What's new
By:
TurboTransAm.com

Register today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

BB Turbo versus traditional Turbo ?

TurboJoe89TTA

TurboJoe89TTA

TurboJoe
I know I was bashed for my last turbo statement. I like to spark debate. BB turbo's do not spool any faster then the conventional turbo after 5psi. Most drivers leave the line near or above these psi levels. Maybe I am wrong?

But after seeing the price on the new Boosted Technology Turbo's I changed my mine yet again. For just over 1100 bucks you can buy them BRAND NEW. You do not have to worry if the last person abused it. I see the older turbo around 600-900 bucks still.


I would not buy a turbo anytime soon but if I had to I would go with a New BB Turbo w/ boosted Technology. Nice price too!
 
Last edited:
The only difference between a ball bearing and a tradional turbo is spool time. Thus the only time that in my mind you should consider going with a ball bearing turbo is if you're running something too big for the motor for the extra power that you make up top, so it takes a lot to spool it. With an LC2 you'd need to be running something close to an 88mm turbo on a stock motor. Another reason is when you're needing to find every little place that you can pick up time, when you're running in the high 8s say with a stock motor you're pushing the limits of the motor so anywhere that you can pick up a little time you take advantage of it. A lot of Supra guys go with BB turbos because they run close to 30 psi and their inline 6 doesn't have the displacement to spool it before like 4k rpm, so the BB helps bring that rpm down a little bit.

There is no advantage temperature wise. The temperature increase the air gets is from when it's pressurized, a quick pressure change results in a proportional temperature change, this is why when you run more boost you're intake temperatures will increase.

A BB turbo also isn't really any stronger than your tradional turbo. Think about, all the diesels and turbo cars from the 80s that last 200k+ miles on the stock turbo. Just keep it fed with proper oil flow and don't spin it way faster than what it's supposed to be. That's why stock turbos die faster when people try running 25+ psi on them for a while.

Basically in my mind, save your money and spend it somewhere else. The only advantage you're going to see with a BB is about .05 seconds at the track and for the ~$400 difference you could get something like alky, suspension, tires, etc that will net a much more significant gain.
 
I heard from another TB member in addition to Red. That is why I posted.
That was my statement however concerning the operating temp. Just figured the BB turbo would run cooler because of the water line attached. I figured the waterline would make the turbo run around your current water cooling temp. Sorry, haha.
 
It's simple... You race the car get a BB turbo, if you daily drive it and take it to the track once in a blue moon, BB is a waste of money.
 
Get the best to begin with and never look back and say,
"why didn't I get the best?...again?" Would you buy yourself ground beef or beef tenderloin? Shrimp or lobster? Fender Sratocaster or Sears model 2 stratoliner? polished or painted? Playboy or the Cheri (the order here may depend on individual) 89 Turbo Trans Am or 89 Corvette?.
KI$$ said it best, "You wanted the Best You got the Best" Did you ever regret getting those KISS tickets, not me my good man.
Yeah, nuff said
 
I heard that all TTA's were slow? I heard that the grass was always greener on the other side? I heard that anything over 20PSI would crack the block? I heard this. I heard that.

Do you do all your boosted runs on a track? Joe, how long have you had the car? Just how many times have you been down the track with the car?

How many turbos have "sent metal fragments through a motor?" Usually heat has nothing to do with it.

The turbo is still going to run hot. 170-190 degrees? Most coolant runs at those temps. Do you think it will seriously run that after it is run through a turbo at which the EGT's hit ATLEAST 1500 degrees? Closer to 1650 but we will leave a little room for play.

Do you even know why they have a coolant line? It isn't to cool the housing...it is to keep the ball bearings cool.

Lastly, how many turbo's do you ever read about failing? I have only seen a rare handful and they were all from faulty shafts.

....
 
sverble said:
Get the best to begin with and never look back and say,
"why didn't I get the best?...again?" Would you buy yourself ground beef or beef tenderloin? Shrimp or lobster? Fender Sratocaster or Sears model 2 stratoliner? polished or painted? Playboy or the Cheri (the order here may depend on individual) 89 Turbo Trans Am or 89 Corvette?.
KI$$ said it best, "You wanted the Best You got the Best" Did you ever regret getting those KISS tickets, not me my good man.
Yeah, nuff said
Click to expand...

would you buy a nice set of dishes or china to use everyday? They both serve the same purpose and will probably live through the same abuse but one cost a lot more and the only advantage is you can brag about it and look like a badass to your friends. I'm not trying to sound like a dick, but all I ask is that if you support a product and you're trying to give suggestions to other people to buy the product provide reasons to get it. I personally would never spend $400 on a street car to pick up about .05 seconds at the drag strip.

