sunlord

I see alot of complete ebay turbo systems that are brand new for under $2,000. Everyone says you get what you pay for and to stay away from ebay set ups but can someone honestly explain what makes them so bad? What if I got an ebay turbo system and then upgraded the turbo or BOV or wastegate to something better? It would still come in at a pretty cheap price.

Bommello

So then you would be buying a new turbo (not cheap), BOV and wastegate. Waste of money when in the end your 2k ebay kit will leave you with what? A manifold and intercooler? Best to just piece together yourself with good components to begin with.Not to mention what you stay with are all cheap components.

daytonmvp23

It is really just the build quality of the products. I mean think of cheap toys some can last awhile others break out of the box. Same deal occasionally you get a good one but usually most break easily or don't mount up like they should. Brand name stuff generally means higher quality and closer tolerances. So when you get a 2.5 inch pipe it actually measure 2.5 inches not 2.4 or 2.6 for instance. Some ebay products are great others are bad. In short if you need to go ebay check the feedback and reviews of the products first. Bad reviews are given for a reason.

SR Tech

Ask Tibbyturbo why they're no good.



I don't care how "complete" they say its is. There's no downpipe, no tuning source, no real warranty and everything is a knockoff from China.



Its not all ebay systems tho, mainly the ones for our cars and others that noone makes kits for, except teh turbosocks



Any other car that there is a lot of aftermarket support for, ebay probably can match or have similar quality compared to those offered by name brand companies

turbosocks

what makes them junk usually isn't just one part of the kit.. its alot of the kit..



for example.. most ebay kits come with oil lines and fittings.. the fittings are absolutely terrible. When I was doing R&D for my turbo kits, I went through a few different options of things to find the best bang for the buck parts.



My first two sets of oil lines/fittings were super sloppy in the crafstmanship and the way they threaded together. The lines weren't very flexible and the steel braiding was all frayed.. not to mention, none of the 'ebay' kits come with the right sized lines usually for your application.



The BOV and Wastegates are usually the last things i'd worry about in an ebay kit, as they are pretty much a spring, a housing and hook up to a vacuum line. Most of the cheap BOVs I have seen work great.



The intercoolers are usually pretty but have a very crappy core design which are inefficient. Will they work, yes? will your post intercooler air be as 'cooled' as it should, no..



Alot of the piping in the intercooler kits on ebay are really thin, to the point if you tighten a coupler to tight, it will actually bend the piping, not to mention being to thin to easily weld (if you were going that route)



The couplers in alot of the cheaper ebay kits are either plain colored rubber or 1-2 ply compared to 3-ply.



The clamps, even though alot of ebay kits use T-bolt clamps now, aren't made well and will snap without much torque applied to them. they also tend to bind up under torque.



The kits that come with manifolds (not all of them do) are usually made of thin, low grade stainless steel. these manifolds are prone to cracking and warping. Most of them don't even mount up to the head, right out of the box.



Onto the turbos, some are good, some are bad.. Tibby Turbo bought an ebay kit and his compressor wheel came loose and got all screwed up. Lots of people have problems with the real cheap turbos leaking oil, making crazy sounds when spooling, etc.



Sometimes you will get lucky and get a decent setup from one of the cheap ebay kits, and it doesn't even have to be the 900$ ones, it could be the 500$ kits.. But most of the time, you will find yourself replacing and/or upgrading the inferior parts in the future.. After that, you will end up spending the same, if not more $$$ on a quality setup.



You can get a decent starter kit for <2000$ by putting together your own parts or buying a kit that will last much longer than 90% of the cheap ebay kits.



You also have to realize that those ebay kits don't come with fuel management, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, air filters (in most cases), downpipes, etc.



other than the ebay turbo kits are AWESOME!!!



EDIT: i saw a comment regarding reviews.. these can also be deceiving, like when I was buying parts for R&D.. some of those ebay parts look pretty, but most people leave their reviews before they are even on the car. like 'parts look great and high quality' you can't tell the quality of a turbo, just because its shiny.





EDIT EDIT:



heres some more insight.

The two most popular cheap manifold are the OBX and the new top WG mounted manifold.



I tried two different OBX manifolds and BOTH would have taken modification to the bolt holes for it even to bolt up to the head. People also have problems with this style cracking.



I have seen 2 out of 3 reports of the newer top WG mounted tubular log style manifold not bolting up without modification.



As I stated above, I had issues with two different sets of cheap fittings and lines.



With the piping, I made a CAI for a friends car, before I chose the piping I use now in my kits. The piping looked nice and was shiny, but had very thin walls, probably 1/32" or so. very 'tinny' When we put the CAI on his car, I bent the tubing, tightening the coupler to the TB. Most cheap manufacturers may have fixed this by now, but especially on a BOOST setup, you don't want piping that may be crushed under tightening couplers as it would be a lot worse than a bend CAI pipe on an N/A car.



heres an example of the obx issue, just an FYI for things to come when buying ebay parts.

steelcoffinx3

I got a fmic and piping kit from just-intercoolers, the couplers were really good 3ply, t bolts were solid, the piping is 2mm thick all beaded a few scratches though. The fimic's core was painted silver (I heard it's because the aluminum is impure), the fin density is reasonable, the exerternal fins have turbulators but the internal fins have a bunch of holes and the mounting hardware was mismatched, still gets the job done.

TibbyTurbo

Dont buy ebay Turbos! Go to Turbosocks.com you'll be better off, Any ebay turbo are all universal turbo not really for our cars you're going to have to pay more at the shop to get those to fit, Turbosocks has a bolt on kit for our cars You'll save allot more money on the install and replacing parts. This is what happen to my turbo after 100 miles: