AlRedCar's Project Build Thread
11-11-2008, 11:59 PM
#77
You are going to get mixed opinions on the esmirel turbo but I think you have done your research and picked a good match for your needs other then the wastgate location. I dont know why people tried to turn this into a SC vs Turbo thread.
I think you are going to loose some power and have high IAT with that airfilter being under the hood and right above the radiator. You should cut a hole in the radiator support and either build a box to house the filter and pull air from outside the engine bay or move the filter out of the engine bay. Either way, the lower air temp you start with the lower IAT you end up with. You can test this yourself when you dyno the car. Once you have it dialed in and you have several runs with similar numbers, put the hood down and run it a few more times. You will see your power drop as your IAT go up.
I am sure you know that heat will be a concern of yours. You might need bigger oil coolers or at minimum get the greddy oil pan, has cooling fins and holds almost a quart more oil if I remember right.
And of course upgraded radiator and water pump. Only one option on the water pump and for the radiator the BHR is the best in my opinion and many will agree.
Good luck and there are a lot of resources on this site to help you and point you in the right direction. A few members have TC 8's and track regularly.
I think you are going to loose some power and have high IAT with that airfilter being under the hood and right above the radiator. You should cut a hole in the radiator support and either build a box to house the filter and pull air from outside the engine bay or move the filter out of the engine bay. Either way, the lower air temp you start with the lower IAT you end up with. You can test this yourself when you dyno the car. Once you have it dialed in and you have several runs with similar numbers, put the hood down and run it a few more times. You will see your power drop as your IAT go up.
I am sure you know that heat will be a concern of yours. You might need bigger oil coolers or at minimum get the greddy oil pan, has cooling fins and holds almost a quart more oil if I remember right.
And of course upgraded radiator and water pump. Only one option on the water pump and for the radiator the BHR is the best in my opinion and many will agree.
Good luck and there are a lot of resources on this site to help you and point you in the right direction. A few members have TC 8's and track regularly.
11-15-2008, 10:25 AM
#81
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I know the battery's a Deka brand and if I remember correctly it has 270 Cold Cranking Amps. It's pretty light and it gets the job done!
12-03-2008, 10:44 AM
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Updates indeed...
It's been a very long time since I've even come into this thread, as I've spent the past month trying to get this wonderful turbo kit working... Thanks to the wonderful tech support of Esmeril Racing, (sarcasm) the project's come along very smoothly (more sarcasm)
There was a small hiccup in the install, where when I drove the car I would feel a "wall" at 6000rpm that car wouldn't accelerate past. Naively, I assumed that it was an issue with the tuning and possibly a spark plug failure. I decided to upgrade to the Esmeril racing kit, you know, the one that doesn't have a plug and play harness (hats off to BHR and MazdaManiac for making a great looking ignition kit for a lower price point, too bad I ordered before I could find any reviews or pictures of BHR's offering)
After ordering the Esmeril ignition kit, I decided to poke around under the hood a little bit to see if there was anything glaringly wrong. And there was.
Now we all know that the RX-8 injects oil during the engine cycle, so to burn a little oil would seem natural. I never expected to burn through two quarts in 30 miles however. The funny thing is, the oil wasn't being burned at all, but rather redistributed throughout the engine bay...
Notice the oil all over the charge pipes, fuse box, hood, firewall, alternator, engine, radiator, chassis, I could go on and on, but I imagine you get the picture by now.
So two cans of brake cleaner and a tub of paint thinner later (used to clean out the intercooler and pipes) I had the engine bay looking almost as good as new. If nothing else I figured this was Esmeril's way of giving me a free rust proofing in the engine bay, oh joy!
I gave that non-descript Chinese knock-off turbo the benefit of the doubt , thinking, again naively, "How could a new turbo go bad so soon?", so I ran a little series of tests to find the source of this heinous oil leak. I took the PCV lines out of the turbo inlet pipe and routed them to a catch can (the tried-and true Gatorade bottle), thinking that a combination of positive crankcase pressure and the slight vacuum at the inlet of the turbo was essentially pulling oil through the turbo. So I drove another 30 miles to see if I could replicate the problem. And replicate it I did, the cherry on top of another oil-filled engine bay is that the catch can that I had jerry-rigged was dry... So I turned my now completely enraged gaze upon the aforementioned non-descript Chinese knock-off turbo. I pulled the pipes and this time, I had my trusty Nikon with me.
