Thoughts on the TOYOTA CT26 Turbo ;D
 

So me and my friend were bored so we did what we always do when theres nothing to do. hit up the local junkyards.

while looking through some FC's for some injectors we saw a few mk3 supra's. and just looking around and pop'd the hood up and there sitting is a niceee CT26. the standard turbo that these cars came with. now to me it looked HUGE since all i have seen have been these bagel sized dsm turbo's that most run.

anyone here run one of these with there setup? comments are more then welcome.


btw it had ZERO shaft play which caught my attention more:giggle:

My friend has an '87 Supra Turbo. His stocker lasted 170k+ miles and probably would've went further if we hadn't been idiots and kept dialing up the boost.

Even for his 3.0L it had some stock lag, so pushing that turbo with a 1.6 or 1.8L would be a challenge.

Now his turbo LOOKS STOCK but is machined to a 60-1, spools like it's on crack, and he plans to run 20psi on the track safely.

I would say find the compressor flow map, graph the flow rate/pressure ratio lines for your motor, and see where it lands you on the efficiency island.

I would imagine that you may very well find yourself near the surge line...

EDIT:

Quick research says it should be a twin scroll, so you'll be making a custom manifold, and a quick glance looks like even at a 2.0 pressure ratio (15psi), you'll be near the bottom of "the island", and maybe not far enough away from the surge line to spool.

I have no idea what your spool would look like though. IF you do the math and think it will work though, expect big power, as well as a long turbo life. You wouldn't be spinning the baby at 80% of the rpms it saw in OEM kit.

only the turbos from the early 90s MR2 Turbo and Celica Alltrac were twin entry. I believe all the others are single, round turbine inlet--including supras and early alltracs.

keep in mind also that there was a pretty big spread of wheel diameters among the CT26 turbos. look around and the car it came out of should help you figure it out.

alright, the comments left by most dont seem to bad and looks like the internals could be upgraded so the turbo spools at lower rpm's no?

If anything does anyone recommend i pick it up? its only $65 at the junkyard price. and i plan to take the manifold and downpipe to cut off the flanges to make custom pieces

Coming from owning an MR2 I've got some experience with these turbos. That said I'd avoid it, it's a pretty mediocre turbo. The Supra versions hot side is way too big, they spool pretty slow on MR2s. The MR2 version uses a proprietary twin entry flange. They spool ok, but on the 2 liter MR2 motor they are only good for ~225-250 whp @ 16-18psi. There is a company that completly reworks the ct26 and there are a few people making ~300whp but it's the price of a gt2560 which is a much better choice.
I had the next generation version called a CT20B, it had a similar turbine except it was ceramic, and a much bigger compressor. It ended up making ~310 wheel, but at 21psi on race gas. It made full boost at 4000rpm. From all the research I did the ct20b is pretty similar to a gt2871.

I imagine you could make 225 wheel @ around 12psi with a MR2 ct26, but it would spool pretty lousy though. You would be way better off with a t25.

The crappy spool on the Supra is most likely due to crappy exhaust. Fixing the factory nightmare yields around 100 HP at the flywheel. A friend of mine's car spools practically at idle with his CT-26 and bigger compressor.

Regardless, its definitely a crappy turbo. Its an option if you want to try an inexpensive setup, but one thing Toyota cant do as well as anybody else (and I do mean pretty much anybody) is a turbo. Like others have said, it will DEFINITELY have crap for response though. On a 2.0 its mediocre..it wont get any better with less displacement.

If you're okay with waiting for the power, you'll still be better off with a real turbo instead. CT-26 does nothing special in the power department to make up for spool.

Here are some pics of a 60 trim rebuild and upgrade I had a while back:
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Damn, so I guess the spare CT26 from our MR2 is no good to me then :facepalm: Back to the drawing board.