VTT GC 2.0 Review

[Itsbrokeagain]

It is not that I do not agree with you on the business practice aspects, but I can say I've never orchestrated a Class Action Lawsuit against them either (which is more than I can say for them).

At any rate at least we can agree on the obviously poor manufacturing, and now the people have another bit of information to work with to make more intelligent decisions (and actually hear about their problems STILL not being cured years upon years later).

Rob

I'm actually disagreeing with you on the poor manufacturing point, I said it that way in reference to your opinion. I've done a handful of VTT setups and all have been without issue for the past 2-3 years.

I've never had one single issue with Tony. My 335 was a 1/07 build and I've been wrenching on them as a side gig(went full time for a little bit) since then. Nearly 12 years. We may have had a slight disagreement on one thing in the very beginning, but once I showed him my experience and that I wasn't just some DIY noob at home with the boost cranked to the moon, it was very quickly resolved.
I'll put it out here now. I've had 3 instances where something of his broke. Mind you this was all very early in product release stage.

-the original first batch of silicone outlets. One of them ripped. Showed Tony, had a new one at my shop the very next afternoon.

-one of the very first double barrel shotgun kits. The plastic tee used in the Y-feed collapsed from heat and leaked. Mind you the revision had already been well out by this point when I got around to installing the kit (nearly a year and a half later). Tony apologized, and again the new line was at my doorstep in 24 hours.

My GC 1.0s. I had mine custom tailored with an EGT bung in each bank to monitor them for airstrip runs and tuning (again I was one of the original orders, prolly within the first 10 made) One of them was welded on upside down. No biggie, dremeled it off and had my buddy Tig Weld it back the correct way.

Tony has never given me the run around at all, he has no reason to. I can vouch for customers trying to perhaps pull the wool over his eyes when it comes to failed products (I've had customers try to do the same to me), but there's always 3 sides to every story.

Ok for real now, enough from me.

 

[martymil]

I had a set of turbos fail within 10k miles and never seen over 21psi on one of my cars, never seen over 60% wgc and never had a hard life and I was assured I shouldn't have any trouble what so ever and yet they failed.

This thread is to review a set of turbos that have lasted 7k miles so far and have been run very hard and yet are still holding up better and making way more power than the last set.

 

[Groovysapien]

@Rob@RBTurbo, I wish you'd spend more time developing better products and furthering the N54 platform instead of constantly bashing other vendors. I'm usually a silent lurker looking for information, but whenever I see your name in a thread, it's always something negative. Guess you could say I'm calling a spade a spade.

@martymil please keep us updated on these turbos. I for one am glad you're able to hammer on them and they're holding up.

 

[Rob@RBTurbo]

I had a set of turbos fail within 10k miles and never seen over 21psi on one of my cars, never seen over 60% wgc and never had a hard life and I was assured I shouldn't have any trouble what so ever and yet they failed.

This thread is to review a set of turbos that have lasted 7k miles so far and have been run very hard and yet are still holding up better and making way more power than the last set.

Just so the innuendos are clear:
1) Marty is referring to a set of RB Classics purchased Circa 2013-2014. They were ran with stock inlets and probably even stock RHD outlets, as that is all the N54 world knew of at that time. Platform learning curve to say the least in that regard, and with older turbos that could've used improvements as well.
2) Marty had his turbos goodwill rebuilt from us in 2015-2016, added inlets/etc.
3) Marty blew his engine in 2017-2018. The rebuilt RB Classics still were good last we heard, not sure if they were eventually were rebuilt elsewhere or not.
4) Marty strapped on these GC's with the motor, intercooler, intake, etc; and is loving the new combination thus far.

Long story short we well agree you can always find issues if you go back far enough in time. Meanwhile you have a 6 month review going on here, so keep runnin em hard and we will touch base in 6 months or so. Hopefully all is still going well for you at that point, was all just a forewarning that we are hearing about more and more of the same modes of failure in the newer models just as they were prior. If that doesn't matter to some then simply ignore the commentary.

Rob

 

[martymil]

Ok so your turbos where never run on stock inlets or outlets and failed within 1.5k.

My motor never blew it cracked a ring land, no metal went through the engine as it was a clean break and stayed all in its place.

Everything about the motor was perfect and nothing got damaged and your turbos ran for another 5k miles before being pulled off and found to be starting to graze the housing on the inlet side.

Pulled the turbos down in a local shop with no internal damage. According to you they where rebuilt to next gen specs with the latest internals that are in the current setups.

Yet if I left them they would have failed in no time.

They where never pushed hard and well documented and tested and this is why I opted to go with vtt and not another set from rb.

I'm giving vtt a chance now and if they fail ill move onto something else like the single setup I've helped work on and is super reliable.

 

[Rob@RBTurbo]

Ok so your turbos where never run on stock inlets or outlets and failed within 1.5k.

My motor never blew it cracked a ring land, no metal went through the engine as it was a clean break and stayed all in its place.

Everything about the motor was perfect and nothing got damaged and your turbos ran for another 5k miles before being pulled off and found to be starting to graze the housing on the inlet side.

