On a lot of videos I see of respectful people and teams I see tons and tons and tons of Precision turbos on both Domestics and Imports. Why are they so popular? Mostly what is pushed here has always been Garrett...

 

Because Precision Turbos are bad ***, produce tons of power and almost every serious competitor domestic or import use them for that reason.

 

This is true for their larger frame ball bearing units. I'm not sure if they've improved in recent years, but the same IMO cannot be said for their cheaper journal bearing models.

If you're in the market for a massive ball bearing unit for drag racing, then Precision is and has been the de facto way to go for quite some time.

Garrett has been pushed here for a long time starting back when they were still partnered with Honeywell and the original GTX lineup came out, which for the time was an amazing release. Garrett also has a better lineup of smaller frame turbos that typically suit Honda engines better considering the small displacement, unless you're going for the ultra high HP like I mentioned. Garrett units have also been proven repeatedly to be reliable. I still haven't had any experience with their G series lineup, unfortunately.

BorgWarner has some great offerings too, their EFR units are amazing on circuits and in general perform great, and their journal bearing Airwerks units are also very polished considering their price point and that they are a JB cartridge. Borg turbos tend to have larger housings and an overall larger physical footprint in the engine bay however, so fitment issues are more common with them which is why you don't see them too often.

/IMO

 

Precision turbos also has some smaller frame turbos that do very well, their Gen2 PT5558, PT5862 and these are more of your street/race turbos. I also think that the reason you see Garrett pushed so hard on this site is because Garretts been around a long time and everyone is always asking for a turbo for 300whp.

Look at pretty much every thread and it's all about $2500 all in builds, stock motor and turbo setups, 300whp setups, daily driver setups etc. Like I said when you look at people interested in Class racing, and trying to make the most power their is a reason they use Precision hands down.

 

I had to... Sorry. That isn't to say that they are the most robust turbocharger for different class and styles of racing used more globally.

Now, with that said, no one here mentioned about the marketing & merch machine that PTE was, and always have been for almost 13 years (whether or not they are actually accurate in teaching good turbocharger maintenance and use of fittings and components is another issue intermingled with that marketing altogether). I remember being at a drag race event in 2019 working with some Garrett users on their project and I easily saw about $20,000 in tee-shirt sales on that event day alone.

That's just tee-shirts; that doesn't include the stickers, hoodies, and even some turbochargers that were on display. Borg-Warner and Garrett have a lot to learn when it comes to proper marketing to excite not only the end users, but even vendors, suppliers and dealers. To get a hoodie or T-shirt out of Garrett is like planning a high-suspense heist; All the planning and convincing, only to get very little in return.

Garrett for many years has strictly relied on their reputation to carry them forward; with design engineering & improvement coming in second. (This is why you see other combinations made using Garrett components by other tiered vendors that more directly compete with the PTE line; because those of us in the know understand that as Garrett has their previous reputation to help them forward, they only rely on that reputation without any true effort into exciting the customer into getting their products. They want the dealer or retailer to do all of work of convincing the customer as to why their products should be chosen over others.

Garrett tends to forget that competition in the turbocharger aftermarket exists for their biggest customer base, which is still the United States. Globally, Garrett can rely on their designs and reputation to get them forward, but trust me when I say, most of the marketing team at Garrett are from Europe, and are stubborn about utilizing better marketing in the U.S.

So, yes, for now, PTE makes more Power per turbocharger, but Garrett has caught up quite a bit with the GEN II GTX line. The problem is convincing their market that just saying "trust me", just isn't good enough for the U.S. consumer anymore. U.S. consumer tastes are different, and do involve a lot of "bribing" by the way of marketing and merchandise sales to keep the wheels turning (no pun intended.. ;-) )

 

With Precision being as popular as they are, I do find it weird that they chuck wheels as often as they do in really high hp applications. Is that just because they're being pushed to the limits more so than other turbos or maybe just based on their market share alone?

I also find it weird that half of the used Precision turbos I see mention 'just rebuilt'. Why were all of these just rebuilt, are they having issues or what?

Not really trying to hate on Precision, just curious. I've never had one but if I were to upgrade turbos I'd certainly be considering a Precision.

