Hey everyone, I could really use some help here. I've been driving Z's for a couple years, and *IT* finally happened. I blew my turbos and they need replacement. The car is completely stock at this point, and I've never had to worry about replacing turbos before so I don't have a clue on which kind to get. My price range for the parts is $2k TOPS, I can't go over this. I've been doing a ton of research, and I'm really confused....I heard that ball bearing ones are the best, and I was going to buy the Jim Wolf sport 500's, but I heard that those have too much turbo lag and don't give enough performance. The sport 530's look great, because they're ball bearing, but they also cost at least $3k (from what I've seen) and I can't afford this. I heard that Garrett GT 2530's are ball bearing and really good turbos. I'd be interested in learning more about them and how much they cost. Is there anyone out there that can give me some good input and advice about what to do here? It seems that buying Garrett turbos (which I guess are HKS as well??) is the best quality way to go. I'm trying to get good quality ball bearing turbos for a good price. Any ideas guys? (sorry for the long fackin story)

Hey everyone, I could really use some help here. I've been driving Z's for a couple years, and *IT* finally happened. I blew my turbos and they need replacement. The car is completely stock at this point, and I've never had to worry about replacing turbos before so I don't have a clue on which kind to get. My price range for the parts is $2k TOPS, I can't go over this. I've been doing a ton of research, and I'm really confused....I heard that ball bearing ones are the best, and I was going to buy the Jim Wolf sport 500's, but I heard that those have too much turbo lag and don't give enough performance. The sport 530's look great, because they're ball bearing, but they also cost at least $3k (from what I've seen) and I can't afford this. I heard that Garrett GT 2530's are ball bearing and really good turbos. I'd be interested in learning more about them and how much they cost. Is there anyone out there that can give me some good input and advice about what to do here? It seems that buying Garrett turbos (which I guess are HKS as well??) is the best quality way to go. I'm trying to get good quality ball bearing turbos for a good price. Any ideas guys? (sorry for the long fackin story)

well i dont think your gonna be able to afford anything other than the sport 500's. i dont know where you read or heard they have bad turbo lag. their lag isnt much differnet than stock. only difference is that you can boost much higher. basically these turbos will max out your engine...so you could easily create 500whp on with these things. it doesnt sound like you have alot of money to spend on aftermarket parts so i wouldnt be too worried about the power ranges as your car is completely stock. you ahve a lot of money to spend before you can get anywhere close to maxxing the turbos.

anyways, if i were in your shoes...i would get the stockers rebuilt or buy new stockers and spend the rest of the money on other upgrades. you could easily make your car alot faster this way...

remember that boost preset on upgraded turbos isnt like stock so you will atleast need to upgrade your ECU, which means more money.

the stockers can handle 16psi...which means you would have to spend quite a few thousand dollars before you can benefit from bigger turbos.

The Sport 500s will run around 20 psi with no problems whereas the stock turbos will hit their ceiling at about 18 psi. If you are looking for turbos under $2000 thats just about all there is out there. And given a stock engine, like K3 said, you'll have quite a time maxing them out. The GT 2530s are even more expensive than the 530BBs, they're almost double your price cutoff.

Get a set of low mile stock turbos and spend the rest of the money on some bolt-on upgrades. You could get some stock turbos, downpipes, ECU, cone filter, and test pipes for $2000. That would be much quicker than a otherwise stock car with some bigger turbos on it.

What kind of ECU upgrade is the best? I'm leaning towards the JWT chip upgrade, but at the same time I haven't really been able to find others. Are there other ECU upgrades, and if so, which ones are the better ones?

Well without doing too much thread pimping, you might want to read through the "Destorying the world" sticky at the top of the forum.

