For those of you who don’t know me, or don’t know, I have been helping compays like APR GIAC AWE Vast JHM and several others that cover more vag and in part the domestic market.
I work at ford SVT so, I have a connection that many others would not have. The connection to company like Ford, Paxton/Votech, Borg Warner, luk, Bosch and several others help gain a large competitive advantage when it comes to many automotive parts products and services
With all the pundits talking about the JHM Rs6r turbos as of late, I thought I would step in and add some facts. Due to the fact that I have my hand largely into this project, I feel I can add some real facts and help dispel some myths.
Several years ago (2005 I believe) I and a few friends found out that the Audi RS6 had one of the largest ko4 KKK turbos ever used, and with that we could do a few easy changes and make these fit on the 2.7T. We stormed to make this a mod that every S4 owner could use. It took some time but we got the bugs worked out and realized what we had on our hands. From there the RS6 turbo revolution took off. To this day almost every legitimate company has recognized the RS6 turbo to be the best turbo for the 2.7T as it offers the best area under the curve while still giving the strong top end push so many want.
For years the market ran wild and the RS6 turbo was one if not the top turbo to have. The only down side was that BW wasn’t going to keep making this turbo forever and the cost was very high. So about 3 years ago a plan went into action to start getting the Rs6r turbo program off the ground. The idea was to make a better then RS6 turbo. While the RS6 turbo was great it had its flaws (those will be talked about below)over 3 years and 4 revisions later we have the RS6r turbo. A turbo, which has been tested on several cars over several years.
A few answers to what seen to be some hot button questions.
Are the JHM Rs6r turbos made in or built in china?
No. The parts are sourced from all over the world. Not that china is bad. BW and Bosch have factories there.
There have been 4 versions of this turbo made by us for testing and getting to the end RS6r turbo. Each revision started using better then OEM components and addressed the issues we found in the last batch of testing.
What makes a JHM Rs6r turbo different?
First we have to know that many of the changes are things the most people wouldn’t even know if they had the turbo in their hands. Yet even more of them are not going to be talked about. Why?
Well…… we know that I can list several things like.
Changing the compressor wheel and cover
Back cutting the turbine wheel
Adjusting the waste-gate port.
getting a stronger actuator gate and making sure its set right.
But when I do that it will only be a week or two before someone takes all the information that (let’s say JHM Posts) about what is done to the turbo before you see stuff like this below.
The picture you’re looking at below is a request to a made in china web site to have someone make essentially a turbo that has the same features as in the JHM Rs6r turbo. **** Note **** I’m not implying that this was someone looking at what the JHM Rs6r turbo had and what was talked about in the JHM press release, only to try and make their own. However the practice of such isn’t unheard of and below you see someone asking china to help get a turbo made with JHM Rs6r “Type of specs”
http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/979025367.jpg
So having a turbo that has the same requested specs isn’t going to make for a JHM Rs6r turbo. It might look like a JHM Rs6r turbo. It might have the bumper sticker slogan specs but it’s far from a JHM Rs6r turbo.
But let’s have some fun; have you seen a company selling turbos that look a lot like the JHM Rs6r turbos? Maybe this picture looks familiar?
Sure the turbo looks a lot like a JHM Rs6r turbo… why… Well it is a JHM Rs6r turbo and someone is attempting to use a picture of the JHM Rs6r turbo to sell his own China turbo.
In short the picture of the turbos is ACTUALLY a JHM Rs6r turbo. HOWEVER, the person isn’t selling JHM Rs6r turbos, there just selling the china (or so IT would appear) version but there using the JHM Rs6r turbo as there poster picture.
Thankfully for the masses there are smart people and there are those looking to get rich off the void of information. What you will notice in this picture below is a number on the comp wheel. Every rs6r turbo that gets made for JHM has its own report card with balance information specs and test results. From that each turbo wheel gets a serial number. The one below comes back to JHM and was sold or went through JHM to whoever is using this picture to sell the knock off turbos as the same as JHM.
http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/37085114.jpg
With that being said, Lets cover a few things.
