what's involved in rebuilding a turbo??

i wanting to rebuild the turbo on my car but i can't get a clear answer from anyone in town on how to do so.

so how do you go about rebuilding a turbo?

what size shaft works best?
how do you balance the shaft?
where can i get the gaskets? and so on and so on.

one of the man things i was thinking of doing was building my own turbo.

nopi sells the the shafts and the fins and housings seperately and they carry Turbonetics, HKS, and APEXI parts. i was looking on there and thought that i could most likely build a turbo to my likings for half the cost of the local turbo performance shop and get a good learning exp. and maybe some more power.

i REALLY want to learn how to do this, but nobody in town will teach.


thanks for the help

Considering that just balancing and shipping there and back is nearly 100 bucks, the 300 most shops charge to do it right doesnt seem so bad. The rebuild kits are ~150 bucks, so they charge about 150 for the labor. To use that info, or your 50% example, you would save 150 bucks. Hardly seems worth it when you consider the risk.

If you go changing wheels and such you need to have the housing machined to match the wheels. To profile a compressor housing costs about 70 dollars. Turbine housing is probably similar, but you can usually buy the turbine houisng already set for the wheel you are using since there are generally much fewer turbine wheels to choose from.

So you need a center/bearing cartridge with both wheels attached and balanced. A turbine housing cut for the spefici turbine wheel. And a compressor houisng cut for the compressor wheel being used.

Now that I have tried to discourage you from doing this, I'll offer the info I can. Use the vfaq to change the bearings/seals. Rebuild kits are available online, and are about 150 bucks. Once you have rebuilt it, send it off for balancing. When it comes back, add the properly machined housings on each end.

When you consider how little profit there is in turbo, its hard to justify building your own. For example, a typical 999 dollar 20g has a little over 100 bucks in profit for the vendor. There isnt a lot of room to save money in this department. So I feel its better left to the pros. :) Good luck.