we all know its a hit or miss with them ebay turbos, but has anyone actually had first hand experience with these turbos? if so, how long did it last, and was it worth it.

 

just stick with a turbo you've researched and know. I doubt it's worth the amount of money/your car if the turbo messes up.

 

yea, your right, im looking for an alternate since my turbo is about to be in the crapper, and the prices are so tempting

 

Im using an agp manifold and an ebay turbo on my srt4 and it hauls ass. Just put an act clutch in and e85 setup and some guy named duster gave me a base tune and wow its insane. I been using the ebay turbo for 20,000+ miles now and its great IMO

 

3 years on the ebay turbo it finally died yesterday. The bushings wore and the shaft play let the wheel hit the housing and grind it up. If you buy an ebay turbo you can get a garrett rebuild kit for $80 and have something nearly as good.

 

thats awesome! what fabrication did you have to do with the manifold that it came with, or did you use a different manifold? how was the welding that it came with?

 

dont buy an ebay kit **** that. Buy a zzp manifold. Buy just the ebay turbo.

Here is the little known secret to ebay turbos. A: garrette rebuild kit, B: Run an oil restrictor on the feed line for the turbo (I bought a OBX one off ebay)

Ebay turbos hate oil pressure, if you dont run a restrictor youll wonder why the bitch is smoking and why you blew the turbo.

 

Since when did ebay start making turbo's?

 

cool story troy

 

They dont really have a specific brand of turbo they sell on ebay (there are a few specific ones but some of those are the ones you have to watch out for). Thats why i am calling it an ebay turbo.

 

I would not waste my time nor effort on an Ebay turbocharger. I have been turbocharging cars for the past 10 years and have seen turbos from all brands......

The decent, but still problematic:
Turbonetics
Precision

Good, and less prone to issues:
Borg Warner
Garrett

 

Its all what you want to spend. If your budget minded and dont mind rebuilding it or replacing eventually then its not terrible. But if you can swing it and buy genuine garrett or whoever do it. I did the ebay turbo as a placeholder till i could purchase a nice genuine turbo and here it lasted over 3 years.

 

Why go with an ebay turbo? It could fall apart and destroy everything. Ask all the twin turbo LS1 guys that bought the AGP kit with china made turbos...

Hell find a used K04 before that or a s/c kit. Hell im selling a K04/manifold/chargepiping/bpv for about the price of a ebay turbo and charge piping anyway. (shameless plug)

Not sure what year/model car you have but your money is best spent elsewhere. There are things you just do not want to cheap out on. This is one of them.

 

Agreed.

 

i have a rebuilt precision turbo, thats about to be in a pile of crap, so i need a replacement for now. but even with a branded turbo the possiblity of it crapping is almost as high as taking a chance with an ebay turbo..

if i go and buy this, im probably gonna run 10 lbs of boost.