Quote:
Originally Posted by T1M
I’m not sure what they have equipment wise. They’ve been around for many years, do essentially everything in house and have an unmarred track record in mostly competition usage scenarios. I’m sure they’re built as well as they can be and I’m yet to know of or hear about a failure.
In part due to our trade relationship with Japan and import laws, Australians have been buidling high powered GTR’s and anything else you care to name since they came out. A good portion of that work is ‘high flowing’ stock turbos, unless the customer wants to level up to full aftermarket. There’s quite a few excellent turbo modification businesses here who have their own VSR gear and have done for a very long time, because it’s the right way to do it and the only way to ensure they aren’t going to grenade when pushed hard. And Australians love to push cars hard.
Balance reports here at a local level are seriously not a thing. They’re not a thing in VAG world with tuned Audi’s or VW’s, not a thing with AMG’s/Merc’s, not a thing with evos, STI’s; I’ve owned and modified a few cars in that list as have close friends and really I’ve never heard of or read about anyone receiving one with a turbo and unless they’re a bit nerdy like me, even asking about it. We’re splitting hairs over the reason I guessed RB Turbo now do, but whatever the reason like I said before it’s a nice touch to do so now that you can. For folks like me it’d help put to bed concerns from days gone by and for others it’d be like hey cool I got this printout with a squiggly line.
N54’s are a horrible platform to try and extract power from largely due to the packaging issues of the turbos, inlets and outlets especially as you say on RHD. Folks don’t know how to calculate pressure drop and tune accordingly and until recently no one had even flow tested the stock inlets. Oil temps I’d start doing a cool down lap on in my old Evo are almost normal cruising temps on these cars, so yes large restrictions, high oil temps and crap oil sure no wonder these engines eat turbos. Tuning is still in its infancy with these too so it all goes hand in hand.
I was spoiled with jap cars and their high quality Japanese made aftermarket parts, hell even my golf had a very nice turbo kit but this BMW has been a shock. So many rubbish parts, cheap everything, silicone everything that has to be jammed in between things, zip tied to other things...but it makes sense as the cars I came from were 50-60k plus sports cars or homologation rally cars whereas the 135/335 platform which everthing is catered towards are ordinary vehicles and 15-30k in the used market now.
It was pretty obvious coming in that to get air into the engine, you had to get air into and out of the turbos and the tiny stock parts aren’t up to the task. Oil temps need to come down a lot and this low SAPS oil isn’t going to cut it. I’ve taken steps to address these things but still I’m not planning to push it hard at all. Being a 1M I don’t want to hack it up either, I just want an effortless 400whp with easily controllable IAT’s and lower turbine backpressure to allow me to run a bit more timing and call it a day. I feel it’s the wrong platform for big numbers, there’s so many others that do it better for less effort. Hell even the Hennessey Jeeps are nearly as quick as the worlds fastest N54’s and they’re 2.3 tonnes of SUV with just a blower upgrade, exhaust, injectors and a tune.
We’re our of the dark ages now so hopefully the next 5-10 years sees big things for the platform.
|
Couldn't agree more with all of the above...
From 2004-2009 we worked exclusively with the Japanese market, primarily Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4/Dodge Stealth TT/Subaru WRX. All our builds were fairly basic, we used typical machinery, and failures were unheard of and it was great. Entering into this platform, needless to say, we were quite confident it would be the same. Unfortunately the N54 platform ate us alive in comparison... and it continues to eat all others who join it one by one slowly but surely. Usually it takes years for this to be noticed, as these failures typically do not happen overnight. By the time they start popping up, there are a lot of units in the field, and things can get ugly (ie. Hexon). We hear about it all behind the scenes, some vendors seem to escape the forum scrutiny and some are ousted at every turn- it doesn't help to be the first out there pumping out units in this regard as time isn't on your side nor was the platform advancements. It also doesn't help (heaven forbid) if there is a defect which affects a batch of units which can easily happen in this industry. Fortunately we have everything nailed down to a science, it took a while, but we are seeing 0% failure rates over years and all things considered in THIS platform that is simply amazing.
Best of luck with your locally refurbished RB's, if you ever have any questions shoot over an email.
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________
To any others in this thread- or any friends of friends who maybe in the know- we have not really ever been able to find anyone who has any of these old RB Classic units laying around. Not sure if customers just trashed them, are still running them, have them on a shelf, or what; but if anyone has any they DO have value- they can be refurbished to perfection/etc. Do NOT hesitate to shoot us an email, we do enjoy putting our latest touches on our products and (shipping aside) it is very affordable. If any number of sets can be corralled up, shipping them as a single package would help out but as of now we can not even find a single set. As always we are an email away, and of course please contact us DIRECTLY.
Thanks,
Rob