DISCLAIMER: The images that you are about to see are not for the weak of stomach, those who don't like to see oil in places where it doesn't belong, fans of cheap Chinese knock-offs, or those who generally don't like seeing other people's car-related misery. Be forewarned, you may never want to buy from a company that relies entirely on knock-off parts "from a reputable manufacturer"
This first image shows the blow off valve (how do you say TiAl knock-off in Mandarin?) and yes I did safety wire a rag over its outlet to try and contain the oily atmospheric venting that would happen every time the valve opened. Note the amout of oil all over the fuse box, battery, and charge pipe.
This is the rag, which was new and clean before I put it on the blow off valve. Before you ask, yes, my fingers are like this for a reason.
More oily mess distributed by the blow off valve. Don't worry kids, it only gets better from here!
The oil-filled blow off had a far-reaching effect...
The oil found a place to rest all over my engine bay, here's a view of the battery tray. Fun!
Brace yourselves for the next one loyal readers, it's a hideous sight...
Now, what the hell is this oil doing just resting in my turbo discharge pipe? Hmmmmm it seems to my that someone in quality control at ye olde Chinese Turbo Knock-Off Factory (it's a real business, look it up) skipped work the day this "TURBOCHARGER" was made. Word from the wise here: if you ever get a turbo that has the part number "SUPER-T70" with a "serial number" of "T3/T4", do yourself a favor and stay away from it, avoid it like a psychotic STD-infested hooker with a chainsaw.
Don't worry, the oil was all over the outside as well.
Here's a view of the Blow Off Valve pipe. Yes, that's black gold in there!
Here's the MAF pipe, accompanied by a penguin we had in the garage.
Speaks for itself, really.
So here's my reasoning on this one - the designers of the turbo, with their recently purchased engineering degrees, decided that a throttle body, like any moving part, works better with lubrication. Therefore, having a compressor seal on the turbo that allows for oil to be injected into the compressed air discharge will improve throttle response. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
No pipe was safe from the carnage.
Now this is a little difficult to see, but this is the intercooler (assumedly of the same quality of the other components) with a nice pool of oil at the bottom. How deep you ask? Well it was resting at a pretty inch and a half, as measured by the factory dipstick (the one that measures oil level in the engine and was never intended to see the oil level in you intercooler) I imagine at the same meeting that was held to determine how to improve throttle body response, the brainiac engineers decided that lubricated air must move faster, again like anything lubricated with oil.
Now let's turn our attention to the culprit, the turbo... if you could call it that at this point - I prefer forced lubrication machine.
Here's a shot of the compressor out, note the oily drool on its mouth...
DISCLAIMER: I worked at Honeywell Turbo Technologies, as an Engineering intern for 5 months. I am used to pulling apart turbochargers and I know what to look for with failure, don't go pulling apart turbos unless you want to risk damaging them.
Here's the compressor backplate and compressor wheel. Please note the horrendously oversized gasket used to "seal" the compressor housing.
Here's a view of the compressor housing, again note the high amount of oil, although any amount of oil in a compressor housing can be considered a high amount...
And last, but certainly not least, this oil was leaking into the turbine housing as well, as indicated by the white residue on the inner walls of the turbine outlet (down pipe)
Don't worry kids, there's more story to come...
It's been a very long time since I've even come into this thread, as I've spent the past month trying to get this wonderful turbo kit working... Thanks to the wonderful tech support of Esmeril Racing, (sarcasm) the project's come along very smoothly (more sarcasm)
There was a small hiccup in the install, where when I drove the car I would feel a "wall" at 6000rpm that car wouldn't accelerate past. Naively, I assumed that it was an issue with the tuning and possibly a spark plug failure. I decided to upgrade to the Esmeril racing kit, you know, the one that doesn't have a plug and play harness (hats off to BHR and MazdaManiac for making a great looking ignition kit for a lower price point, too bad I ordered before I could find any reviews or pictures of BHR's offering)
After ordering the Esmeril ignition kit, I decided to poke around under the hood a little bit to see if there was anything glaringly wrong. And there was.
Now we all know that the RX-8 injects oil during the engine cycle, so to burn a little oil would seem natural. I never expected to burn through two quarts in 30 miles however. The funny thing is, the oil wasn't being burned at all, but rather redistributed throughout the engine bay...
