DIY .72ar Stage 1.5 turbo upgrade

[KCTurbos]

We have been working on this idea for a while. This will be a DIY (do it yourself) upgrade. This will able us to offer great high quality parts that are still cost effective and price competitive. This kit is so easy to install, that if you can rebuild your turbo... then you can install this upgrade.

This idea came about because people often call us up and ask what we can do to fix their failed upgraded turbos that are operating poorly, surging, high egts, low boost, slow spool up, etc... These problems often come from poor quality machined housings that are cut by hand and eyeballed instead of using a precise computerized cnc program. This also happens from running a compressor wheel that is slightly too big for the turbine. We picked this size specifically to work in so many different applications.

Also we get calls from people looking to buy parts to build their own high quality turbos.

This upgrade will pair nicely with anything from stock to a stage 2 turbo. If you are looking for a nice upgrade to your stock turbo, or if you have a poor performing hybrid or stage 2 turbo then this is perfect for you. This will work with both 13 and 10 bladed turbines.


The kit will consist of everything needed to turn your turbo into a stage 1.5 turbo. This included a brand new CNC machined .72ar race compressor cover with backing plate, 63.5x88mm 11 bladed single plane billet compressor wheel, all hardware needed, and a complete rebuild kit including an upgraded 360 thrust bearing.

Here is a picture of what your new turbo will look like.

SO??? WHY .72ar stage 1.5???? Well it has a similar size compressor wheel as a typical powermax or stage 1 turbo... but it will be sporting a new .72ar racing cover. This will put it right in between the flow abilities of a a billet pmax/stage 1 turbo and a typical 64.7mm stage 2 turbo.



Price is $700 shipped


Please post any questions or send us an email at [email protected]

 

[FaSSt9602]

I will say that this upgrade is a perfect option for stock injector trucks. I plan on doing a full writeup this week. I have had a chance to run this turbo for just over a week at this point. I had been running an old 64.7 vgt that is identical in specs to some of the "hybrid" specs and I could not tune out the surge. It made good power, but the surge was horrible!

Charlie asked if I would try this out, so he came by the house and modified a stock 13 blade turbo I had here and with no adjustments in tuning, the turbo worked very well with ZERO surge! Turbo would hold 32psi + at WOT and dropped my egts by about 150 degrees. It spools much faster than the 64.7 I was running, and I while it's been a while since I have had my stock turbo, I'd venture to say it spools as fast if not faster than stock. Turbo builds 2-3psi just off idle and 10psi at highway speeds (75mph) which is right at 2000rpm. Cleans up stock injectors to nothing. My trans cut testing a bit short, but I'll get my complete review up this week with a few quick videos.

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[Jeremyleggett07]

So ur saying this would even be an upgrade for a MTW stage 1, correct?

 

[Derek@Vision Diesel]

As an upgrade to the mtw stage 1 all you really need is the compressor housing. Swap it onto your turbo and boom, stage 1.5

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[KCTurbos]

So ur saying this would even be an upgrade for a MTW stage 1, correct?

I would prefer not to make any of this thread into a bashing of any companies... Every company has its pluses and minus and I am not trying to call out or point fingers at any specific companies...


But to try and answer your question as best I can... if you had a stage 1 turbo from any company that was cut by hand as opposed to using a cnc program... AND you are having problems with surging, low boost, high egts, turbo lag, etc... then your problems could be coming from the compressor cover and/or type of compressor wheel (not all stage 1 turbos use the same compressor wheel). The biggest and best part of this cover is that it is brand new and not cut by hand so this provides a more precise cover which leads to better performance.

Also the .72ar compressor cover will also provide an upgrade. Our testing has showed that the larger AR on the compressor cover really helps out our VGT turbos.


This is why we are selling it as a kit. Every cover, every AR, every compressor wheel, and every turbine wheel will act different when combined. We have tested this combo to make sure it works well for all of the applications we have mentioned. If we were to sell you just a compressor cover and find out that your compressor wheels was slightly too big, slightly too small, damaged, rubed against the surge ring, etc... then you might end up with the same problems.