 

Yes, the quality of the materials in their components are questionable. They've been like that since about 2009 after they lost their Garrett Tier licensing. They put good design in their wheels and shafts, but poorer execution in those designs when it comes to using the better materials. Since the majority of their client base are drag racers, they cater to a market of enthusiasts that actually expect their turbochargers to fail, as just being "the nature of the beast". "Pay to play", (or pick your phrase that suits best). Because of shipping fees , VAT costs, etc, This is why you don't see Precision in a more global sense; they know that the European market wouldn't stand for that kind of lower QC of parts. It was like in 2008 when they used to use Turbonetics HPC exhaust wheels for their 6265.. Once they found a way to make it less expensive and using less material in the turbine wheel, they renamed it the 6266.. (And of course they tried to market using less material in the shaft as a good thing , when it really wasn't.

 

That's really interesting, thanks for that explanation.

 

When it comes to turbos a lot of them end up needing to be rebuilt when you push them really hard. For example look how most turbos are used, unfiltered allowing them to suck dirt into the compressor wheel, my car has a front mount manifold which means rocks can fly up and hit the compressor wheel. I remember when I was running Garrett turbos, turbo direct came out with a billet compressor wheel that utilized very thin fin material to make more power.

It worked, it made a lot more power, unfortunately the blades would constantly make contact with the housing and shred apart. Whenever we went back to running a standard Garret compressor wheel which was much thicker we would lose about 150 horsepower. My buddy Joe was using a Comp Turbo and literally chucked a blade right out the car making a pass. However since we both started running Precision turbos we have never had to rebuild one yet and never had any wheels fly out. Joe held the 62mm record for like 3 years with an 8.49 pass using a Precision 6270 and it was only beaten this past year with another car running a Precision 6270.

All I can say is Precision is constantly coming out with better and better turbos in my opinion, they just came out with some GEN3 turbos like the 6785 that makes more power then the Gen2 7285. We're talking about a 67mm turbo that is capable of squeezing out 1300whp which is amazing.

So for my kind of racing where every horsepower counts, at this point of time Precision is it.

I would also say Shodan is a great wealth of knowledge on turbo chargers and their history BUT most people don't care about Precision origins or what they did back in 2001 or 2009, if their not popular in Europe or what have you. Precision has become what they have become in the US because the results they produce. Trust me, if Precision turbos were constantly breaking/sucked/not making power people wouldn't be using them. I pay to play but I'm not going to buy a 4k turbo that needs replaced every 5 passes and most people wouldn't either unless you're some millionaire race team.

 

PTE is known for that power, AZ is absolutely correct. 90% of the rebuilds and broken **** has stemmed from their JB units from all I have come across. I REFUSED to go with precision just for that reason. I understand the pros generally won't waste money on a JB unit but the little guys, like us, make our start with them. As mentioned above, Garrett is known for reliability as well as just being synonymous with the word, "Turbo". That is most often the name first said in any car crowd in my area at least.. Having bought my first shiny new Garrett, I have been impressed with its performance as long as I have had it. This has really levied some persuasion for me to upgrade to a BB unit. I believe if PTE can get their **** together and produce a good JB for a change, they may finally become a TRUE force to reckon with.

 

Lots of solid info and good points, I appreciate your perspective AZ as you're certainly one of the few people on here with a setup as serious as yours

 

Agree 1000 percent. With all the youtubers documenting the builds so well now theres no hiding these facts either.
Cleetus had his precision turbos on his corvette for i think 2-3 years making consistent low 8 second passes over and over and just recently had to send them in because they were burning a bit of oil.

 

Thanks, I have nothing against Garrett, my first turbo was a Garrett, my first 10 and 9 second passes were using a Garrett turbo. If you are building a fun car just to play around with there is nothing wrong with Garrett, Borg, PTE, Comp and others honestly. When you decide to compete, enter certain classes that only allow certain size turbos for those classes or you are shooting to be the fastest car, people are using PTE because they meet the expectations of winning.

Again all turbos will need to be maintained when pushing hard, you should see my compressor housing after 10 passes. You can see where rocks have hit the compressor housing, it's completely open to dirt and air because I use no filter so I mean honestly the user is to blame in situations like these where something breaks.