Notice the oil all over the charge pipes, fuse box, hood, firewall, alternator, engine, radiator, chassis, I could go on and on, but I imagine you get the picture by now.
So two cans of brake cleaner and a tub of paint thinner later (used to clean out the intercooler and pipes) I had the engine bay looking almost as good as new. If nothing else I figured this was Esmeril's way of giving me a free rust proofing in the engine bay, oh joy!
I gave that non-descript Chinese knock-off turbo the benefit of the doubt , thinking, again naively, "How could a new turbo go bad so soon?", so I ran a little series of tests to find the source of this heinous oil leak. I took the PCV lines out of the turbo inlet pipe and routed them to a catch can (the tried-and true Gatorade bottle), thinking that a combination of positive crankcase pressure and the slight vacuum at the inlet of the turbo was essentially pulling oil through the turbo. So I drove another 30 miles to see if I could replicate the problem. And replicate it I did, the cherry on top of another oil-filled engine bay is that the catch can that I had jerry-rigged was dry... So I turned my now completely enraged gaze upon the aforementioned non-descript Chinese knock-off turbo. I pulled the pipes and this time, I had my trusty Nikon with me.
DISCLAIMER: The images that you are about to see are not for the weak of stomach, those who don't like to see oil in places where it doesn't belong, fans of cheap Chinese knock-offs, or those who generally don't like seeing other people's car-related misery. Be forewarned, you may never want to buy from a company that relies entirely on knock-off parts "from a reputable manufacturer"
This first image shows the blow off valve (how do you say TiAl knock-off in Mandarin?) and yes I did safety wire a rag over its outlet to try and contain the oily atmospheric venting that would happen every time the valve opened. Note the amout of oil all over the fuse box, battery, and charge pipe.
This is the rag, which was new and clean before I put it on the blow off valve. Before you ask, yes, my fingers are like this for a reason.
More oily mess distributed by the blow off valve. Don't worry kids, it only gets better from here!
The oil-filled blow off had a far-reaching effect...
The oil found a place to rest all over my engine bay, here's a view of the battery tray. Fun!
Brace yourselves for the next one loyal readers, it's a hideous sight...
Now, what the hell is this oil doing just resting in my turbo discharge pipe? Hmmmmm it seems to my that someone in quality control at ye olde Chinese Turbo Knock-Off Factory (it's a real business, look it up) skipped work the day this "TURBOCHARGER" was made. Word from the wise here: if you ever get a turbo that has the part number "SUPER-T70" with a "serial number" of "T3/T4", do yourself a favor and stay away from it, avoid it like a psychotic STD-infested hooker with a chainsaw.
Don't worry, the oil was all over the outside as well.
Here's a view of the Blow Off Valve pipe. Yes, that's black gold in there!
Here's the MAF pipe, accompanied by a penguin we had in the garage.
Speaks for itself, really.
So here's my reasoning on this one - the designers of the turbo, with their recently purchased engineering degrees, decided that a throttle body, like any moving part, works better with lubrication. Therefore, having a compressor seal on the turbo that allows for oil to be injected into the compressed air discharge will improve throttle response. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
No pipe was safe from the carnage.
Now this is a little difficult to see, but this is the intercooler (assumedly of the same quality of the other components) with a nice pool of oil at the bottom. How deep you ask? Well it was resting at a pretty inch and a half, as measured by the factory dipstick (the one that measures oil level in the engine and was never intended to see the oil level in you intercooler) I imagine at the same meeting that was held to determine how to improve throttle body response, the brainiac engineers decided that lubricated air must move faster, again like anything lubricated with oil.
Now let's turn our attention to the culprit, the turbo... if you could call it that at this point - I prefer forced lubrication machine.
Here's a shot of the compressor out, note the oily drool on its mouth...
DISCLAIMER: I worked at Honeywell Turbo Technologies, as an Engineering intern for 5 months. I am used to pulling apart turbochargers and I know what to look for with failure, don't go pulling apart turbos unless you want to risk damaging them.
Here's the compressor backplate and compressor wheel. Please note the horrendously oversized gasket used to "seal" the compressor housing.
Here's a view of the compressor housing, again note the high amount of oil, although any amount of oil in a compressor housing can be considered a high amount...
