GTM turbo kit feedback thread
 

I know that I speak for myself and I believe probably many others when I say that I'm very interested in hearing some feedback from all you guys who are now running the gtm turbo kit.

Most of us have read quite a bit about it by now and gtm has been very informative, but I'm interested in hearing from the people who are currently runnin it, Particarly if it your z is a daily driven car.

What kinda info I'm looking for? Torque curve, reliability, ease of install, any kinds of issues you have encountered. I am also very interested in hearing from people who are running the turnkey kit. How is the Osiris ecu flash working out. Would you go that route again knowing what you know now. As for the tuner version I am interested In seeing what ecu and fuel setup you have chosen and how well it is working out. I am particularly interested In the de version of the kit because there is much less information about it than there is about the hr version.

Thanks guys.

Interesting...

all good questions! hopefully we get some informative answers.

its easy to install it if u did install turbo kits on VQs befor :D

TTT

This is going to be a good thread.

It seems like I'm the only one who had problems with it but I guess I'll just let the cat out of the bag.

I ordered my GTM Stage 5 kit around 4-12-2009 and I was told it would be 2-3 Weeks before it shipped, I was very patient because I know there was a large amount of orders for the kit. The kit finally showed up about 6-7 weeks later and everything looked A-OK until I started bolting the turbos to the manifolds.

One turbo had a t-25 flange and the other turbo had a T-3 flange on it... WTF? So I called Sam and let him know about the mistake and he sent me another housing in ~ a week, but the crappy thing was I had to ship the old housing back at my expense. $13 wasn't really worth the hassle of trying to get the credit back so I just forgot about it.

I immediately started putting the kit on the car and noticed that on one turbo the gasket didnt match up with the 5 bolt housing on the passenger side turbo. Not only did this make me have to modify the gasket with a dremel, I also had to modify the downpipe flange to bolt up to the turbo. I got the downpipe bolted up and tried to put the 4 bolt wastegate pipe on the manifold only to find out that it wouldnt bolt up flush to the manifold surface because the pipe was hitting the downpipe. I ended up having to take a hammer to the wastegate pipe and flattening one side to get it to fit right.

I had all sorts of fitment issues that I know were not my fault, the intercooler brackets didnt line up with the holes on the intercooler, so now I have 5 bolts holding the intercooler on instead of 6. The front bumper wont fit on because the pass side intake pipe sticks out too far (I looked at another GTM G35 Coupe build and the pipe looks to be modified to go into the center of the car where as mine does not) and the driver side intake has nothing to support it so I have to cut the bracket off and weld a new one on.
One other small issue was the fact I was missing 2 T-Bolt clamps as well.

So here I am almost 4 months after I ordered the kit, still without a working car, still with no turbos (thats another story). I am done with this car after I get it tuned, the whole experience has basically ruined my passion for cars and I have no interest in modifying my G any more after this. And it only makes it worse that Stylin Z just made ~600 whp with my old kit :P

Sorry to hear that trouble. Surprised you still working on turbo issue. Damm man... good luck.

I bought the turn key kit and upgraded to the external wastegates. Install was very straight forward and done by me at home. I will say that I was missing afew small parts that Sam got out to me right away. The only issue I have had is the reroute pipes did not fit so I am forced to run open dumps.Sam is aware of the problem and assures me I will have the correct pipes soon but it has been 5 months. Also still waiting on the 93 octane tune....... again its been awhile on that as well. I would say it has been mostly possitive and would buy from GTM again in a heartbeat. The car gets beat on all the time and no issues to date.

Jason,

I am truly sorry about your situation and can relate to your problems based on experiences with my own car. Unfortunately things don't always go as planned and the project keeps getting delayed - sometimes there are things that we cannot control.

I am sorry one of the turbos were incorrect, we were very busy and somehow missed that Garret had sent us a mis-matched set. It was our fault, and we will be more careful to make sure it never happens again. We will PayPal you the $13 for shipping that it cost you to ship back the part.

As far as these other fitment issues this is the first we are hearing of them, we haven't had any other complaints and would appreciate as much feedback as possible so if there is a problem we can correct it ASAP.

