both a supercharger and a turbo together on the same engine, and have also experimented with those Garrett VNT turbos with the movable vanes in the exhaust housing. After trying a whole lot of different things for myself, I now have a pretty good idea of what works and what does not. My opinion may not be worth much, but I still try to help people whenever I can.

i think he did buy the wrong turbo, yes. the TA51 is pretty serious and will probably just be starting to come into its efficiency range there. do a google search and see what sort of power drag cars are making with it i supercharged my car to learn more about it really. plus it makes it go faster. everyone in the world just said "whack a turbo on it" but you gotta think outside the square. next step is a twincharge, a'la Warpspeed style. but on an RB25/30 combo engine. tony what did you think of the VNT turbos? interesting concept but i imagine the wheel design is a bit of a compromise to allow it to be variable. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Actually the turbine wheel is just a normal Garrett, nothing special about it at all. But the turbine scroll design is really something else. There are twelve movable teardrop shaped vanes in there that effectively change the a/r ratio from something very small to something absolutely huge. I am not terribly happy with it though. While it starts boosting right off idle speed, and the response is just explosive, it completely dies in the bum at the top end. The reason being that even with the vanes wide open, the turbine itself is restrictive, and exhaust back pressure climbs out of sight at the top end. All the exhaust goes through the turbine all the time, there is no wastegate bypass. With the vanes wide open, it still controls turbine RPM and boost o/k, but exhaust back pressure at redline Rpm is far too high for any serious top end power. It is sure a nice turbo to drive though, but it just won't go up top. I have thought of fitting an external wastegate to it, and I may do it one day, but a new exhaust manifold would be required. This particular turbo was bought new from a Nissan dealer as a spare part for a 3 litre 150Kw Nissan Patrol diesel. ($1600.00) It is now fitted to a 1.6 litre DOHC 4WD Laser, so I expected the size to be about right.

interesting - i thought the wheels' pitch was the variable but have only read one article about em ages ago. weird that nissan is already selling em as a spare part but OEM would get them first i imagine. bummer about the top-end power, a big gate might fix it as you say. or two smaller ones. is this the same laser you had the twincharge on? man that thing must have had some whacky engine setups in it's time! Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Yeah im going to be upgrading my turbo down the track, and being a uni student, well part time jobs just aren't that much fun when trying to save 1000-2000 dollars for a turbo, which is why it interests me alittle. If the plain bearing can be purchased for half the price of a ball bearing turbo and perform only 10-30% worse then i'd more than likely go for the plain bearing. The turbo i've got at the moment I got for free, so im not complain'n, however it is very old, and has a stupidest a/r, 1.52, im not joking either. It has obviously come off of a truck or something else but definatly not a car. Thanks for the info, once I finish my degree i'll be looking forward to get a nice brand new ball bearing turbo, til then i'll have to settle for second best. Dean

cal, all those TO4 based turbos all came from diesels, which is why none of them have internal wastegates. Wow! 1.52 is a pretty big exhaust housing. It must have come from a very large engine originally. Neill, yes it is the very same car I had the twin-charge setup on. This Garrett VNT turbo is nowhere near as good as that though, But at the time I thought it would be another rather interesting thing to try out. I had read about these variable vane turbos, but had never actually ever seen one. These days they are fairly common on small turbo diesels. I really don't want to waste any more time or money messing about with this particular car. I bought it brand new from a Ford dealer twenty years ago, so I have been driving it now for a fair while. To say it has been modified a fair bit would be an understatement. I have tried all sorts of ideas out on it, and now know exactly what I want for my next car and project. Ideas like that unique supercharger bypass were developed on it too. Funny thing, nobody else has tried that idea except yourself, and it is so simple and works so well. I have quite a few other ideas too, but most people figure that anything unconventional cannot possibly work. It is a pity really. I like to fiddle. Today I have been writing more software for my own homemade engine management system. A great deal of work, but it is a really good way to understand how these systems actually function, and the various problems. It is also a good way to improve my software skills.

warp, yeah the exhaust housing is stupid. What kinda car have you got? I've already had three engines in my torana in the last 12 months, however the rb30 is going to stay for a long while I reckon! i like it!!!! better than a 253 neways. Out of the gt series, what turbo would you reckonmend for me to run 11-12's???? obviously with slicks. I've got a haltech ek6, custom exhaust manifold, front mount, jd plenum, 550 injectors, headwork, cam, valve springs, in a fully rebuilt engine, tricked up auto and a nine inch with 3.9's in the torana. Dean

ive always wondered why the vatn turbos arent being used more. i think they make an electronic version now