And last, but certainly not least, this oil was leaking into the turbine housing as well, as indicated by the white residue on the inner walls of the turbine outlet (down pipe)
Don't worry kids, there's more story to come...
12-03-2008, 12:01 PM
#86
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So now we've all seen the pictures, but the story goes on...
Early in my last post, I mentioned Esmeril's tech support. Here's the transcript of a conversation I had with the lead engineer of Esemeril, dated November 3, 2008 12.34PM:
Here's his reply:
.....
Anyone see a problem here? I guess conversation was the wrong term here... More of a monologue on my part.
I decided I would try to contact Jason of Mazdaparts.com, the original retailer of the kit.
I then had Jason call me, so that I could explain the circumstances of the failure, as I felt that the message wasn't clear via PM. What followed was a half hour of little to no progress. Quick bit of background : I did purchase this kit second hand, however this kit was still all in it s original packaging, and had never been used. I'm sure that the seller could vouch for this.
So I explained what happened with the turbo failure, why I believe that the compressor seal was blown (which it is, I have no doubt at all), what would cause the compressor seal to blow, etc. I then requested that Esmeril replace or repair my turbocharger, free of charge, as this is clearly a manufacturing defect, as, again, the kit was NEVER installed prior to my purchase. I was then told that, in all of Esmeril's benevolence, I would be allowed to buy a new turbo for ONLY $550. At this point, why would anyone in their right mind want to buy another no-name knock-off turbo?
This is when Alec gets upset.
The conversation follows this path for a while, with Jason staunchly denying that the skilled craftsmen who built this fine engineering marvel of a turbo could have overlooked the compressor seal. Therefore obviously, the turbo was damaged in shipping.
....
........
Again, referring back to my time at Honeywell, compressor seals can't get damaged in shipping. The only conceivable way that the compressor seal would be damaged is if the turbo was dropped from ~20 feet, unprotected. At this point, however, the entire turbo would be damaged, the housings would deform/crack, etc. Long and short of it - a securely packaged turbocharger shipped across country would not get damaged in a way that only the internals would show signs of wear. It is not possible.
At this point it's suggested that the previous owner of my kit, a member on these boards, had disassembled the turbo for the sole purpose of raining on my turbocharged RX-8 parade. Preposterous. I listened for a while to this grand story of how before shipping the kit, Michael (the seller) decided he would become a saboteur and ruin my compressor seal, all the while I have this image in my head of a Snidely Whiplash-esque character tearing down my turbo.
The conversation then turns (again) to a defense of the integrity of the parts used in the turbo kit. I then delve into the merits of using name-brand parts and then cite my problems with the replica industry. I then cite my main problems with the design:
1. Twin Scroll turbocharger on a single scroll manifold.
Anyone still curious why the "SUPER T-70" takes so long to spool on this kit? Well imagine, if you will a single scroll exhaust manifold, essentially one large opening that feeds into the turbine inlet. Now the way a twin-scroll turbocharger works is by using two separate volutes in the turbine housing that serve the purpose of evening out exhaust pulses by the time the exhaust gases meet the turbine wheel. However, this requires that the exhaust fed to the turbine housing is divided to two streams (thereby supplying the "twin" in "twin scroll") and this division is performed at the exhaust manifold.
Here, a twin scroll housing on the left, with a single scroll on the right.
The Esmeril kit ships with a single scroll manifold and a twin scroll turbine housing
Let me let this one sink in a bit....
Essentially you've placed a a wall in the exhaust flow, introducing a high amount of turbulence into the turbine housing. This does terrible things for spool and response. Fairly clear why boost comes in so late in this kit?
2. APC air filter.
This disgusts me. Charge a person $7000 and you give them an APC air filter. But you don't want them to know it's an APC filter, so what do you do? You pull off any paper or stickers in the packaging that would indicate that it's an APC product, then put the filter back into the bare plastic packaging. No one will ever know, right? That is, until someone goes into Advance Auto, sees an APC filter on the wall that is THE EXACT SAME FILTER FROM YOU $7000 TURBO KIT.
Would you trust this on your RX-8?
