IW STi Forum banner

Upgraded Turbo on Stock Internals

155K views 289 replies 59 participants last post by  army STI 
#1 ·
I want to get a head count on how many people are running an upgraded turbo on stock internals without any serious problems. Not including the supporting mods for them, such as FMIC, fuel pump, injectors, etc. Also, how many miles have you driven with the upgraded turbo and do you drive aggressively or conservatively? Do you track/autox the car? What turbo are you running? Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, if so then could you move it to the correct one.
 
#2 ·
Hmm I'm looking to do that same !! Because I was thinking instead of doing internals first then upgrade turbo.. But I suppose you could just upgrade Turbo and wait for pistons to blow then do I internals. Makes sense that way doesn't it.. Lol
 
#4 ·
From what everybody answered above, I think we're trying say we don't want you to be part of the blown motor thread.

I asked my tuner to get me a bolt on stock placement upgraded turbo, and just tune it, and he simply told me "No" because he was interested in keeping my motor in one piece and retaining a happy customer. You NEED (not want) to do fueling upgrades along with upgraded / bigger turbo at the minimum. You're asking the motor to breath more air and produce more heat without cooling it adequately. Even a simple Stg 2 tune with stock turbo and dp should really look at upgraded injectors and fuel pump because at that power level, the stock injectors and pump are going to be pushed to max efficiency and you ALWAYS want headroom for added safety margin in the fueling to keep AFR and EGT temps at acceptable levels.

BTW, I was only trying to upgrade to a FP HTA68 with 8cm upgrade which in terms of upgraded turbos is a "milder" upgrade.

Just my $.02
 
#5 ·
You need supporting mods and look in my journal for the list. I've been running a GT3582 at >400whp for the past 30,000 miles without any problems. It is a daily driver that sees redline mutiple times a day.
 
#8 ·
You can do whatever you want to the car and with a great tune you shouldn't run in to a problem for a while. The ringlands will blow eventually, but it's not like if you install a new turbo with the supporting mods it's gonna blow up right when you turn it on. There are some that have been thousands of miles with tons of power at the wheels. Check out the Forged Performance STi and you'll see.
 
#275 ·
I've been running 380whp and 366wtq from a 20g on stock internals for the last 6 months. No problems so far and I do push the car hard sometimes. I want to sleep easy because I know I'm on borrowed time, so pistons, rods, and lots more are in the mail as I'm writing this. You may be able to get away with this for awhile but sooner or later your gonna have to pay the ring land piper! :D How much is peace of mind worth?
 
#10 ·
Hey i just went to a dom 1.5 xtr with and e85 conversion. Stock internals on a new block. I had a rod bearing fail with only 10k miles on a stock car. After SOA rebuit my motor from a short block...10k in parts. I decided to go for stage 2. After 2 which was normal stage 2 requirements plus a tmic and protune i decided i wanted the saftey and performance of e85. After doing some research i decided to go with the dom 1.5 xtr stock location turbo. 1000cc injectors, cooler plugs, grimspeed bcs, perrin turbo inlet, tomei el headers and uppipe, and a new act clutch for the bigger power. The car is super stout and runs strong. My power levels are good. Ill let you know them if your interested but im not here to say my power is any better than anybody elses. Im trying to keep e85 in the car the whole time becuase it burns cooler and is safer for the stock internals. I run the car spirited but i am not hard on the car. Havent tracked the car yet as i have just got it back from TopSpeed. Will be taking on that challenge this summer.

Now yes there is always a chance for failure when you push increased power through the block. But its all about the tune. So do your research find a great tuner and take your time. All the best and have a good one.
 
#11 ·
I ran a dom 3r for about 6 months, e85, perfect afr's, 406 to the wheels, blew a ring. Bought a rallispec block and after the lomg a grueling task of breaking it in, getting it tuned next week. Proly stay around 420. Your motor can blow at 7k with a stock turbo, its the game we play with these cars. I had an 08 wrx blow a ring at 5k. But like people have mentioned, do your research and pick a well reviewed tuned.
 
#20 ·
I dont give a **** what you are, you obviously have zero experience on the subject and are reciting crap that you read. I speak from first hand experience only. PLease tell me your experience with cars over 400whp on stock block, and dont say this shop or that shop, I want personal experience. As I said before "engineer" when you let crap like this spill out of your mouth with such confidence, people actually believe it.
 