Stuff like compressor covers and other housings have been and are being made by several companies. So, there is no need to reinvent the wheel on this one as, The compressor cover needs to have certain specs to fit so it made sense to save money and source this as a standard part from the bin . While there are a few differences in the JHM used cover. This isn’t something that is going to stand out to most.
The same can be said for the exhaust housing. This is made by more than one company and while we do add a spin to the housing that helps gain and make more power. It to, is something that most people are never going to pick up on or something that people know about.
Let’s look at the internal. While I’m not going to go into detail here, I will add this for people to think about. The OEM RS6 turbos were never meant to run big lbs of boost. Everything from the waste gate to the shaft wouldn’t let them. If you got the waste gate sorted out it wouldn’t be too long before you broke the shaft. The OEM RS6 turbo never was intended to run 20+lbs of boost. In the first revision of the JHM Rs6r turbos this is something we addressed. The JHM Rs6r turbo is meant to run a larger amount of boost, it’s designed to run this for longer and to hold up to a larger beating then the OEM RS6 turbo.
So, the internal components of the JHM RS6r turbo are made using parts that support the larger load requirements and the higher shaft speeds then there OEM brother has. The compressor wheel is upgraded and the exhaust side of the turbo has changes that help the compressor side get up and moving much better than its OEM brother.
From there the list goes on and you can see what JHM lists on their site as they know what they want to release information wise.
So the million dollar question is. How is this better than a china turbo or one of the knock off? Well there is a lot of stuff that isn’t talked about that makes the JHM units far better than the OEM and miles better than the attempted knock offs. Some of the changes and parts isn’t something most people would know even if you gave them a turbo and let them look it over. Out of 10 turbo testing companies we used over the 3years of testing only 2 were able to recognize 100% of the Non obvious changes we made over a OEM.
So here is something to think about. With a china turbo or a cheap turbo what makes it cheap are the tolerances and consistency of the product. You never know what you’re getting. Just like Advertised china 304 Stainless steel is more like low grade 400 that is mixed with who knows what other materials. So you get a product that has maybe 5% genuine 300grade stainless and the 95% is weak cheap steel that cracks and breaks, THEY both look the same, but there not.
The china turbos and knock offs don’t spend the time to get the tolerances down to better then Borg Warner and Even with the OEM RS6 turbo the Tolerances are too loose for the higher shaft speeds that people are getting. The JHM units exceed the Borg Warner specs for tolerance. When you’re running shaft speeds over what BW ever designed the turbo to do, knowing the amount of stress on the components are going to take on you need to tighten up you’re tolerances you need to upgrade your components and there materials. You need to address every angle of the turbo now to make sure it can perform in a much more extreme environment then the OEM.
When the OEM Rs6 turbos didn’t last long in the more extreme environment the B5 guts were running them in, you definitely don’t want a turbo that was built with lower tolerances parts and specs as a copy of the turbo that already wasn’t able to keep up.
While the JHM turbos are not made in china it wouldn’t matter if they were made in the USA. If there not made right and there not made with great parts Great tolerances and a great understanding of what you need and where you need it (in regards to building the turbo) what’s the point.
In the end I can see why so many people would be skeptical, With RP turbos buhn turbos and all kinds of other turbos failing in the past let alone that fact that next to none actually makes anything anymore why would anyone think any less. With that being said. There should be no issues with these companies selling china turbos for about twice what they cost. I have checked to see how a china turbo stacks up Vs all the time and changes we have spent on the JHM Rs6r units and If someone wants a china turbo its about 900$ for a set not 1800. I’ll be more than happy to help people get china turbos if they want. IMHO there not worth ½ that and in the end no one is going to help support you if you have questions or if you have issues. When you take the time to build what JHM has it’s not something that anyone is going to be able to copy for anywhere near what JHM is selling there turbos for. With JHM at least you get a name and a company that has tested them. With everything else it’s just a cheap knock off of the original that wasn’t good enough in the first place.