I have seen these problems on stage 1 and stage 2 turbos from many different companies.

On the other hand if your stage 1 or stage 2 (63.5 or 64.7) works perfect, you love your turbo, and never have any problems. Then this might not be a very advantageous upgrade for you.


This is also great for the guy looking for a more cost effective way to upgrade their stock turbos for less money and know that they are getting a high quality product.


Hope that answers your question

 

[KCTurbos]

I will say that this upgrade is a perfect option for stock injector trucks. I plan on doing a full writeup this week. I have had a chance to run this turbo for just over a week at this point. I had been running an old 64.7 vgt that is identical in specs to some of the "hybrid" specs and I could not tune out the surge. It made good power, but the surge was horrible!

Charlie asked if I would try this out, so he came by the house and modified a stock 13 blade turbo I had here and with no adjustments in tuning, the turbo worked very well with ZERO surge! Turbo would hold 32psi + at WOT and dropped my egts by about 150 degrees. It spools much faster than the 64.7 I was running, and I while it's been a while since I have had my stock turbo, I'd venture to say it spools as fast if not faster than stock. Turbo builds 2-3psi just off idle and 10psi at highway speeds (75mph) which is right at 2000rpm. Cleans up stock injectors to nothing. My trans cut testing a bit short, but I'll get my complete review up this week with a few quick videos.

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Thanks Troy.


Sorry about your tranny. It sucks to pay for a "built" transmission and have it keep going out like that. I know guys with bigger injectors that have stock transmission last longer than yours... I would be all over that shop demanding to be taken care of.

 

[Jeremyleggett07]

I would prefer not to make any of this thread into a bashing of any companies... Every company has its pluses and minus and I am not trying to call out or point fingers at any specific companies...





But to try and answer your question as best I can... if you had a stage 1 turbo from any company that was cut by hand as opposed to using a cnc program... AND you are having problems with surging, low boost, high egts, turbo lag, etc... then your problems could be coming from the compressor cover and/or type of compressor wheel (not all stage 1 turbos use the same compressor wheel). The biggest and best part of this cover is that it is brand new and not cut by hand so this provides a more precise cover which leads to better performance.



Also the .72ar compressor cover will also provide an upgrade. Our testing has showed that the larger AR on the compressor cover really helps out our VGT turbos.





This is why we are selling it as a kit. Every cover, every AR, every compressor wheel, and every turbine wheel will act different when combined. We have tested this combo to make sure it works well for all of the applications we have mentioned. If we were to sell you just a compressor cover and find out that your compressor wheels was slightly too big, slightly too small, damaged, rubed against the surge ring, etc... then you might end up with the same problems.





I have seen these problems on stage 1 and stage 2 turbos from many different companies.



On the other hand if your stage 1 or stage 2 (63.5 or 64.7) works perfect, you love your turbo, and never have any problems. Then this might not be a very advantageous upgrade for you.





This is also great for the guy looking for a more cost effective way to upgrade their stock turbos for less money and know that they are getting a high quality product.





Hope that answers your question

Thanks I wasn't looking to bash anyone it anything as well, just simply curious....thanks for the info

 

[KCTurbos]

Thanks I wasn't looking to bash anyone it anything as well, just simply curious....thanks for the info

I did not think that you were... I just did not want anyone else to think that was my intention when I replied to you.

 

[dieselpips]

How would the "wistle" be on an 06 stock upgraded to your combo? I love to here my turbo but the 03-04's really scream and I want that.

 

[Breaking Habits]

This looks like a solid deal, but I really wish people would stop this stage naming. It makes everything such a cluster***k it's not even remotely funny. Well my stage 1 such and such.. seeing as how every company has a different stage 1, 2, 3 , 18 etc, its detrimental to follow that, versus classifying your own product by your definition.