Anyway, there is pretty much two main ECU upgrades on the market: JimWolfs and then Ashspec. JimWolfs has been around alot longer, costs more, has been accused of being a tad rich on the air/fuel curve. Ashspecs is fairly new, a bit cheaper but has been accused of being a bit lean. Both offer a full line of replacement chips for their ECUs so if you ever upsize your fuel injectors or get a dual intake all you have to do is change the chip.

www.ashspecz.com

www.jimwolftechnology.com

And what is probably the best source of parts for Z32s on the web:

www.conceptzperformance.com

If you are looking at doing alot of upgrading or running your car on a dyno then Ashspec sells what is known as the Zemulator. It's pretty much an Ashspec ECU with a plug in on the chip so you can hook it up to a laptop. Do a base run on a dyno and then you can change the ignition timing, the air/fuel ratio and all that happy crap. A dyno tuning will get the most out of your car.

how do you know when you blow the turbos?

There's more than one sign that you've blown out a turbo. The soonest sign is that your car stops pushing boost, but this could mean that you could just have an air leak somewhere, it doesn't necessarily mean that your turbo is jacked. The fastest way to check for sure if you're turbo is gone or not is to pull the intake hose, or in the Z's case, both intake hoses. If both hoses are dry on the inside, then the turbos are OK. If one or both of the inside of the intake hoses is wet with oil, then that's a sign that you're turbo is gone and needs to be replaced.

There's more than one sign that you've blown out a turbo. The soonest sign is that your car stops pushing boost, but this could mean that you could just have an air leak somewhere, it doesn't necessarily mean that your turbo is jacked. The fastest way to check for sure if you're turbo is gone or not is to pull the intake hose, or in the Z's case, both intake hoses. If both hoses are dry on the inside, then the turbos are OK. If one or both of the inside of the intake hoses is wet with oil, then that's a sign that you're turbo is gone and needs to be replaced.

That just means the turbo seal is blown...it can be fixed with a rebuild kit. that replaces the oil seal.

shaft play is key to a turbos life. eventually the shaft play will get so great because of heat, bearings life, etc. that the turbine shaft actually starts to scrape the housing. this is where it takes a little more than a rebuild kit to fix the problem. you will need new turbine wheels, shaft, etc.

so if you hear scraping or grinding...your turbo are pretty much done. if there is oil in your intake tubes you have a oil seal that is blown, if you see blue smoke you also have a oil seal out. if your losing boost pressure than you may have a cracked housing of alot of shaft play...neither is good.

for the Garret GT25's the exhaust side housing is really popular with bracking next to the wastegate. this is not a good thing...

yep... even with blown turbo's you can still go for a while.. but it's not recommended if you ever want to use the turbo again... (as in my case... please hold out until winter rolls around :D)

K3smostwanted: hey, i visited your car domain page, your car looks very nice and clean. I noticed that in the future you plan on getting specialty Z high flow cats. I would recommend against doing that, because Specialty Z's high flow cats don't work all that well. The cars that get them many times don't pass smog anyway, and it robs you of a bunch of power. Say you pass smog, then there's a high probability that the high flow cats will break, or cease to work properly. Plus, I think they're more expensive as well. I'm literally relaying this information from Sebastian, who's the sole main mechanic at Specialty Z, and was taught by Greg Dupree. I almost got them myself, but Seb told me not to by means of the information I just gave you. Just something for you to think about.

K3smostwanted: hey, i visited your car domain page, your car looks very nice and clean. I noticed that in the future you plan on getting specialty Z high flow cats. I would recommend against doing that, because Specialty Z's high flow cats don't work all that well. The cars that get them many times don't pass smog anyway, and it robs you of a bunch of power. Say you pass smog, then there's a high probability that the high flow cats will break, or cease to work properly. Plus, I think they're more expensive as well. I'm literally relaying this information from Sebastian, who's the sole main mechanic at Specialty Z, and was taught by Greg Dupree. I almost got them myself, but Seb told me not to by means of the information I just gave you. Just something for you to think about.

well thanks...i ended up getting testpipes to go along with the Split-flange downpipes. so yeah...i haven't updated my cardomain page in forever but i do need to because those pictures are shitty. thansk for the complement though...and we dont have emissions/smog tests in my area. i think the only reason i wanted to stay with Cats is because with a cat-back, my exhaust was already loud so putting in testpipes would just make it worse for me. all that changed though...

yeah.. funny how turbo's do that... :D

Hey, just a thought... I know that the z31's have small single turbos, and what you can do is have it bored out a bit to fit a bigger wheel.... just a thought