3. Cheap Chinese Knock-Off No Name Turbocharger.
Now I know why Esmeril outright refused to say where they sourced the turbocharger from, because the company DOESN'T HAVE A NAME! Come on, people, do not make the same mistake that I did. Buy a Greddy kit and the MazdaManiac upgrade, buy the PTP Turbo kit, buy RotoRocks' kit, hell I don't even like the idea of superchargers on this engine (personal preference) but buy the Petit Supercharger kit, but under no circumstances, for the love of all that is holy, buy this kit. That being said, if someone wants to give it to you for free, you can take it and do what I've been forced to do: make lemonade with rotten knock-off lemons (more on that later)
4. Knock-Off wastegate and blow of valve
TiAl is a pretty decent company, I've only heard good things about them. Again, after working at Honeywell, I know that their stuff works. They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but with that being said, at the end of the day, a knock-off part is just that.
5. V-Bands, V-Bands everywhere
V-Bands on the turbine outlet, V-Bands connecting the downpipes, V-Bands connecting the wastegate to downpipe, V-bands connecting the wastegate to the exhaust manifold, what ever happened to flanged fittings? V-Bands leak, it's inherent in their design, but that's overcome by a V-Band's ease of use, which is why V-Bands are good for racecars and heavy equipment, or any application that requires a fairly regular maintenance interval, where quick removal of components is paramount. Actually, at this point, the V-Bands have been a boon! I retract this statement and thank you for the foresight that you will have to remove parts of this kit regularly!
This goes on and on, finally with Jason saying that he'll have the head of Esmeril's engineering call me so we could discuss what to do from here... This was on November 5th, 2008.
Still waiting on that call!
I also called and sent emails to the Lead Engineer, hoping for any response, but to no avail.
So, take away from this what you will kids, though it is inherently a fairly clever design, it's failure lies in its reliance on knock-off parts, so as you can all imagine, I am not a big fan of this kit.
Early in my last post, I mentioned Esmeril's tech support. Here's the transcript of a conversation I had with the lead engineer of Esemeril, dated November 3, 2008 12.34PM:
"Christian,
I just wanted to check and see if you have been receiving my calls lately. After installing the Esmeril Racing turbo kit, I've noticed that there has been a very large amount of oil being sprayed out of the blow off valve. Initially I thought this was merely a problem with the oil line routing to the compressor inlet pipe. I then made an impromptu catch can to try and isolate the problem. In addition, I removed all of the charge pipes and the intercooler to find pools of oil in each pipe and a very large amount of oil in the intercooler (approximately 0.25in of oil in the end tanks, measured via the factory dipstick) I cleaned all of the piping and the intercooler then reassembled the kit to see if the problem would return.
Sadly enough, the problem seems to be worse than before, with more oil covering all parts of the engine bay, with a visible oil mist being ejected from the blow off valve. Also, there is oil pooling in the compressor housing of the turbocharger, leading me to believe that there is an oil leak coming from the backplate of the compressor housing. I have photos of all the piping and the turbocharger showing the oil condition. For an idea of how much oil has been lost, I started the drive with a full oil system, now the oil level reads below the LOW mark on the dipstick.
I hope that you will respond quickly as I am now without any reliable mode of transportation and I will not be using this turbocharger any longer for the risk of causing damage to my engine is far too great.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Alec Cervenka"
I just wanted to check and see if you have been receiving my calls lately. After installing the Esmeril Racing turbo kit, I've noticed that there has been a very large amount of oil being sprayed out of the blow off valve. Initially I thought this was merely a problem with the oil line routing to the compressor inlet pipe. I then made an impromptu catch can to try and isolate the problem. In addition, I removed all of the charge pipes and the intercooler to find pools of oil in each pipe and a very large amount of oil in the intercooler (approximately 0.25in of oil in the end tanks, measured via the factory dipstick) I cleaned all of the piping and the intercooler then reassembled the kit to see if the problem would return.
Sadly enough, the problem seems to be worse than before, with more oil covering all parts of the engine bay, with a visible oil mist being ejected from the blow off valve. Also, there is oil pooling in the compressor housing of the turbocharger, leading me to believe that there is an oil leak coming from the backplate of the compressor housing. I have photos of all the piping and the turbocharger showing the oil condition. For an idea of how much oil has been lost, I started the drive with a full oil system, now the oil level reads below the LOW mark on the dipstick.