Just my advice, keep up the great work!

 

[KCTurbos]

How would the "wistle" be on an 06 stock upgraded to your combo? I love to here my turbo but the 03-04's really scream and I want that.

This whistle you are describing comes more from the exhaust side (turbine wheel). It late 2004 Ford redesigned the turbine wheel to run quieter and spool quicker and we ended up with the 13 bladed turbine. The 10 bladed turbine from the 2003/pmax turbos offers that loud whistle that some people love and some people hate. Unfortunately that is not part of this upgrade. But it is something we are considering offering as a balanced drop in assembly.

Most of the testers have reported that this upgrade sounds much different than other turbos. They described it as a clean swoosh sound, instead of a loud racket (i know that sounds weird but it is hard to describe). You can hear and feel it sucking more air... but at the same time it is not making any loud sucking noise under the hood.

 

[KCTurbos]

This looks like a solid deal, but I really wish people would stop this stage naming. It makes everything such a cluster***k it's not even remotely funny. Well my stage 1 such and such.. seeing as how every company has a different stage 1, 2, 3 , 18 etc, its detrimental to follow that, versus classifying your own product by your definition.

Just my advice, keep up the great work!

LOL

I know exactly what you mean... I have contemplated just giving a name to each turbo... for example calling our stage 3 a KC6770va turbo because of the wheel sizes or simply call it our Extreme Race Turbo??? And maybe calling this our stock+ turbo. But the sad truth is that so many people reference the stage terminology that if anyone uses a name other that staged... then people get confused as to what the size it is...

 

[dieselpips]

Well that sounds encouraging too. Moving air is more important. Need anymore stock test trucks?

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[KCTurbos]

We recommend this mod for the following injector sizes

Stock = Will run great and clean
155 = will be almost a perfect match
175 = will be a little smokey on a race tune (but should not be rolling coal)
190= you should really be looking at a bigger turbo

 

[Rob D]

Charlie - if a guy were to buy this upgrade kit and then later want to upgrade to one of your stage 2 or 3 turbos, would you give us more for a core than a stock turbo?

 

[fordfreak4life]

I have 190/75s and plan to still tow to maximum weight occasionally, what turbo would you recommend

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[KCTurbos]

Depends on how smokey you want it to be on a race tune.


I have a couple of guys running our KC 68mm stage 3 turbo and pull max weight with no problems. The key is going to be in the tuning and RPM band. There is no way around it... bigger turbos make power and run more efficiently later in the rpm band. The guys that I know running bigger turbos with larger injectors usually have no problems as long as they do 2 things.

First don't ever town a race file. Even if you can keep egts in check you need to worry about timing also. So make sure to get a good tow tune written. I love the option of making the tow/haul button lock out OD... which leads to the next item.

Keep your RPMs up. With a bigger turbo and bigger injectors your truck is not going to like being around 1500-1700rpms. If you tow max weight in that area then you will roll coal and have high egts until you get the turbo above 1800-2000rpms. What we recommend is just have a tow file written to lock out OD using the tow haul button. That way you can control where your rpms are at. I do the same thing on my 7.3 powerstroke. I run a larger single non-vgt turbo and pull max weight all the time. If going up a hill i just use the OD button to keep the rpms above 2000rpms.


190/75s and our stage 3 has shown to clean up the injectors on a race file to almost nothing. 600hp+ has also been hit by guys that like to hit up the track and/or go to the dyno.


On the other hand the smaller the turbo the more efficiently your turbo will operate at lower rpms. So if you stuck with a stock turbo then towing at 1600rpms is not as bad... but on a race tune you are going to run hot, smokey, and not have the same power potential. We had a truck with 190s only make about 500hp on a stock turbo. When we added the KC 68mm it gained 133hp with just a turbo upgrade (numbers were backed up at the track).




