I'm bored. And not that I feel like its anyones business REALLY, but here is the story....
Once apron a time.... There was a turbo shop. It started as a small business to supplement a retirement, out of a home garage. This business grew due to quality work and far better pricing than big turbo companies for rebuilds. It also grew because the owner wasn't just into installing new seals/bearings and charging people tons of money. He also was not a fan of just trashing a turbo because one part of it was wrong because it was EASIER to just sell them a new turbo for a similar profit ( all be it higher cost to the customer ). My luck... It happened to be located 10miles from my home.
I had a Subaru wrx stock turbo tdo4H-13g. It worked ok. I left the turbo off to fix a charge pipe, over about 4 days time. I reinstalled the turbo, and 7 miles later, the turbine shaft ate the bearing and the compressor wheel impacted the housing ( as did the turbine). Now, this was 14 years ago. Wrx turbo's did not grow on trees. And just like the fist, Subaru was NOT interested with selling me just a compressor wheel, nor was mistu. I believe mistu quoted me $800 for the wheel and it was like 4-6weeks out. The turbo shop laughed at this. They machined a spacer for the turbine shaft to fit a 50-trim garrett compressor wheel ( extremely common compressor wheel ). They machined the compressor housing. They rebuilt the turbo. The clipped the turbine shaft which removed the damage from hitting the housing. I pay'd an extremely fair $450 to fix a turbo that was basically not-fixable or easily replaced.
I was happy to just have a working turbo again. To my very big surprise, the car ran incredibly, insanely better/ faster. Actually.... It ran so much faster it over powered the *cough*honda*cough* block that it was attached to. Lol.
Fast forward to the SRT4. I buy it. First place I visit? The now SHOP ( no longer house garage ) of the turbo builder. He tells me that I'm screwed with that car because dodge refuses to open up the ecu. I ask "experts" on the srt4 forums and they all say the stock turbo is not able to be modified and that no matter what, it will not make more than 300whp ( this was early in the srt4 platform days ). I was basically laughed off srtforums.com.
I buy a useless stock srt4 turbo for $200 because.... Its useless according the experts (cough AGP cough ). Turbo shop bores the inlet. Sources a stock evo compressor wheel ( which is critical because mistu refused to sell us reverse rotation compressor wheels ). Takes the stock tdo4LR-15 and fits TD05LR-16G ( the fact its from a larger family of turbos means huge size difference ). Clips the turbine. I port the stock manifold. Starting to sound familiar ? I'm the first guy to do any of this. Everyone says its not going to be effective and they want see dynos.... I finally fight the ecu into a decent tune ( this was way before diablo tuners etc ). Makes 354whp and 407tq at the wheels on the stock intercooler with race gas. People on the forums refute the results, complain. 1 year later, the turbo shop is building turbo's for 2 different srtforum vendors and builts $90,000 worth of modified stock srt4 turbochargers. At the same time, this turbo shop is firing on all cylinders and life is good for them.
"Tickle down economics"
People do not HAVE TO SPEND MONEY ON TURBOS AND DYNO TUNING. People start losing there houses, marriages, minds.
They close up shop because a world class turbocharger shop has little local money coming in is a town full of native swamp donkeys (like me). The overhead simply is too much for the lack of business. We are 50 miles from Orlando, 50miles from Tampa. We specialize in old people waiting to die, and painting 30mph speed limit signs around here.
Fast forward to Nov 2013. I buy a ford fiesta ST and 15 hours after I buy it. I hunt down the owner of the turbo shop. "I need your help". He replies, "I'm out the game. I sold all my equipment. Balencers, lathe, welders, parts inventory, all of it. I can't make a reasonable profit off turbochargers". So be it.
Fast forward to a week or so of ATP releasing their big turbo kit videos.
A close friend of mine that drives a syclone calls my shop.... "Guess who's back in bizz". I eagerly stop into the shop. Although.... I'm kind of disappointed. "Car/ truck repair, AC systems etc".
Ummmmm where are the turbo chargers?
Turbos don't pay the bills. Everyone has a car/ truck. Rarely do people require turbo servicing.
The shop is outfitted to do all the same work with turbochargers, just on a much smaller scale. Its primarily a basic repair shop with 2 employees ( one is the owner). Brand new state of the art balencer. Brand new lathe. Building ecoboost F-150 turbo upgrades and fiat 500 turbo upgrades. I ask about the fiesta AGAIN....
We make a deal. Either he can build me a turbocharger and that's it. Or... I can deal with the phone calls, customers, most of the shipping/ receiving and he take CASH and with that, he will build me ( and me only if your wondering, lol ) as many turbos as I walk upto his door with. He does turbocharger work for local industrial places and repair shops. He doesn't even have internet at the shop. He doesn't have an email address. He doesn't even have voice messages, lol. We have 2 guys at the shop day to day unless I'm there working. We can't spend 3 hours of 16 man-hours per day talking on the phone or answering emails or arguing on internet forums. This is why I have a job.
My 9 to 5 (more like 5am to 2:30pm) I am a tech of 14 years at a small yet epic little place called Publix supermarkets inc which is based in my home town made up of swamp people and "god's waiting room" people. I make reasonable with reasonable benefits with epic retirement. Which really means I live a modest life ( no built evos or Z06's or $1500 coil overs ) and I maybe able to retire by the time I'm 85 years old ( at this rate of government spending ). I now work 2 jobs to support 100% of myself and 70% of my ex-wife, lol. I have 4 kids. So time for dynos and time to just drive around killing dinosaurs tuning till 3am is not something I get a lot of. I'm including some this personal stuff some maybe some people may better understand why this was not developed, installed, tested, tuned, dyno'd over night.
Neo: "you didn't answer the question"
The architect: "quiet right, interesting, that was faster than the others"
No... I'm still not going to revel the name of this shop. I'm holding up my part of the deal. He builds turbos for me and only me at a set price. I deal with you sexy boys so he can run his business that pays the rent ( the auto repairs). Its not from fear of someone by-passing me to cut me out. Its not to hide their poor name. Its simply to make sure my side of the deal is up held and he is left to BUILD TURBOCHARGERS and build turbochargers ONLY ( not sell, market or talk on the phone about ). OK OK.... Sometimes he's working on his 600+ cubic inch twin turbo 3500HP mustang, lol.
![[dunno]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_dunno.gif "Dunno [dunno]"){kind=icon}
