My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

A little back ground before the results.

Ok for those of you who dont know there are a couple of turbos on the market right now that are similar to the MHI e316g (mitsus Evo III) turbo.

These turbos are being sold under the almost misleading name of "Evo III GT" or even "Evo III 16g GT". For those who might not be as informed as others these turbos are not a Mitusbishi factory part nor are they made from a MHI turbo.

As stated above there are 2 "knock offs" out there that I know of. One of these is made in China and the other Tawain.

Since the subject has been almost beat to death on dsmtuners.com I am not going to go into all of the details about both or the diffrences between these 3 units.

My test started with a purchase from eBay for one of these Evo III GT's. This unit has its roots in Tawain (BBL) not China.

At first glance the turbo looks awesome, comes in an almost UPS bomb proof box, and is exactally as advertised with a 7cm opening, a 34mm flapper and all the gaskets needed to install. At this point I cant wait to put her in and throw some dirt around.

Install of the turbo went smooth as silk with 2 slight modifications. Thefirst is that the holes for the oil return line are not as deep as a MHI turbo and you must use shorter bolts. I went with 5mm less than stock. The second is the waist gate actuator line is in the way of some piping and needed to be bent downwards aprox. 45 degrees. This might actually be in part of the non-stock piping in the car.

After dialing the boost way down (14psi) from where it was on the Big 16g that I was using I started breaking in the new motor. Since I cant drive this thing on a daily basis I only got a handfull of miles and a few dozen vaccuum pulls in before it was time throw some power down at a rally cross.

I left the boost alone at 14 and did some minor adjustments for tuning to run a bit rich and then it was WOT time.

The car pulled just as hard with the new motor, which was also severly changed internally, and new "knock off" turbo than it did mostly stock on the b16gat 18psi. I was very impressed to say the least.

Since rally cross isnt exactally the best testing or tuning grounds I didnt know what to expect. After one afternoon of basically 1 minute at WOT every 20 minutes, times 8 runs or so I thought that the combo was doing wonderfully.

Then wanting to put more miles on the motor and start some tuning work I took it back out on the highway to turn the odometer some more. This took place aprox. 1 week after beating on it at the rally-x. This is where the whole experiance started to go south. With about 200 miles on the motor/turbo I noticed that after full boost shifting I am creating a smoke screen behind me comparable to what street level pictures of the WTC disaster looked like.

Hoping that I didnt just blow up a multi k dollar QPR motor or its internals I took off the turbo inlet piping and found my problem.

The shaft on my new turbo moves and I am not talking about normal rotation here. This thing move from side to side so bad that it has already started to seriously eat the comp. wheel. If I could measure it I would but guessing its close to 1/4 of an inch. I ate a brand new turbo in under 200 miles.

As to the cause of the failue I dont know what it could be yet. There are a few options including oil pressure, turbo inlet restrictor and many others including the quality of the turbo itself that have yet to be proved or disproved at this point.

Since these turbos are sold with a no questions asked 12 month 12k mile warr. I was able to contact the vendor and have them replace the turbo at no cost to me but shipping the other one back.

I should have its replacement either the end of this week or the beginning of next and at that time I can continue my "knock off" turbo testing.

My goal is to try and prove that the turbo is a viable alternative to purchasing something else with less features or that costs more. The plan is to get the Rally Squad back up and running, get her tuned up on a dyno with some decent numbers (looking for a reliable 300 that I can use all day) and bring the whole package to the table on stage at LSPR.

More to come when I get it.

Dan Moore
www.sidewaysmotorsports.com

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Great write-up, keep us posted.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

I bought one of these from a decepticon on ebay, and he didnt want to refund my money... His ad said it was a MHI Turbo... after I sent it back he charged me like a $70 cleaning fee (it was never installed but he claims it got "full of styrofoam")

I filed a claim with paypal and got all the rest of my money back.... these turbos look like junk to me

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Slowboy had a metallurigist do an analysis of the MHI vs. GT and came up with some very interesting points. I'd post some of them but I don't want to misquote anything and I can't seem to find a link to the article on their website anymore.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

The jackass I bought the turbo from was well aware of the slowboy link before I showed it to him as proof of what a piece of shit the turbo is. He just kept trying to say a bunch of BS like "This turbo is not made in china, I've been to the place that makes these turbos" meanwhile "made in china" is cast into the housing.

He also managed to tell me that these are WAY better than the real MHI version, as they test these for 10 days at 40 psi... blah blah blah...

He claimed that he was in the middle of a lawsuit with slowboy over this matter.... what a dink

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

nice write up... u learn something new everyday :)

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Slowboy is a dink for all the trashing he's done against these turbos, he hasn't done anything he promised he would, specifically the metallurigist inspection.

Reading through the saga of the tiwaneese evoIII gt is quite fun. Sorry if anyone had a bad experience, but I'm glad someone is at least trying to use them & put them to the test!

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Thanks for saving me the time of blowing one up myself. :D

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

[QUOTE=scheides]...specifically the metallurigist inspection....QUOTE]


Huh, I was under the impression that the results Mike Huml posted on their website were from a metallurigist's inspection?

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

maybe I never saw that, but I followed that whole story all the way through, from all angles for about a week. Maybe I never saw the report, I guess I really don't remember.

I think there was just a ton of things said with that whole ordeal that didn't need to be, and I also think it should've been marketed a little differently. Too big of fuss over a turbo, though. The price difference is not worth all the comotion, in my opinion.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

OK its been 4 weeks or so and I just got this turbo back. Same comp and exh housings just all new internals and WG actuator.

Time to put it to the test now. Since I have also purchased a real MHI turbo as well these things are going on the dyno in the near future.

Bets anyone. Goal is to make 350 with the restrictor in the turbo. I will be measuring tolerances in turbos before and after things like that. Bad feeling that my test is going to get expensive and lead to the ultimate failure of the "knock off" again.

Dan

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

I would be more worried about having the bearings go away in the "cheap" turbo and wipe my engine bearings out. Good luck with your project.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Thinking about a filter in the return oil line. Wouldnt be that hard to do.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

You can't put a filter in the return line. It isn't under much if any pressure. A filter would probably cause the oil to back up and blow the turbo seals.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

I think you proved in your first testing that these turbos aren't worth the trouble to save a few bucks over a real MHI 16G.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

I'm with Shane. I know no one cares, but I am.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

You'd have to install a pump on the return side to get enough pressure to run the oil through a filter. Gravity feeding a filter with oil would just back up and fill the bearing housing with oil.

Re: My "Evo III GT" Turbo test results
 

Well I have this basically brand new turbo that I have another 12 months to play around with. But I think you are right. Might not be the best idea to have the possibility of throwing bearings into bearings on a 4k motor.

I will be doing a swap in a 2g here shortly, maybe I will try it out on a well used motor.

When I said filter I was thinking more along the lines of a strainer but not sure it would do any good.

Thanks for the feedback.

Dan