I spent a lot of time carefully selecting the turbo for my project. The turbo is the heart of the build and all other systems will be secondary to it. With that in mind I grabbed the very first free turbocharger I found. It came from a Saab, early 90's I think. The Saab had 180,000+ miles and a blown motor. I took everything, turbo, hunk of the exhaust, inter cooler and piping, everything. It is important for you to get as much of the extraneous piping and fittings as you can, especially the oil lines as they can be very special fittings.
Once cleaned up it became apparent the turbo is worn out. Lots of shaft play, signs that the seals might be leaking and it spun a little stiff. After blowing a little lacquer thinner through the oil journals she started to free up but the shaft play got worse. One of the fins on the exhaust side had lost just the tiniest bit of the outside corner. (I think I might have done that when I took it apart, my bad) I "fixed" the problem by taking the same amount of a fin on the opposite side. A real custom balance job. As it doesn't hit the housing I am going to run it anyway. I figure if the project is a success then it will be worth rebuilding it, a failure well then I am not out any money, God tends to favor the ambitious and impatient. The unit I scored is going to work out nicely. I will need to rotate the center section to position the oil drain properly but other than that it fits the space I want great.
What I found is a Garet low pressure T25/T25 with water cooling and the mechanical waste-gate. In my mind the smaller T25/T25 is better for my application than the T3/T4 as I am not a dumb high school kid hell bent on blowing the motor. I want a very moderate power boost and reliability. The mechanical integrated waste-gate requires no external fittings or plumbing so less work for me. I had not given any thought to water cooling but if the application is a success the extra effort to hook up the water system will pay for itself in longevity.
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