We have revised our intake piping since the original kit and would be glad to send you the revised piping to make you happy, although I don't think it will at this point. When we received your turbos we had them inspected ASAP, they were tested, with out oil restrictiors, and they are perfectly fine - no oil is passing through the seals. It was odd that both turbos would be bad.

So as you can see, the issue that has gotten you so frustrated is out of our control as well - the product is fine and has no defects, this could only lead to and installation issue or some other odd coincidence at play.

Your drain lines could be too low, if you were trying to get a better angle than what we have in the instructions by placing the return lower in the pan it could be causing the oil to back up in the turbo. Another cause could be that your crank case is being pressurized and blowing oil through your PCV into the intake track. What ever the cause it was not a faulty turbo as we all thought.

As you can see this is a bad situation for us as well, because now you are unhappy with us because of something that was beyond our control.

We are still here to help if you need anything, just let us know - our number one priority is your satisfaction.

P.S. Please don't take this as us putting the blame on you or anyone, we just want you to understand our perspective.

-George
GT Motorsports

I will find out about this for you and shoot you a PM. I was not aware of these issues.

-George
GT Motorsports

This is slightly off topic but may help Blackbird. I recently had some smoking at idle on my kit after redoing some of the crankcase hoses. All I did was switch out the 5/8" heater hose I had in place to a little bit longer 3/8" fuel hose as I thought the thick hose was overkill and I wanted to move my open breather out of sight (already have a drilled out PCV). I went back to 5/8" hose and the light smoking at idle went away immediately. I didn't think the turbos would be that sensitive to crankcase pressure build up, but I guess they are...

I understand that the whole turbo situation isn't your fault, thats why I never mentioned it, the flange and gasket not lining up with the turbo is obviously an issue with how Garrett drilled and tapped the exhaust housing. Quality and components of the kit are all top notch, the only thing I see wrong with the whole kit is the quality control. In the future please check that the gaskets line up with the exhaust housing and that all the little things are included in the package, missing 2 t-Bolt clamps isnt a big deal to me because I have another vehicle but it might be a problem for someone who only has one car and is working on a time line.

One other issue was the instructions, they were excellent but left out the part where you have to put the 1/4" spacers on the transmission mount. I neglected to do this and it caused some serious issues with the steering knuckle rubbing the turbine housing.

As far as the turbos go, I am just waiting for them to get back to Injected and we are going to try to run the turbos with the restrictors you guys supplied. So far I know its not PCV related because there was no oil in the intercooler or intake piping, only in the exhaust housing of both turbos.

I will keep everyone updated when the car finally runs

I am running no hoses at all, my driver side valve cover is drilled out and vented to atmosphere and the pcv valve is drilled out and vented to atmosphere as well

Then that answers that. There's no way for you to have elevated crankcase pressure. I hope the restrictors do the trick. I read somewhere recently that Garrett recommends restrictors on cars running over 60 psi of oil pressure. Good luck!

http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob.../faqs.html#t16

From the Garrett website

lower oil flow further reduces the risk of oil leakage compared to journal-bearing turbochargers. Oil pressure entering a ball-bearing turbocharger needs to be between 40 psi and 45 psi at the maximum engine operating speed. For many common passenger vehicle engines, this generally translates into a restrictor with a minimum of 0.040" diameter orifice upstream of the oil inlet on the turbocharger center section.

I know my car would smell like it was burning oil, almost to the point where I didn.t want to drive it. Once I installed the oil restricter the smell is gone. I was told they are included in every kit now.

Thanks George, I know Sam has been real busy lately.

Mike This applies only to HR and the VHR not the De, In a mater of fact Jason will be the first to get additional oil restrictors in top of the of the ones that comes in his turbos originally .

Both of our r&d cars the 350z hr and g37vhr never had any oil restrictors and never had any smoking issue .

We start supplying an additional oil restrictor to the HR/VHR after dealing with a car that will smoke sometimes on decal, this was an 08 G35 Hr automatic sedan. With some additional testing we found the HR and VHr have a lot more oil press than the De, This sedan will have over 100 psi at the turbo (oil temp hot) at all the time. So we came up with the additional restrictor .

I know its frustrating sometimes when dealing with any of these challenges, we are always working on supplying superior quality service Through continuous improvement in everything we do.



We appreciate everyone input.



Sam

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Awesome thread!!