i finally did it - pics and vid inside - aaz with t3

[gldgti]

so as the title suggests....

tooke a loooong time to get everything together, but once i did get it all together, took 2 weekends. link to my homeland forum, vwwatercooled.org.au

http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newforum/upload/showthread.php?t=12233&page=12
http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newforum/upload/showthread.php?t=12233&page=13
http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newforum/upload/showthread.php?t=12233&page=14

by the way guys, yes, its a merc style T3 and yes its a prothe turbo. call me stupid (i know some of you will) but i just couldnt resist at least trying one and seeing. the T3 isnt a fancy turbo, there's not a lot to them, and the way china manufactures things these days, they do make some things with reasonable wuality. so i figured hey, i might as well try it.

for now, it works. fingers crossed. i do have a genuine vw 1.6 t3 here that needs rebuilding but i havnt got the correct rebuild kit for it yet.

[GEE-BEE]

Curious ?

Why not use a PD130BC or PD150 Intake ?

Lot's of work there..

GB

[wildenbeast]

yes its a prothe turbo. call me stupid (i know some of you will)

I must say... take that turbo off immediately before that cheap piece of junk damages your good parts. 

[Rabbit on Roids]

its going to explode (the turbo) if you try and push it to its limits. have you seen how wildly some of his turbos have to be balanced? i saw one a while back that half of the hex head on the turbine ground off just to balance it close.

[gldgti]

yeah i know... I guess im playing with fire with this turbo but i couldnt help being curious.
Im not going to run it past 20 psi....

On the intake thing... I cant get pd intakes here in australia very easily... Hehe. plus, i wanted to play around with my own designs... I have a better idea forming for the intake though.

i will likely rebuild the proper t3 and swap it in, in time

[gldgti]

its going to explode (the turbo) if you try and push it to its limits. have you seen how wildly some of his turbos have to be balanced? i saw one a while back that half of the hex head on the turbine ground off just to balance it close.

I know your right, but say it goes pop, the worst that could happen is i have to replace some of my intake parts

[vanbcguy]

First off, while I've definitely heard complaints about the Prothe turbos not putting out the boost they should, and the balance looking kind of dodgy, I can't say anyone on here has ever had one fail on them.  I'd personally buy a used KKK or Garret instead, but you've got what you've got.

There's all kinds of fun that can happen when a turbo goes 'boom'.  If the compressor side blows then your engine can ingest chunks of compressor wheel doing all kinds of internal damage.  If it ends up dumping its oil supply in to the intake you can get a runaway condition where your engine destroys itself revving to the moon running on oil spewing from the turbo.  If the turbo housing itself isn't up to snuff and things let go (remember we're talking 100,000 RPM+) you can end up with chunks of turbo destroying any number of things.

[wildenbeast]

yeah i know... I guess im playing with fire with this turbo but i couldnt help being curious.
Im not going to run it past 20 psi....

My prothe turbo created so much heat that it warped my manifold.  Once I switched to a T2 turbo, my EGTs went down from 1250-1400 on a long grade to 850 max on the same climb

[burn_your_money]

Hey as long as engines are cheap and you don't mind working on them I would love to see how long and how hard you can use that turbo for.

I just saw a TDI engine where the turbo failed. The rods were severely bent because of all the oil that was dumped into the cylinders.

[Rabbit on Roids]

First off, while I've definitely heard complaints about the Prothe turbos not putting out the boost they should, and the balance looking kind of dodgy, I can't say anyone on here has ever had one fail on them.  I'd personally buy a used KKK or Garret instead, but you've got what you've got.

There's all kinds of fun that can happen when a turbo goes 'boom'.  If the compressor side blows then your engine can ingest chunks of compressor wheel doing all kinds of internal damage.  If it ends up dumping its oil supply in to the intake you can get a runaway condition where your engine destroys itself revving to the moon running on oil spewing from the turbo.  If the turbo housing itself isn't up to snuff and things let go (remember we're talking 100,000 RPM+) you can end up with chunks of turbo destroying any number of things.

has anyone really used a prothe turbo in a performance oriented build? ive never really heard of anyone putting a prothe turbo on a hot rod diesel. for that matter, i dont really know of anyone on the forum besides the OP that runs a prothe turbo.

