Blew up my GTP38R

drunk on diesel · Jun 8, 2015

I'm sorry, but I don't care what some kid who just started answering phones two months ago at Garrett says...

The sound you're hearing has nothing to do with the balancing specs, and everything to do with the blade/fin count and design on the compressor and turbine wheels.

Compare a 6 blade compressor wheel to an 11 blade some time. Compare a 10 blade turbine to a 13-15 blade. WAAAAAAY different sound. With absolutely nothing to do with balancing specs.

Garrett makes plenty of ball bearing turbos that don't sound like that.

drunk on diesel · Jun 8, 2015

And no, balancing would not be a typical reason for the play in a turbo straight out of the box. The tolerances and design of the ball bearing section would.

How on earth would balancing it "more" magically tighten the tolerances inside the bearings?

Tom S · Jun 8, 2015

Jennifer@Dieselsite said:
I'm dead serious. You can call Garrett and ask them yourself and I heard it straight from their mouth several times. The 38R balancing specs are different than on other turbos and it contributes to their particular roar.

You ever read one of those "there's an absurd amount of play in my brand new out of box 38R?" threads? Among all the typical reasons this would happen, balancing is also a factor.

Read the post #26 by Dennis in this thread.

http://www.powerstrokenation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54374&page=3

DEEZUZ · Jun 8, 2015

I'm ok with more play in ball bearing than thrust bearing applications...

Jennifer@Dieselsite · Jun 8, 2015

Tom S said:
Read the post #26 by Dennis in this thread.

http://www.powerstrokenation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54374&page=3

I like this read. Gonna have to go back and read that whole thread.

TyCorr · Jun 8, 2015

Tolerances cause the noise. End of story. The older turbos that were tighter were selling a few years back (2010) and were listed as quiet 38rs.

And you can get a chra for a "junk" 38r and then use it again for 200k more miles. People may not like that "it costs as much as a new one", 800 iirc. So for 800 bones you could get what else?

CurtisF · Jun 8, 2015

We can argue about where a 38R gets its noise - blade count, tolerances, etc. But that doesn't really matter because all of the above comes into play there.

What matters is that a 38R that is not balanced when swapping to a different wheel will be very prone to destroying itself. Which is how this thread started in the first place.

The WW for the 38R is a fairly new product. I'm not saying it's a bad product at all. But a lot of folks jumped on it when it first came out, and now we are starting to see the aftermath of those wheels installed without the assembly being balanced.

SEABEE08FX4 · Jun 9, 2015

After market wheels are not bad, installing them and not re-balancing is bad. And turbine wheel profiles do affect sound, for instance take the early 03 6.0 turbos vs the 04.5-07 turbos.

drunk on diesel · Jun 9, 2015

So is the louder sound the sound of the ball bearings chasing each other around?

Was the quieter center section purely in response to customer complaints/concerns about noise?

Or did they get noisier over the years as QC/manufacturing tolerances slacked?

I'll admit my ignorance on the GTP38R

TyCorr · Jun 9, 2015

The third sentence is how it was explained to me. When I got mine in 2010 and it was noisier than expected.

drunk on diesel · Jun 9, 2015

lame

TyCorr · Jun 9, 2015

I think they started selling a lot more of them and needed to slop em together faster.

SEABEE08FX4 · Jun 9, 2015

drunk on diesel said:
So is the louder sound the sound of the ball bearings chasing each other around?

Was the quieter center section purely in response to customer complaints/concerns about noise?

Or did they get noisier over the years as QC/manufacturing tolerances slacked?

I'll admit my ignorance on the GTP38R

If I took an educated guess I'd say changes to the turbine profile.