Hey gentlemen, my car ran fairly reliably on the 590hp softronics/speedtech tune and exhaust for about 5 years. I ended up upgrading the clutch to the sachs 2.5 about 3 years ago as the tune fried the stock clutch. Also had my coolant leak issue and got that repaired and did all the preventative work w/ sharkwerk pipes and pinning etc. But now the car has stopped building boost, had the local dealer look at it, and seems like my passenger side turbo is damaged (see pictures). Car has been parked for about a month due to risk of damaging the engine. (not ragging on softronics, the car is now 16 years old, and has been on high boost for 5 years).

I think my options are to either replace the turbo for another stock turbo. OR go ahead and upgrade to bigger turbos. My overall goal is reliability and about 600 to 650 WHP (need to stay within the limits of the SACHS 2.5). I assume I'll have to do supporting mods as well - so turbos, intercoolers, maybe injectors, maybe plenum, and a tune. I'm a lot of my research it looks like tuners require good "cores" to build into upgraded turbos. Not sure if that'll be possible in my case.
What is the verdict on what the best options are these days for my goals? Looks like from 2013-2015 the AMS Alpha9 kit was the go to, but pricing is steep - $19K. They do sell their beautiful 5.5 inch intercooler kit for $3.5K.

https://www.amsperformance.com/.../alpha-performance.../
https://www.bydesignauto.com/.../tial-alpha-30-turbo...

THANK YOU ALL for reading, any opinions are welcome! I posted on the facebook page also but wanted to get opinions here as well regarding the go-to turbo set-up these days for reliability and performance.

 

Those might be rebuildable. I'd ask ByDesign if they can do their upgrade in that condition. Would save you some $ and hit your 600-650 whp goal.
https://www.bydesignauto.com/product...ant=4216654277

 

My brother has a set of proto 63.5’s for sale if you should decide to go that route. Made 700whp on e85. Just let me know if interested.

 

@csc427 does your brother still have the turbos available? if so can you send me some info

 

yes he does. They are protomotive 63.5s.

 

Can you send me some more info - how many miles, asking $ etc?

 

How many miles on the stock turbos? You might be able to rebuild/ enlarge them, although I cannot comment on the best upgrade in 2021.

 

Honestly, ~$19k is par for the course if you upgrade turbos, intercoolers, injectors, plenum, custom tune, larger throttle body, etc. and an indy shop does the work. I’m running Tial 3071R turbos with all the above modifications on 93OCT and making 700WHP. With a good custom tune from someone who knows what they’re doing, the car should run smooth and be reliable. Just watch out for the spun cam issue, especially with a tuned car.

 

Send your Turbo's to Blouch for a complete rebuild. I did it two years ago for less than $1000.00. It took them less than a month to turn around.