When looking for a comparison of ball bearing turbos I happened to find a post on another forum by one of my friends who has a built 331 Mustang with a 76GTQ running high 8s-low 9s on E85, he's one of the few people who I would trust touching my TTA mechanically (not cosmetically since all of his cars look like piles of crap typically). Here's his quote and I think it really points out the advantages/disadvantages:

"Ball bearing is more durable and spools faster, but theres no power difference. also a ball bearing turbo is usually going to cost a LOT more than $150-200 more than a journal bearing turbo of the same design, and they cost a ton to rebuild compared to a typical journal bearing turbo that is cheap to rebuild. BB used to be well worth it on older turbos, now days with lighter wheels with better aerodynamics being used, its not as much of an advantage as it used to be IMO. ive used both styles, fwiw for my current one i just went ahead and went back to a standard journal bearing and saved the cash with no regrets.

imo just buy a standard journal bearing turbo, but pick a model with some of the nice newer design wheels (Like turbos that use Garret GT series wheels in them etc)

in applications with real high pressure ratios however, ball bearings are a must to handle the high thrust loads, but you wont need to worry about that"
 
I know it does not cool the housing. You have told me that before. I was talking about the BB. Sorry I didn't make myself clear. I figured it was better because of new tech. and the additional cooling to the BB(which it needs) instead of hot oil within the standard journal bearing turbo. Sorry Quiky.
 
72firebird said:
would you buy a nice set of dishes or china to use everyday? They both serve the same purpose and will probably live through the same abuse but one cost a lot more and the only advantage is you can brag about it and look like a badass to your friends. I'm not trying to sound like a dick, but all I ask is that if you support a product and you're trying to give suggestions to other people to buy the product provide reasons to get it. I personally would never spend $400 on a street car to pick up about .05 seconds at the drag strip.

When looking for a comparison of ball bearing turbos I happened to find a post on another forum by one of my friends who has a built 331 Mustang with a 76GTQ running high 8s-low 9s on E85, he's one of the few people who I would trust touching my TTA mechanically (not cosmetically since all of his cars look like piles of crap typically). Here's his quote and I think it really points out the advantages/disadvantages:

"Ball bearing is more durable and spools faster, but theres no power difference. also a ball bearing turbo is usually going to cost a LOT more than $150-200 more than a journal bearing turbo of the same design, and they cost a ton to rebuild compared to a typical journal bearing turbo that is cheap to rebuild. BB used to be well worth it on older turbos, now days with lighter wheels with better aerodynamics being used, its not as much of an advantage as it used to be IMO. ive used both styles, fwiw for my current one i just went ahead and went back to a standard journal bearing and saved the cash with no regrets.

imo just buy a standard journal bearing turbo, but pick a model with some of the nice newer design wheels (Like turbos that use Garret GT series wheels in them etc)

in applications with real high pressure ratios however, ball bearings are a must to handle the high thrust loads, but you wont need to worry about that"
Click to expand...


Ok, to be honest, I bought that turbo with a gun pointed at my head. I regret ever getting it. It sucks. I'm putting the stock turbo back on and buy the best of "the Golden Girls" on VHS.
 
TurboJoe89TTA said:
I know it does not cool the housing. You have told me that before. I was talking about the BB. Sorry I didn't make myself clear. I figured it was better because of new tech. and the additional cooling to the BB(which it needs) instead of hot oil within the standard journal bearing turbo. Sorry Quiky.
Click to expand...

haha it's alright, we all have to learn everything at some point from someone. I grew up around cars and engineering, it's basically been my life for close to the past 10 years. Hence the reason I'm going to school for mechanical engineering and I'm only interested in working the automotive industry. Besides, it's better that you're doing the research yourself and learning what you're getting so that you can explain it to others than to just call someone and say hey I have this car send me the turbo for it. If you really want to learn about it all go out and grab a book, there's a couple decent beginners books at Barnes and Noble, if they look like they have a lot of equations then those are normally better if you still remember your algebra a little. They don't sell anything too complex at your normal bookstore so you won't be digging a huge hole.
 
sverble said:
Ok, to be honest, I bought that turbo with a gun pointed at my head. I regret ever getting it. It sucks. I'm putting the stock turbo back on and buy the best of "the Golden Girls" on VHS.
Click to expand...
Why did you decide on the CPT61?
 
