SE Turbo Upgrades

[wcdeane]

I am contemplating a Garrett Turbo upgrade for my ’91 SE. This is where you send your turbo assembly into Garrett, and they mod it and bench test it, and then they ship it back to you.

Garrett has three “bolt on” upgrade options for the turbo that comes in the Lotus SE. They call them Stages 1,2 & 3. I am told that Stages 1 and 2 are street worthy mods, and that Stage 3 is a little on the radical side (where there is some potential for self destruction).

Has anyone out there done any of these Garrett upgrades? And if so, can you offer any advise?

Walt...'91 SE

[Doors]

Hi Walt,

No - I haven't, but I recently called Garret and they sent me to TurboTechnics - who I am now talking to.

They haven't told me what they can offer - until I send them the turbo for them to have a look at! So I think I'll drive down there (Northampton) and have a chat.

Where are you getting your info. about these 3 stages from? Sounds interesting - I would like to know more - and I can let you know how I get on at TurboTechnics.

Cheers,
Doors.

[wcdeane]

Garrett has what they call “Performance Houses”. My guess is that these are shops that are certified to operate on Garrett turbos. I talked to one located here in the central US near Denver, Colorado…an outfit called T.E.C. Turbocharger Engineering. Garrett claims to have 200 distributors world wide. So, I tried to find one in the UK using the “Distributor Locator” utility that is located on their web site, but it didn’t seem to be working properly at the time. Perhaps you would have better luck. The Garrett site that shows up in a “Google” search here un the US is:

www.egarrett.com/index.jsp

You might give that a try, or do your own search from where you are at. I’d guess that they can’t be too hard to find. Anyway, I had told them that I was looking to improve my turbo while maintaining its basic waste gated, water cooled & oiled factory configuration. They suggested one of the many turbine/compressor combinations on what they called the “TB03”. Apparently this is based on the original turbo housing that comes on the Esprit SE, which is a 48 mm discharge. I spoke first to a gal that mentioned the three stage thing that varied in price from $690 to $900 US. I called them back later and spoke to one of the guys that actually does some of the rebuilding. He talked about a specific TB03 package that would be capable of delivering 375 to 400 HP for about $700. He admitted that he was strictly a turbo dynamics technician, and wasn’t all that familiar with the engine management system on an Esprit, the point being, to achieve this kind of HP one would have to find a way around the ECU’s tendency to modulate the turbo output.

That’s what I have found out so far. More may follow if I come across some interesting stuff that is worth sharing. You do the same if you come across something.

Thanks…Walt

[Doors]

Thanks Walt - that's different to what little I've learned so far - I'm going to TurboTechnics next week - I'll let you know what they say and for how much.
Doors.