Ovlov94blog.wordpress.com Website Review

update on the performance of the Mamba GTX3071R turbo. I’ve been focused on other projects and until recently hadn’t had any issues at all with the turbo. But, following our last track day event it became obvious something wasn’t quite right. That something was a whine emanating from under the bonnet…..at first it sounded like an alternator bearing failure, but sadly some further investigation led Not sure how many kilometers we’ve traveled with the Mamba but it’s been around 18 months and 4 track days. It was the last day track day which brought it undone. Having eliminated all of my previous boost leak issues with this turbo I was able to push her pretty hard during the four 15 minute sessions we took part in. Over the born again life of rebuilt Ovlov this is the first turbo failure we’ve had, having run the Kinugawa, Owens and now Mamba Having researched the issue I don’t honestly feel as though the Mamba turbo is a poor quality build by any means. The turbo design is carbon copy of the Garret GTX3071R, the internals are close to identical and from what I can gather the Garret versions also suffer with bearing failures. The replacement bearing kits are readily available, along with a few DIY replacement videos from committed YouTu*ers. Clearly there is a demand out there and the issue is a design and installation related matter. I’m confident the Mamba would not have failed had I limited her to street use only. It’s the significant heat generated on the hotside of the bearing cage which has caused the issue. Whether I may have contributed to this issue by not running the engine on for long enough following each track session, I don’t know. There is a belief that the significant heat generated on the hotside bearing needs a reasonable engine run-on time to allow the heat to dissipate more evenly. I guess that leads to the question as to why choose a ball bearing turbo when a journal bearing turbo may actually prove more reliable.