I hope that you will respond quickly as I am now without any reliable mode of transportation and I will not be using this turbocharger any longer for the risk of causing damage to my engine is far too great.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Alec Cervenka"
"
"
"
Anyone see a problem here? I guess conversation was the wrong term here... More of a monologue on my part.
I decided I would try to contact Jason of Mazdaparts.com, the original retailer of the kit.
Re: Esmeril Turbo Kit Problems
Hi Alec,
Unfortunately Christian has been very busy over the past week at an engineering conference.
I'll be happy to answer you.
Please check that the check valve is orientated properly. If backwards oil could possibly make its way into the turbo. We have no record of this being installed backwards to say for sure or that it would even cause this much oil loss but in theory it may cause oil to exit.
If there is an issue with turbo we would not be able to make a determination until we inspect it.
Esmeril Racing has never had any problems with oil leaking and definitely not like yours. We personally inspect every turbo that goes into the kits and have an extensive checkpoint system for all components.
There is a warranty for new parts to be in working order...we are well beyond that warranty period so you or the original owner will need to arrange with us to have it inspected and possibly repaired at our normal shop rates. If in fact the turbo is damaged or non-repairable we will be able to acquire a new one for you at a reasonable price. All payments will be handled through Mazdaparts.com unless otherwise notified.
There is a possibility it was damaged during shipping which is why customers should immediately inspect their package once they receive it. In that case the shipper would reimburse for cost of inspection and repair. If it was damaged during the initial shipment the original owner would need to work with us to file a claim. If it was damaged in subsequent shippings you will need to handle the claim with whoever shipped it to you. It is very possible we are beyond the allowable claim period by UPS for the initial shipment.
We hope the check valve is the cause of this problem and please contact us if that is the case as we will add that to our troubleshooting guide.
Best Regards,
Jason
Mazdaparts.com
Esmeril Racing
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlTitaniumCar
Jason,
I have been trying to get a hold of Christian for about a week now in regards to problems I've been having with the Esmeril kit. Here's a copy of the email I sent to him yesterday:
"Christian,
I just wanted to check and see if you have been receiving my calls lately. After installing the Esmeril Racing turbo kit, I've noticed that there has been a very large amount of oil being sprayed out of the blow off valve. Initially I thought this was merely a problem with the oil line routing to the compressor inlet pipe. I then made an impromptu catch can to try and isolate the problem. In addition, I removed all of the charge pipes and the intercooler to find pools of oil in each pipe and a very large amount of oil in the intercooler (approximately 0.25in of oil in the end tanks, measured via the factory dipstick) I cleaned all of the piping and the intercooler then reassembled the kit to see if the problem would return.
Sadly enough, the problem seems to be worse than before, with more oil covering all parts of the engine bay, with a visible oil mist being ejected from the blow off valve. Also, there is oil pooling in the compressor housing of the turbocharger, leading me to believe that there is an oil leak coming from the backplate of the compressor housing. I have photos of all the piping and the turbocharger showing the oil condition. For an idea of how much oil has been lost, I started the drive with a full oil system, now the oil level reads below the LOW mark on the dipstick.
I hope that you will respond quickly as I am now without any reliable mode of transportation and I will not be using this turbocharger any longer for the risk of causing damage to my engine is far too great.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Alec Cervenka"
I have not gotten ANY response at all. For spending this amount of money, I would expect a turbocharger that would not fail.
Please get back to me as soon as possible so we can resolve this issue.
Alec Cervenka
Hi Alec,
Unfortunately Christian has been very busy over the past week at an engineering conference.
I'll be happy to answer you.
Please check that the check valve is orientated properly. If backwards oil could possibly make its way into the turbo. We have no record of this being installed backwards to say for sure or that it would even cause this much oil loss but in theory it may cause oil to exit.
If there is an issue with turbo we would not be able to make a determination until we inspect it.
Esmeril Racing has never had any problems with oil leaking and definitely not like yours. We personally inspect every turbo that goes into the kits and have an extensive checkpoint system for all components.
There is a warranty for new parts to be in working order...we are well beyond that warranty period so you or the original owner will need to arrange with us to have it inspected and possibly repaired at our normal shop rates. If in fact the turbo is damaged or non-repairable we will be able to acquire a new one for you at a reasonable price. All payments will be handled through Mazdaparts.com unless otherwise notified.