#18 ·
I agree! The thing is if you want to make more power you run the risk of failure. You just have to have that in the back of your mind when you go bigger and have the cash stashed if you do run into issues. I hope you dont and are able to enjoy the car for many more miles!
 
#19 ·
I've got a 20G on my STi running 93 octane currently. I will be switching to E85 this Spring, but I'm going to keep the power below the 400whp mark until I build a motor (already got a spare block). I haven't done much with this car this year as I've been helping others get their cars going.

I am my own tuner, so if I see an issue, I address it immediately. One of the places I find I have to put some extra time into is temperature compensations as weather changes (have to scale OL and CL MAF in one shot for base). This completely alleviates the need to have a "winter tune" and "summer tune". I've actually spent more time tuning friends cars this year than mine as I've been driving my Taurus SHO around more. I should have considerably more mileage on my 20G next year... I know I'm at a point where a ring land can go, but that's the game.
 
#22 ·
If you don't have enough money for an emergency shortblock within 6 months-1 year, don't do it.
 
#23 ·
Loving this thread. Experience is what counts, period. These mechanics and shops and engineers that spit this crap out of their mouth that there's longevity in your motor with a bigger turbo as long as you're running e85 and smooth afr's, its crap. There's no promise even with a stock turbo, depending on how your drive it, keeping track of fluid levels and maintenance... I was at the stealership today to drop off my 88 GL, daily driver, and a dude was in there curious what was wrong with his stock motor on an sti. White smoke is dumping out the cb and it wreaks like coolant. I rolled up and asked whether everything was stock, yup. Nothing is a guarantee with these cars, so take the advice given, that you best have a backup plan if you're going to either push the car stock or modify parts. I was lucky when I blew my rings and rod bearing that I had a plan b, extra cash stashed.
 
#25 ·
My rings started to go on the stock turbo on E85 ~24psi (which I didn't know at the time). A shop told me my turbo was blown (not true) and that's why the motor was eating oil. After installing the 20G-XT and having it tuned, the ringlands were pretty much toast in cylinders 2 and 4. My car has been down for the last 7 months while I've been building a block which is about ready to go in to the car.

In my personal opinion, I wouldn't expect a stock block to last very long on an upgraded turbo... Mine probably only lasted about 5-6K miles after adding E85 on the stock turbo.

EDIT: Please don't listen to fuji production, he obviously doesn't have enough personal experience (his OWN car, his OWN work) to be making such statements about the reliability of the stock block.
 
#26 ·
I can vividly recall the feeling I got when I blew the ringland and bearing. It was the feeling of betrayal, mainly because I told my tuner that I was seeking a safe tune that would reassure longevity of the motor. 6 months of fun. And there's no one to blame but me, myself and I. Just glad there's a website like this to get other people's EXPERIENCE, not assumptions, about similar situations.
 
#28 ·
A bad tune will kill a motor pretty quickly, and some models/years of Subarus came with bad tunes from the factory. There's a thread over at NASIOC that shows the car running near 14.7:1 AFRs well into boost.

I have about 2 years and 20k miles on a stock longblock, ATP 3076, and the supporting mods that you'd expect.

I do my own tuning, so I know exactly how much it knocks, and I keep it to a minimum. Subaru motors probably wouldn't blow up nearly so often if more people would spend the time to make data logs and look for knock. If you don't know how much you're knocking, you don't know how long your motor will last. Most people have on idea how much their motors are knocking. Some will be lucky and some will be unlucky.
 
#29 ·
What are symptoms of knocking ? Do you hear that from the engine it's self ? Excuse my newbish qs !!
 
#36 ·
IDK about others, but to me it sounds kind of like rice crispies lol, kind of a crackling pinging sound from the engine, I had a friend who mistook it for a loose heatshield on the exhauast and boom, holes in pistons lol. If your getting audible knock on stock bottom end, its pretty much done already.
 
#31 ·
Instead of thinking about how to make the car faster via larger turbo, why not work on your driving (you're not Micheal Schumacher, no matter how much you play GT5 or whatever) and how the car handles? You won't have to worry about the engine blowing unless you're a horrible driver. There is a huge difference between a fast car and a fast driver.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top