Garrett 4088 turbo failures, the full story?

I needed to have a meeting with my turbo suppliers over a new project, and having the head Honcho's ear for a while I asked about the current crop of failures of 4088 Garrett turbos. IMO you can take the following as Gospel.

The 4088 turbos listed and sold by Garrett in the US are DAF truck turbos. Whilst the turbine wheel itself should withstand EGT's seen in a properly fuelled and mapped gasoline engine the exhaust housing won't. It's not made of Ni-Resist cast iron, which high performance gasoline turbos should have. The housing is eroding and superheated incandescent particles in turn erode the turbine wheel. To compound matters the stock 4088 has a 6 bolt turbine housing, which is unusual. Sellers in the US have Chinese cast V band turbine housings made afor two and six, and fit these. These housings are even less heat tolerant than the stock Garrett ones, and not only erode, but warp and distort, sometimes to the extent the turbine wheel catches, or the housing leaks.

The only answer is to either fit them to diesels or sell / bin them and get a turbo that has the proper high performance Ni-Resist (trade mark name for high nickel content cast iron) turbine housing.

To quote, you get what you pay for, 900 quid buys a proper turbo, 500 quid buys an improper turbo....

HTH.

Chris, would that affect any of the GT40xx range, or is it just for the 4088R? (I've got a 4094R on my MR2).

Chris, would that affect any of the GT40xx range, or is it just for the 4088R? (I've got a 4094R on my MR2).

I don't think Chris is talking about the GT4088R at all, he's referring to the plain journal bearing GT4088.

I don't think Chris is talking about the GT4088R at all, he's referring to the plain journal bearing GT4088.

I thought people had seen similar failures on the "R" versions as well though?

Me too, I know Jevansio is on his 2nd GT4088R and there's been a couple of R failures too...

Chris, could you ask your guy about the latest generation of DAF turbos. I don't know if they are the same as the 4088, which we use on our euro IV 2006 DAF 430CFs, but our 2008 DAF 460CFs are euro V spec engines that run with ad-blu. They run leaner than the euro IV engines and at much higher boost, ie 1.8bar flat out for hours at a time.

I am guessing that they are different/uprated turbos, but i don't know if they would now be suitable for petrol engine use.

Sounds similar to what I was told from someone else who deals in turbos.

I needed to have a meeting with my turbo suppliers over a new project, and having the head Honcho's ear for a while I asked about the current crop of failures of 4088 Garrett turbos. IMO you can take the following as Gospel.

 

The 4088 turbos listed and sold by Garrett in the US are DAF truck turbos. Whilst the turbine wheel itself should withstand EGT's seen in a properly fuelled and mapped gasoline engine the exhaust housing won't. It's not made of Ni-Resist cast iron, which high performance gasoline turbos should have. The housing is eroding and superheated incandescent particles in turn erode the turbine wheel. To compound matters the stock 4088 has a 6 bolt turbine housing, which is unusual. Sellers in the US have Chinese cast V band turbine housings made afor two and six, and fit these. These housings are even less heat tolerant than the stock Garrett ones, and not only erode, but warp and distort, sometimes to the extent the turbine wheel catches, or the housing leaks.

 

The only answer is to either fit them to diesels or sell / bin them and get a turbo that has the proper high performance Ni-Resist (trade mark name for high nickel content cast iron) turbine housing.

 

To quote, you get what you pay for, 900 quid buys a proper turbo, 500 quid buys an improper turbo....

 

HTH.

Thats pretty much the same answer i got on talking to a well known turbo specialist, i did post it up on one of the other GT4088 discussion threads;)

Thats pretty much the same answer i got on talking to a well known turbo specialist, i did post it up on one of the other GT4088 discussion threads;)

Yes i read that.

These gt4088r version are not that cheap if you compare them with the gt35r units. I got quoted from Turbo dynamics £1100 for these units several months back and 4 weeks ago . They informed me that the design of the gt4088r are different to the normal gt4088 units, they do noy have the same turbine housing on them.

Precision turbo uses the gt4088r cartridges and puts there own exhaust and intake housing on . I cant see how the exhaust housing makes a difference, if its down to heat.

I have a gt4088 and gt4088r at the moment and it would be intresting to see if the blades are the same.