Pulled the turbos down in a local shop with no internal damage. According to you they where rebuilt to next gen specs with the latest internals that are in the current setups.

Yet if I left them they would have failed in no time.

They where never pushed hard and well documented and tested and this is why I opted to go with vtt and not another set from rb.

I'm giving vtt a chance now and if they fail ill move onto something else like the single setup I've helped work on and is super reliable.

Marty,

Interesting how things change with time sir, here is an emailed RB Classic review from you on 7/2017 (slightly before your engine let go and 1.5 years after install):

"Still going as strong as ever
Setting records all over the place
On our aussie dyno, totally repeatable 350 rwk run after run after run with a max of 21psi on 98ron and 8deg of clean timing
Been running it like that for the last year or so
11.8 121mph on a lazy 2.0 sixty foot taking it easy on the gear box
Now I was going to ask you the other day but had forgotten
The hot side pipe which one do i need and how much shipped
Thanks Rob for an awesome set of turbos and still no smoke after 9k
Really happy with them"

Also the original RB Classics in #1 above- they were rebuilt to RB Classics (you opted out of the RB Next Gen wheel upgrades as there was going to be minor costs) but with indeed the newer internals/better balancing/etc. made available alongside the RB Next Gen updates.

Lastly where I come from when an engine breaks a ringland it is considered blown as it requires a complete teardown for servicing. At that point all kinds of crazy stuff happens, blowby galore leads to horrible turbo draining/crap out exhaust/coking up turbine wheels/etc. Nothing good for turbo life and we always suggest a rebuild thereafter- or assume some risks otherwise.

Anyway get out there and get those old records bested at the drags, and remember to RUN 'EM HARD!

Rob

 

[Torgus]

I'm giving vtt a chance now and if they fail ill move onto something else like the single setup I've helped work on and is super reliable.

This is what I find crazy. People are willing go through 2-3 sets of turbos(4-6 turbos) before just slapping on a single and calling it a day. I know it's cheaper up front but after all is considered...

I am sure you will be joining the #singlelife soon

Which single do you speak of out of curiosity?

 

[doublespaces]

We've been silent about this for nearly 3 years now, and while it has been fun chuckling about it with some other big platform names over the past long while... there should be some point where someone spills the beans finally eh? How many other wheel variations you want to try before the truth is exposed anyway? This is a big continual defect that they clearly do not have a good handle on and it is costing many people a fortune...



Who said that what I have stated is an opinion? It is more like calling a spade a spade. And it really doesnt take a rocket scientist to see these housings are hacked to hell, it is no wonder why their reliability has been flaky at best. Now you all go find another quality turbo that is built (casted/machined) like this and let us know, we will be here waiting.

PS. Feeling extra nice today so fired up the ole boroscope and snapped a shot of a Native TD04HL wheel to housing relationship, and this should be the goal in these sorts of builds.

Rob

Rob,

I don't care about your opinions nor your facts, in fact I don't really care about this thread(no offense Marty) and wouldn't be reading it otherwise. I'm not interested in being a mediator, babysitter, rocket scientist, forum post inspector, turbine blade analyst or anything else. I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME. Literally. If anyone has ever wondered how I handle complaints on Facebook groups, I ban the complainer and the complainee, problem solved.

The last person to continue to do whatever they wanted despite my asking nicely and repetitively was the owner of Fuel It. You haven't seen much from them around these parts lately.

I'll ask you again and beyond this I will find a permanent solution that will not require that I waste my most valuable asset, time, explaining that discussions have subjects and nodes have topics. "Expose your competitor" is not the topic of this forum node nor the subject of this thread. I urge you to use this apparent and vast analysis and reasoning capability you've just demonstrated to extrapolate that derailing a discussion while simultaneously dragging another company through your Internet soap opera is not allowed. If you feel like it should be allowed, you should have emailed me and used your persuasive abilities and intelligent reasoning to change my mind. Instead you are intentionally ignoring these realities and are creating the end of your further participation here.

Keep other vendors out of your mouth outside the confines of the Octagon, pretty please.

EDIT: Correction, it was @Tony@VargasTurboTech not @Steve@Fuel-It! that was the latest (not by much) and if you've forgotten instead of dedicating lots of time battling with them, I fixed the glitch.

 

[martymil]

We ran a modified stock hot side pipe on the rbs which flows a fair bit more and have bested those records since changing the turbos

The rbs never ran on stock inlets or outlets.

Ran 11.7 on 98 and same 11.4 on e85 with much lazier 60 ft times due to trying not to destroy the current gearbox on the gc's.

If the rb's where damaged when the motor blew, which they where not the turbos would have never made power but yet they lasted another 5000km or 3000 miles and I was happy with rb's until they started to loose power and when pulled off and were seen to drag their wheels on the inlet side.

When they were pulled down there was no internal damage.

Why would I need to upgrade the wheels and it wasn't minor cost upgrade either, if you had a better product you should have upgraded them at your cost especially when I had to pay for all the labour and shipping at a significant cost to me for a set of turbos that lasted less than a 1000 miles (1500km) and costed me over 1500 USD inc shipping to change over after being totally assured beyond any doubt that this could never happen before I initially installed them and yet it did.

