Touche, my good sir. I sort of meant the one spinney thing in the middle, but I'll give you all those other ones.

Tbh, id try out a chinese turbo on my car if I could get it for a pittance of no more then 150 bucks. For 300, I might as well double that and get the real thing without a care in the world.

I hate red China and a lot of their crap, but my TV works fine.

Oh, the one that operate at over 100k RPMs, pressures ranging into the 300+kPa range, and temperatures in the 1700*F+ range? I forgot about that one. I'm sure the children that assemble them know what they're doing though.

I like the idea of using a China charger for people trying to do the cheapest build possible. Spending very little money on a build and having decent results is a good accomplishment. Outside of that, I see them as junk and would never run one myself even if I was trying to save some money.

That was me, actually. I had to bite my metaphorical tongue to avoid replying, "If I had the equipment needed to determine a compressor map, I'd be negotiating with your supplier instead." A lot of the first wave of guys who picked up on these things jumped into selling them with, well, less than adequate tech support capabilities.

I've heard all sorts of stories about how these hold up. We've worked with a guy who built a 9 second car using a ChinaCharger (and took a drag video of it that ended with the guy at the timing tower yelling at him for bringing a cameraman along in a car that fast). And I've met other customers who have had one of these work a couple years. And I've seen equally credible stories about turbos that needed a rebuild after a few weeks. Either the ones on the market have seriously inconsistent QC, or there's some companies that make good ones and others that make garbage, making it hard to tell which is which when you're buying from some eBay seller known only as "CDMSportZ".

For all the debate about these china chargers, I don't recall anybody ever having trouble with them.

Every once in a while somebody will ask about them, and many people say "Oh, they're shit, buy a garret" but a few people say "Oh, I've been running one of those for 6 months with no problems" and once in a while somebody says "I had a buddy of a friend of mine who blew up his wrx with a china charger, but he didn't have the oil lines hooked up right" but nobody ever says "Oh, shit. I ran one of those for a week and a half once, but then it exploded."

I'm not saying they're great, I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, they don't suck.

I much agree. They're great for a cheap DIY setup, but I wouldn't use one for a serious setup or a DD. I'd still look for a good used name brand turbo though first. I'd much rather get a used Garret T3 and rebuild it and have a $250 turbo than spend 190 on a chinacharger.

^ You mention a very valid point. How comfortable would one be to daily drive a china charger?

Serious question: When you buy a rebuild kit, where were the parts that are in it made?

A lot of common FLAPs components nowdays are of Chinese origin- hydraulic cylinders, bearings, little shit like that. Are the folks selling these rebuild kits actually buying their components direct from Garrett (or Garrett's OEM supplier), or are they being made overseas?

Granted, a thrust washer and a journal bearing aren't quite as critical in nature as a wheel and a turbine housing, but still...


On a more fundamental note, I get this feeling sometimes that people tend to visualize China as just being one big homogeneous place, where everything is the same, all metallurgy is equal, etc. But that's a vast oversimplification. Even here in the US, you have some factories turning out top-notch stuff, built well out of good materials. And then you have other factories turning out utter crap, cheaply and quickly made with nary a glance towards QC.


I'd be really curious to know how many different manufacturers are producing the turbochargers that we're seeing on eBay. The supply chain is doubtless so long that tracing them back through a vendor might prove difficult. FuYuan has a pretty good rep building turbochargers for industrial applications, but they can't be the only one doing it. Unfortunately, companies like Alibaba and Tradew make it easy to mask the true origin of damn near anything.

Good point. I've never rebuilt a turbo, or bought a rebuild kit for one, so I have no experience here. I would assumed a garret rebuild kit would only be offered from Garret? I guess there are other kits available. Again, never rebuilt a turbo, so don't really know what's involved.

As for the China comments, most of my stuff is based on personal experience. I've never been to china, or a chinese manufacturing plant, or spoke to a chinese person that worked in one, or designed parts, etc. Of course there are exceptions to everything. But my general view of Chinese products is crap. I'd say 90% of the stuff coming out of china is designed to be cheap first. Quality, fit, finish, durability, and function are not. Whether ebay turbos falls into the 10% range of decency, I don't know.