DSC_2680-vi.jpg

DSC_2685-vi.jpg

DSC_2683-vi.jpg
 
sverble said:
Ok, to be honest, I bought that turbo with a gun pointed at my head. I regret ever getting it. It sucks. I'm putting the stock turbo back on and buy the best of "the Golden Girls" on VHS.
Click to expand...

hey I'll admit, I regret going with the setup I have on my car. The PT51 is too small and I over spin the hell out of it. At 25 psi I'm way out of the efficiency range, and I'm running injectors that are too small. I was 17 when I bought everything and all I cared about was going fast, I looked at what a couple other people had and how fast they went and I decided I'd just go with it. I didn't do hardly any research really. If I were to do it again I don't know what turbo I'd go with, and to be honest I don't know what is out there. Ideally I'd want something around a 60mm that would still fit under the stock heat shield.
 
Quiky One said:
Why did you decide on the CPT61?
Click to expand...

From past experience with the Cheetah turbo back in 91. This turbo would build boost very slow, The stocker was way better. I had a stock DP, there was no 3"inch DP for the TTA avail that I knew of. The turbo had bigger power on top, but sucked on bottom. I tried a te44, a few years ago with a convertor that was 2800. The Te4, spooled so fast that I thought from past experience with the "cheetah" that I had more convertor than I needed for the te44, It was blowing Nittos off. So I thought, bigger turbo, but not too much bigger, something that would have that big top end, but spool fast and have streetable stop light to stoplight "fun" factor. So I heard about the BB turbos having better street characteristics without having to get a bigger convertor. I've read threads some about tighter convertors getting better top end results with big compressor side turbos, I think these turbos are still a .63 exhaust side. The "cheetah" from 92 had a .83 exhaust side, what the hell?
I've tried 4 turbos, so my experiences are just from that.
 
72firebird said:
hey I'll admit, I regret going with the setup I have on my car. The PT51 is too small and I over spin the hell out of it. At 25 psi I'm way out of the efficiency range, and I'm running injectors that are too small. I was 17 when I bought everything and all I cared about was going fast, I looked at what a couple other people had and how fast they went and I decided I'd just go with it. I didn't do hardly any research really. If I were to do it again I don't know what turbo I'd go with, and to be honest I don't know what is out there. Ideally I'd want something around a 60mm that would still fit under the stock heat shield.
Click to expand...

Hey, I was 17 once with a new TTA, and I'll I cared about was gong fast too. Trust me, I know about regret and buying the wrong gadget. I've went to the buick meet in Bowling Green on and off since 1991, I live an hour away. I sold Buick t-shirts that I designed 3 years in a row back in the 90's. I honestly have paid attention to what people are doing and saying. I talked to Lawrence Conley before he went in the 8's. His wife bought 2 painting from me, I paid attention to what he was doing when running 10's and that was considered "fast" back then. I'm 35 and still want to go fast! I dont regret the 61 I got, only that I didn't get the 66, I still got enough "margin" with the 2800 stall that I wouldn't mind any lag if I got a little. Tires don't hold this turbo. Lots of turbos fit under the stock shield, the crappy Cheetah with an .83 housing I had back in ten would fit, WITH the addition of notchin a bit the bracket that holds the turbo. It had a deltagate on the turbine side, so it didn't fit. If you got a internal wastegate turbo with no place for a deltagate it would probably fit with no notching. Presicion turbos don't have the deltagate, turbonetics do have that part if you ever want to use an external, nice I guess if you want to get radical with your gate.
I wouldn't give random advise to a forum member.

Here's a detail of what is needed for an .83 housing if you would ever do that??? Again that was early 90's stuff to try .83, .83 isn't needed on a street car IMO. Too many other options in turbos.
83notch.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top