[gldgti]

has anyone really used a prothe turbo in a performance oriented build? ive never really heard of anyone putting a prothe turbo on a hot rod diesel. for that matter, i dont really know of anyone on the forum besides the OP that runs a prothe turbo.

yeah see now this is the thing - i know everyone slags them off (and i do understand why) but i havnt seen a picture of a prothe exploded turbo yet. like i said, i was curious about it, so i am using it and see how it goes.

when i got the turbo, i took it apart to check that everyhting internally was in order. i replaced the dodgy washers under the bolts with good ones.... but theres only so much you can do. i have no control over the metallugy of the thing, but all the castings appeared to be pretty good and i could see no reason not to at least try it.

now i'm 500km's in. i've checked on several occasions for:

excess oil in the inlet tract,
particles of alloy (from compressor wheel or housing) in the inlet
extra play in the turbine bearings

i have also been closely monitoring boost, EGT's and oil pressure (i have all 3 guages in the dash.) so far, i am yet to see anything that alarms me. i have been up on power, even though i've been able to reduce my fuelling by winding the fuel screw out by a total of 3/4 of a turn. on my test hills, i see generally 30-40 *C increased EGT for the same load and ROAD  SPEED (but less boost than before with my t2) so it would seem that the lower boost is the cause of the higher EGT. the turbo spools nicely over 2000 rpm.

now ofcourse, im not going to prophesize that this turbo is "good" or that it wont blow up - but honestly, i think with my 7 feet of inlet tube and a big intercooler i will be relatively safe from ingesting large chunks of alloy into the engine (specially considering that an exploding compressor wheel wont make boost for very long).

on another note, i have found and bought the correect rebuild kit for my genuine T3, so i suspect this prothe turbo will be sacrificed to the backyard jet turbine gods in the near future. now THAT will be dangerous :-)

[gldgti]

got a proper rebuild kit with 360 degree thrust bearing for the VW T3, rebuilt it and its on. already taken it for a drive. more boost tomorrow and more driving :-)

chinese turbo will be backyard jet soon.

[burn_your_money]

So the real deal outperformed Prothe's turbo?

[Rabbit on Roids]

got a proper rebuild kit with 360 degree thrust bearing for the VW T3, rebuilt it and its on. already taken it for a drive. more boost tomorrow and more driving :-)

chinese turbo will be backyard jet soon.

thats kinda what i picked up from his words. and i dont see how it couldnt work better than the prothe turbo? garrett actually has this thing called quality control, its wonderful.

[gldgti]

ooooooooooooooooooook.

so, ive done a little tinkering today and i'm very happy. wastegate working well, i now have boost control.... which means i've been ale to see just how this baby goes. turbo performs well so far, i havnt really gone easy on it, i figure journal bearing turbo should be fine from the get-go.

max boost in each gear:

1 - 10psi
2 - 16psi
3 - 18psi
4 - 21psi
5 - 23psi.

lag is there,but less than with the merc t3, i think. not reeealy sure, since without a wastegate i couldnt floor it with the other turbo. off boost performance still good. very very rough 0-100km/h on wet road about 8.5-9 seconds (by myself, no helper for timing )

no bad noises, turbo makes a nice whine up to about 5psi then its all whoosh. i'm sure i've lost a fair bit below 2500rpm with this setup, but now i can rev right out to 5000 with ease. just pulls and pulls. 100km/h in 3rd was not an option with the t2, now its easy. very predictable power, lag means the torque builds smoothly but if you get on hte throttle early you can make up for it a bit. just need to learn my way around it

above 3000rpm, the car is a beast. really storms ahead. definately an open road car now too, much nicer at speed with some load to bring the boost up quickly. at freeway speeds its great. my new favorite gears are 2nd, 3rd and 4th. 5th now feels long (used to feel short) but still great for cruising, its just that to really get the benefit from all the power in 5th, you would need to be doinga LOOOOONG way over the speed limit.

EGT's peak at 620*C, so i'm still below the red zone. considering i've turned the fuelling down so much, i really think this setup is oing to return much better economy. time will tell

on the chinese turbo thing - i really cant say it was any worse, but i just didnt feel confident with it.... haha. it might be fine. you guys scared me out of using it for too long. anyway, might be for the best :-)