I don't believe in how long they last in terms of years as this is just a ploy to get out of paying for warranty but how many miles they do and yours didn't last even their warranty term of 10000 miles including the first set, this is why I opted for the gc's this time round.

They were always babied and as soon as the ring land broke the car was shut down and towed as I could feel something was not right straight away.

I can't see any damage happening in less than 1 min of run time and if it could well the motor would have been damaged too like the head and all the valve gear
and they were perfect, the only thing we found was a cracked ring land with no broken pieces and slightly excessive wear on the main bearings due to e85.

I don't even have the latest gc2.0 with MAR-M246 as they weren't available at the time and already they have done 8000miles checking the car this morning on 26psi on the new motor and these have been ran a lot harder compared to the Rb's.

I know which ones I'd pick and did.

Onto the second question.

The single I'm speaking about is based of the motiv kit modified to suit RHD running a Garret GTX 3076R but this upgrade is significantly way more expensive
even when taking into consideration all the drama that has happened up until now and all the labour involved and it still cost me less of what the single will cost me and that's factoring another set of turbos if these let go as the gc's are around half the price to change over than a set of normal oem housing style turbos.

I have no intention going there just yet as I'm very happy with the gc's and the way they spool as there's nothing like a properly set up twins like on my car and way more fun to drive than a single.

I'm not after mega power these days as stated earlier, I want quick response, no lag and enough power to get up to some mischief if I want to and these tick all the boxes in all the right places.

This a vtt review and my thoughts on it , not a vtt bashing thread.

 

[doublespaces]

Thanks for ranking my response as dumb rob as I was to have chosen your turbos in the first place.

Vendors are actually not supposed to have access to negative reactions. Ill remove it and any others I can find by any other vendor.

They are here to conduct their business and build the community and platform. If they aren't, why are they here?

 

[135i2]

Which single do you speak of out of curiosity?

The RHD ST bottom mount kits, one Motiv based and one even more custom tubular are mine.
Marty has had a hand in both these projects. In fact we are still tuning the bottom mount tubular on 98 (93 in USA) with V8 Bait.
More to come.....on both variants perhaps.

I started developing RHD ST a few years back after my RBs self-destructed after 1600 miles.
My jousting with Rob over his reliability record is long in the tooth and you just cant deal with some folk at the end of the day.
Wild horses wouldn't drag me back to 'temporary' twins.

But this is Marty's thread and his feedback review to date on GCs.

 

[martymil]

So took these babies to the track last night and keep pounding on them, managed to roll of 11.7@128mph on 93 with a small splash of E to make e15 for knock control purposes.

These turbos keep surprising of how good they are and shows you dont need e85 for those that either cant get it or wont run it like me and keeping it simple.

The idea is to bring it how you drive it to better it as a street car as its not a drag car and keep testing all the products for reliability and logetivity.

 

[Chris@VargasTurboTech]

Love it! Fantastic times/trap!

 

[martymil]

Time can be greatly improved with slicks but i don't feel like breaking drive line parts these days, mph is the true indicator of real power.

So many people get hung up on e85 the problem is as soon as i drive out of the city im stuffed but because the car is tuned for purely 93 its not an issue as i can carry a bottle or 5 of octane booster to do the same thing as e15.

Full power anywhere i drive without worrying where my next e85 servo is.

So the point is only these turbos let me achieve this result.

I'm in the process of building a car for a customer that shares my views in Melbourne, can't wait to see his grin when he takes his car for a spin tomorrow. But thats his story to tell.

 

[Blaster3500]

Nice run! Any logs from the pass?

 

[martymil]

The track was poorly prepped and had traction issues especially in the top of 4th but still managed a good run.

Basically checking new products out and the tune to get the car ready for summer.

datazap.me | martymil | Log 1568467366

datazap.me

 

[martymil]

So I took the car to a new dyno to compare my new tweaked summer tune, man this dyno is brutal but I have two runs before and after for comparison.

It was tested in 5th gear straped down tight with a 130 ramp rate, this is not a hp run but a brutal run to simulate Aussie summer, 86f ambient.

Chart is before v7 and after v9 on the same day back to back.

datazap.me | martymil | Log 1568759628

datazap.me

 

[V8bait]

I always have to convert your dynos into American bald eagles when I see the kW. It's annoying to me because I prefer metric for literally everything except on dynos I'm sadly stuck in my head on useles horsey units

 

[doublespaces]

I always have to convert your dynos into American bald eagles when I see the kW. It's annoying to me because I prefer metric for literally everything except on dynos I'm sadly stuck in my head on useles horsey units

Sadly, I'm with you here and I think many of us are. I just look at them, see donkey power and then just take their word for it and keep scrolling. The lines tho, have such nice definition to them. This isn't a knock on kW, I just don't know what that means.

Kind of how I don't read JB4 logs well, not because there is anything wrong with a kilo pascal or whatever, I just haven't associated the figures to anything meaningful in my brain. Although, at times I feel there is a shortage of that as well.

 

[martymil]

To make it harder add 20% to the final figure to get dyno jet close comparison which works out to around 612hp.