There is a possibility it was damaged during shipping which is why customers should immediately inspect their package once they receive it. In that case the shipper would reimburse for cost of inspection and repair. If it was damaged during the initial shipment the original owner would need to work with us to file a claim. If it was damaged in subsequent shippings you will need to handle the claim with whoever shipped it to you. It is very possible we are beyond the allowable claim period by UPS for the initial shipment.
We hope the check valve is the cause of this problem and please contact us if that is the case as we will add that to our troubleshooting guide.
Best Regards,
Jason
Mazdaparts.com
Esmeril Racing
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlTitaniumCar
Jason,
I have been trying to get a hold of Christian for about a week now in regards to problems I've been having with the Esmeril kit. Here's a copy of the email I sent to him yesterday:
"Christian,
I just wanted to check and see if you have been receiving my calls lately. After installing the Esmeril Racing turbo kit, I've noticed that there has been a very large amount of oil being sprayed out of the blow off valve. Initially I thought this was merely a problem with the oil line routing to the compressor inlet pipe. I then made an impromptu catch can to try and isolate the problem. In addition, I removed all of the charge pipes and the intercooler to find pools of oil in each pipe and a very large amount of oil in the intercooler (approximately 0.25in of oil in the end tanks, measured via the factory dipstick) I cleaned all of the piping and the intercooler then reassembled the kit to see if the problem would return.
Sadly enough, the problem seems to be worse than before, with more oil covering all parts of the engine bay, with a visible oil mist being ejected from the blow off valve. Also, there is oil pooling in the compressor housing of the turbocharger, leading me to believe that there is an oil leak coming from the backplate of the compressor housing. I have photos of all the piping and the turbocharger showing the oil condition. For an idea of how much oil has been lost, I started the drive with a full oil system, now the oil level reads below the LOW mark on the dipstick.
I hope that you will respond quickly as I am now without any reliable mode of transportation and I will not be using this turbocharger any longer for the risk of causing damage to my engine is far too great.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Alec Cervenka"
I have not gotten ANY response at all. For spending this amount of money, I would expect a turbocharger that would not fail.
Please get back to me as soon as possible so we can resolve this issue.
Alec Cervenka
So I explained what happened with the turbo failure, why I believe that the compressor seal was blown (which it is, I have no doubt at all), what would cause the compressor seal to blow, etc. I then requested that Esmeril replace or repair my turbocharger, free of charge, as this is clearly a manufacturing defect, as, again, the kit was NEVER installed prior to my purchase. I was then told that, in all of Esmeril's benevolence, I would be allowed to buy a new turbo for ONLY $550. At this point, why would anyone in their right mind want to buy another no-name knock-off turbo?
This is when Alec gets upset.
The conversation follows this path for a while, with Jason staunchly denying that the skilled craftsmen who built this fine engineering marvel of a turbo could have overlooked the compressor seal. Therefore obviously, the turbo was damaged in shipping.
....
........
Again, referring back to my time at Honeywell, compressor seals can't get damaged in shipping. The only conceivable way that the compressor seal would be damaged is if the turbo was dropped from ~20 feet, unprotected. At this point, however, the entire turbo would be damaged, the housings would deform/crack, etc. Long and short of it - a securely packaged turbocharger shipped across country would not get damaged in a way that only the internals would show signs of wear. It is not possible.
At this point it's suggested that the previous owner of my kit, a member on these boards, had disassembled the turbo for the sole purpose of raining on my turbocharged RX-8 parade. Preposterous. I listened for a while to this grand story of how before shipping the kit, Michael (the seller) decided he would become a saboteur and ruin my compressor seal, all the while I have this image in my head of a Snidely Whiplash-esque character tearing down my turbo.
The conversation then turns (again) to a defense of the integrity of the parts used in the turbo kit. I then delve into the merits of using name-brand parts and then cite my problems with the replica industry. I then cite my main problems with the design:
1. Twin Scroll turbocharger on a single scroll manifold.
Anyone still curious why the "SUPER T-70" takes so long to spool on this kit? Well imagine, if you will a single scroll exhaust manifold, essentially one large opening that feeds into the turbine inlet. Now the way a twin-scroll turbocharger works is by using two separate volutes in the turbine housing that serve the purpose of evening out exhaust pulses by the time the exhaust gases meet the turbine wheel. However, this requires that the exhaust fed to the turbine housing is divided to two streams (thereby supplying the "twin" in "twin scroll") and this division is performed at the exhaust manifold.