 

That's the truth, when you look at the fastest turbo Hondas, 9 out 10 times you see them running a Precision, hell I've seen guys sponsored by Comp, running Comp stickers using PTE turbos LOL. Look at Street Outlaws, literally every turbo car on that show is running Precision.

 

Being devil's advocate here:
Do they really meet the expectations of winning, or do they just do better at matching for class? Could one pit a Borg turbo against a PTE in the same class and take it?

 

I would say yes for winning, quick example using Hondas as the test subject. If you look at FIS, FWD, and FIP records they are with PTE. If you look at World Cup Honda classes I think all record passes are utilizing PTE. SpeedFactory used PTE, the Fastest AWD B-series car is using PTE. The first 7 second FWD car was on precision.

Now can you put a Borg class turbo against the same class PTE and expect better results? No, put a 62mm Borg on the exact same car running a PTE and the Borg loses. We had a buddy running FIS, a 62mm class running a Borg he consistently went 9.8’s. Swapped to a PTE 6270 and within 5 passes got down to a 9.1 before trans problems. Same setup just different turbo with new tune for that turbo.

show me any Honda using a 62mm Borg running 8.4’s, heck let alone 8’s.

 

Fair enough!
They still need to get the gremlins out of their JB. Lol!

 

To be honest, I haven’t heard of PTE journal bearing turbo issues in years. I remember in the past people complaining about them but that was like 7 years ago.

 

I stopped buying them after I had to have a 5558 CHRA rebuilt twice within 5K miles.

To be fair there's a possibility the shop I took it to didn't do it correctly the first time, but I doubt it as they are very highly rated and they did a fantastic job with the S256 I had them work on at the same time.

Edit: This was ~6 years ago.

 

There is a member here, don't remember offhand yet, I'll have to look through my posts but, they had a 5557 jb that went bad and PTE sent a new 5558 (can't recall the units exactly) since the one was no longer available, he got a free upgrade. Well, it wasn't long before THAT one went out. I'll sort through and see if I can the thread..

 

I think with Garrett it’s an old reliable company that mass produced it’s products early on compared to Precision. Precision was nothing in until about 2004, 2005 I think.
Precision is at the forefront of technology, the cutting edge, so with that you will see more success and occasionally people push them to failure, as drag racers max out turbochargers.

For me, not being competitive and wanting something reliable, I’ll go with Garrett. If I want to compete in drag racing, I’d go Precision.

 

To each their own, if I were looking for reliability I wouldn’t be looking to modify a car. If I was, the turbo wouldn’t be the thing I would be worried about. Most people doing builds cut corners on just about everything. So it doesn’t really matter what turbo is used because most people’s builds on this site fail and it’s usually not turbo related LOL.

 

I’ll get my hands on a nice ball bearings precision some day.. not sure which one I would want yet, I don’t want to have to max something out to hit my goals

 

OUCH!!!

 

LOL. Most people post online when they do have a problem that they are sorting through so it seems like failure, but these are steps along the way to working out the bugs/ weakest link/ common problems. There are many successes on Honda-tech.com. I just watched the video on the homepage about the 950hp K24 NSX, but that guy doesn’t post regularly.
Most people online are content in the 300-500hp range for a Honda, which is within a budget and 2 or 3 times the stock amount of power.
Not many fully fledged race teams post online first of all because they have gone through track time working through issues on their own and figure it’s their own knowledge, so they don’t want to share advice and would rather have the competition fail. That way they are first on race day.
I’m not really competitive about beating the guy in the other lane. Like AZ_Civic put to each his own.
Right now I’m working on a street/track 500hp build which may seem puny to the fast guys but remember to buy a car with 500hp now can cost tens of thousands of dollars such as Porsches, Corvettes, NSX, Supra’s, etc, and I’m trying to do what they are capable of with much less money spent.
Right now I’m a poor man, and for now I’m a spectator at big events. It’s still exciting to watch and talk to these guys.
When I was a kid I saw Steven Papadakis in his AEM turbo H22 tubular frame Civic hit 7 seconds and I believe it was the first pass a Honda has ever made into the 7 second quarter mile.