A couple examples that support both our sides: Cheap Chinese tooling. Go to lowes and buy a set of drill bits, or a tap & die set and it will likely be made in china. For some things, Chinese drill bits work just as good as any other bit. Wood, plastics, sheet metals, aluminum, etc. But put them in steel, drill rod, etc and they dull quickly because they are not made from the same alloy HSS that a good bit is. As for taps, most taps all work fine. But it's my experience that Chinese taps don't have a machined center on top of the tap. If you've ever used a tap with a dead center to keep it centered, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, the Chinese don't seem to put that little center in. Why? Cause it would cost some tiny fraction more. But sometimes you need that. I've even seen Chinese taps that, no joke, have a "cast" center. It's made into the tap buy making the top end concave. What a joke. It doesn't work at all. Also the Chinese can't seem to accurately reproduce the "american' taps well. For example, I actually measured the OD of a several Chinese brand American-thread-cutting taps included in my Sears tap and die kit. :giggle: They're all .010" over. So when you tap a hole, an American bolt that's actually say, 3/8" or .375 will fit loosely, as the major diameter of the tap is .385.

patsmx5 reinvents Sturgeon's Law

90% of chinese-made stuff is crap. Then again, 90% of everything is crap.

true that

for some reason we let GM make their cars here, so maybe China can make good products

I would also be interested in knowing more about the turbo companies making these.

EDIT:

so far I have found this, still a bit ambiguous
http://xs-power.com/index.html

from

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TO4E-...3A1|240%3A1318

it is pretty hard to find a manufacturer for most of this stuff

I think it is cool that BEGI is offering the Shanghai setup. As long as they have identified a reputable Chinese manufacturer, then it gives their customers another option that saves some money. It is just another step in the kit tier. I'll bet they have sold a few kits with everything but the turbo to those intending to use a Chinacharger. So, why not tap into that market?

The Garrett is probably still superior but it is not cheap, especially new. I know, I bought one. To each his own.

Hi guys:
I just recently joined the forum. New to Miatas, but not to cars. I wanted to share my experience, I had a Chinacharger in my Civic Si for about 6 months and the day that I sold the car, the turbo had no play whatsoever and still works like a charm for the other guy. Chinese turbos are hit or miss and that is not going to change. Probably BEGi is going to offer some type of warranty on them? Most people in the honda world claimed that if the turbos had good flow of oil with the right pressure (oil restrictor) the turbo would last. Although I must say that mine never saw north of 8 PSI as a daily driver.

My turbo said Emusa, maybe balanced in the usa?

Maybe its this?
Welcome to E-MOTOR

A product is only as good as the companmy producing it wants it to be. If a company only wants to spend $2 on manufacturing vs $5, then of course the product will be less. Employees would have to be paid less, research would be less, ect. Just because its cheap and from China doesnt mean its going to be cheap in quality. Cheap in price yes. Its not like the Chinese cant make castings as well as an American, its wether or not the company having them made wants to pay for accuracy. As long as Bell has looked them over closely (which Im sure they have, or else they wouldnt want to associate the turbo with their brand name) then their shouldnt be a problem.

Im also not nearly as scared to buy a chinacharger through a company like Bell as I would be buying from any other distributor. As long as they get the turbos from the same company, and they are all made the same and arent 20 different minor variations to the same model turbo then I will be fine with it. Like I said, as long as the price is right, I should bite on this deal within a month or two. So if no one else has pulled thew trigger by then, I will be the test pilot for this thing. I dont mind dropping $300 on a turbo. If it fails it fails.

Sorry, I'm just a weak individual who doesn't smoke or spew.

Thanks!

(knocks on wood)
The '96 1.8 now has 200k+ on it. It has been boosted since July '07. Still running the same eBay Chinacharger, same $50 used SS Autochrome manifold. Unless I need to drive the truck, it gets used as much as possible. Autox, drag, groceries, drives on back roads and even some off road.

Disclaimer: This is just my experience with the 'guaranteed crappy' Chinese turbos and manifolds. Caveat emptor.

The reason I went with it was because I wasn't sure what size I wanted to end up with. This was just supposed to be a cheap test run. When it goes I'll report it then probably go with something bigger and more expensive.

Are you expecting it to go soon or something? How does it look after nearly 2 years? Checked it for play or anything lately? Any noises? Or does it just seem like a regular turbo?