Here, a twin scroll housing on the left, with a single scroll on the right.
The Esmeril kit ships with a single scroll manifold and a twin scroll turbine housing
Let me let this one sink in a bit....
Essentially you've placed a a wall in the exhaust flow, introducing a high amount of turbulence into the turbine housing. This does terrible things for spool and response. Fairly clear why boost comes in so late in this kit?
2. APC air filter.
This disgusts me. Charge a person $7000 and you give them an APC air filter. But you don't want them to know it's an APC filter, so what do you do? You pull off any paper or stickers in the packaging that would indicate that it's an APC product, then put the filter back into the bare plastic packaging. No one will ever know, right? That is, until someone goes into Advance Auto, sees an APC filter on the wall that is THE EXACT SAME FILTER FROM YOU $7000 TURBO KIT.
Would you trust this on your RX-8?
3. Cheap Chinese Knock-Off No Name Turbocharger.
Now I know why Esmeril outright refused to say where they sourced the turbocharger from, because the company DOESN'T HAVE A NAME! Come on, people, do not make the same mistake that I did. Buy a Greddy kit and the MazdaManiac upgrade, buy the PTP Turbo kit, buy RotoRocks' kit, hell I don't even like the idea of superchargers on this engine (personal preference) but buy the Petit Supercharger kit, but under no circumstances, for the love of all that is holy, buy this kit. That being said, if someone wants to give it to you for free, you can take it and do what I've been forced to do: make lemonade with rotten knock-off lemons (more on that later)
4. Knock-Off wastegate and blow of valve
TiAl is a pretty decent company, I've only heard good things about them. Again, after working at Honeywell, I know that their stuff works. They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but with that being said, at the end of the day, a knock-off part is just that.
5. V-Bands, V-Bands everywhere
V-Bands on the turbine outlet, V-Bands connecting the downpipes, V-Bands connecting the wastegate to downpipe, V-bands connecting the wastegate to the exhaust manifold, what ever happened to flanged fittings? V-Bands leak, it's inherent in their design, but that's overcome by a V-Band's ease of use, which is why V-Bands are good for racecars and heavy equipment, or any application that requires a fairly regular maintenance interval, where quick removal of components is paramount. Actually, at this point, the V-Bands have been a boon! I retract this statement and thank you for the foresight that you will have to remove parts of this kit regularly!
This goes on and on, finally with Jason saying that he'll have the head of Esmeril's engineering call me so we could discuss what to do from here... This was on November 5th, 2008.
Still waiting on that call!
I also called and sent emails to the Lead Engineer, hoping for any response, but to no avail.
So, take away from this what you will kids, though it is inherently a fairly clever design, it's failure lies in its reliance on knock-off parts, so as you can all imagine, I am not a big fan of this kit.
Last edited by AlTitaniumCar; 12-03-2008 at 12:08 PM.
12-03-2008, 02:31 PM
#90
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Well, sadly I've given up all hope on ever hearing from Esmeril again, so I guess I'll just boycott their products. As I mentioned earlier with the making lemonade with rotten lemons, I've actually replaced quite a few parts of the kit, so this story may have a happy ending yet...
12-03-2008, 07:28 PM
#95
hey guys who wants to make an ebay turbocharger kit for the stupid honda kids and rip them all off?! who's with me?
seriously...what a joke. GL Al...hope this gets sorted out for you.
now I don't feel so bad about my crappy GReddy turbo kit. At least the turbo lasts around 12000-15000 miles
12-04-2008, 09:06 PM
#97
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Well again, the design of the kit is well thought out, it was just the cheap parts of the kit that needed to be replaced. I actually upgraded the turbo to a Garrett GT3076 ( a REAL AUTHENTIC turbo), replaced the air filter with a K&N (again, authentic) and everything fits now.
However, this economy business has got me down and I think paying for grad school is more important right now, so the kit is up for sale for any buyer. PM me if you're interested.
However, this economy business has got me down and I think paying for grad school is more important right now, so the kit is up for sale for any buyer. PM me if you're interested.
12-05-2008, 01:09 AM
#100
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Looks familiar?? ;
http://www.xs-power.co.uk/index.php?...roducts_id=155
http://www.xs-power.co.uk/index.php?...roducts_id=155