Ball-bearing turbos

[Rooikat]

Anyone have an experience with those new Garrett ball bearing turbos? I've heard some pretty strong claims about fast spool up and so on. I'm really into streetability, so a fast spool up is far more important to me than a huge drag turbo. Just looking for any comments.

[turbo2nr]

with any turbo can spool quickly as long as you have the right trim and a\r on it. if you get small trims and a\r u get boost as early aas 2k but you sacrifice top end. you need to find a healthy mix. i recomend a 70trim on the compressor and a 67tim with a 72 a\r on the turbine..

good luck1

[kjewer1]

I'm assuming you are referring to the new garrret GT line of turbos. SBR has a nice selection of these. Yiou may want to look into the smaller ones like the -011 and -012. The new wheels are pretty badass, no one questions that...

[Rooikat]

Originally Posted by turbo2nr

with any turbo can spool quickly as long as you have the right trim and a\r on it. if you get small trims and a\r u get boost as early aas 2k but you sacrifice top end. you need to find a healthy mix. i recomend a 70trim on the compressor and a 67tim with a 72 a\r on the turbine..

good luck1

Of course, but the advertisements for ball bearings claim to spool up faster with the same trims and a/rs of journal bearing turbos, all while flowing the same amount of air. This really isn't a question of t-25 spool up and airflow vs. 20g spool up and airflow. If you've read up on these turbos you know that for example Garrett makes a GT25 ball bearing, which will be the same as a T-25, but advertised as having quicker spool up.

[Rooikat]

Originally Posted by 95 GSXracer

I'm assuming you are referring to the new garrret GT line of turbos. SBR has a nice selection of these. Yiou may want to look into the smaller ones like the -011 and -012. The new wheels are pretty badass, no one questions that...

That was kind of what I was getting at, I am basically asking about a journal bearing vs. a ball bearing, all things being equal. Comparing different trim and a/r turbos makes no sense, seeing as they make ball bearing versions of their older turbos, and I was asking how they stack up against the older models.

[kjewer1]

Teh thing is all the new GT turbos have new wheels, which also affect spool. So its hard to make a direct comparison. But for sure a BB turbo does spool up faster than a conventional bushing turbo. How much faster depends on the turbo and the setup. SOmetimes its a small change, other tiems its a few hundred rpm. On a daily driven street car, some poeple may be better off with reguilar turbos though. BB cartidges are VERY senstive to oil contamination... This is why I have avoided this for so long. But I am going to make the change next season. A filter on the feed line, and taken from the head for lower pressure, is the general consensus for BB turbos. You can also take it formty he filter block, and use two filters to drop the pressrue some... But its best totalk with the vendor about that, since these are warranty sensitive decisions...

[Rooikat]

Makes sense to me. Do you think these things are the wave of the future? I think I'll make a switch to one eventually, if I could get a good deal on one. Also, speaking of feed lines with filters, what kind do you recommend? I've been putting my car back together after doing the head gasket and repairing the turbo and I almost forgot I needed a new feed line.

[kjewer1]

Like I sid though, for a street car, BB may not be the best choice. Conventional bushing turbos will always be around. You should always replace the feed line with a new one when installing a new turbo. And buy it from the turbo vendor. 99% of turbo vendors wont honor a turbo warranty unless you replace that feed line Little tip there. For the filter, most poeple use the earls filter with the sinterd bronze element. On a conventional bushing turbo though, this can reduce flow and pressure too much. For a BB cartridge, you dont need high flow and pressure, but you do need super clean oil, so the filter makes sense.