Bigger turbos and smaller turbos operate different at different areas of the compressor map.

too many people are led to believe that a bigger turbo will act exactly like a smaller turbo. This is not true!!! Off the line can be helped but locked in OD at lower rpms it will be easier to notice the difference.

Tuning can help. Have the tuner make sure it does not lock the tc into OD so easy and so low.
Gears will also help. Raise that RPM level more
Smaller tires will help. This raises the rpms and takes a little load off the motor
Air flow mods will help like a ported intake, aftermarket air filter, up pipes, manifolds, etc... They will actually improve the volumetric efficiency which will cause the turbo to operate more efficiently at lower rpms.



Much of this has to do with the efficiency area of the compressor maps (different turbos operate differently at different area of the comp map)... It is something easier explained over the phone... but I will try here.

I am not sure if you understand all the different terminologies but for this discussion I would focus on pressure ratio, Air flow, and the efficiency islands. A simpler way to think at it is pressure ratio = boost, air low = rpms, and efficiency islands = temps (those are not exactly what they mean but it helps to understand better).

The higher the pressure ratio the higher the boost
The higher the flow the higher the rpms
the higher the efficiency the lower the temps and the better the turbo will run and spool up

here is a general map. You can see that the closer to center of the map you get the more efficient it is. This also equates to lower temps. The farther you get from the center, the higher your air temps get, which raises your egts. Also the quicker you get on the map and get to the efficient areas of the turbo, the quicker the turbo will spool up and make efficient power.

Here is a map comparing the pmax to the stock turbo. The green area is where we spend most of our crusing and towing time (around 1600-1800rpms). You can see that it is very close to the center of the efficiency islands of the stock turbo and that it is way out of efficiency of the larger pmax turbo. Which means that at the same psi, same boost, same rpms... the stock turbo will be putting out cooler air. Also you can see that the smaller turbo can put out more boost at a lower rpms without surging (that would be the top left areas of the compressor maps) I know this is not your exact situation but it illustrates the same points as to what we are talking about. Smaller turbos operate better at lower rpms and lower boost.

The green area = 1600-1900 rpms
the red area = 1800 - 2100 rpms (this is where you need to be towing on a bigger charger)

Here is another picture of where we spend most of our time at 3/4 pedal - WOT on a spirited run. You can see that now you are almost dead center on the efficiency island of the pmax and now the stock turbo is way out of its efficiency range. This is one of the reasons why a bigger turbo like the pmax or KC 68mm stage 3 will will feel so much faster on the high end, spool faster above 2000rpms, and lower your WOT egts,.

There is a lot more that goes into it than just this... but it should give you and idea of what I am talking about. You will also note that I did not plot just one little tiny point on the maps... that is because our boost and rpms fluctuate so much with tire size, speed, tunes, volumetric efficiency, etc... so some people might experience slightly different results but the general principles are the same.

Bigger turbos will make way more power
Smaller turbo usually lack power on the top end
bigger turbos generally takes longer to spool/light
Smaller turbos operate better at lower rpms
bigger turbos generally equals higher cruising temps
bigger injectors generally equals higher cruising temps
bigger tires generally equals higher cruising temps and spool later
higher elevation generally equals higher cruising temps




Now before anyone nit picks my calculations.... I did not really make any. I just guestimated to show general theory and not exact plotting points. Also I know every map is different but these ones were easy to find and illustrate the principles were are talking about.



I hope that helps a little bit.

 

[KCTurbos]

Charlie - if a guy were to buy this upgrade kit and then later want to upgrade to one of your stage 2 or 3 turbos, would you give us more for a core than a stock turbo?

Yes sir. We will definitely help you out.

 

[Rob D]

Any dyno numbers yet before and after with stock injectors?

 

[KCTurbos]

Any dyno numbers yet before and after with stock injectors?

We are working on it... most of the trucks we work with don't have stock injectors anymore. We were actually thinking about buying a stock truck for this kind of testing.

I think we are going to send a kit off to PHP to see how it does.