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is Turbosmart Internal Wastegate Actuator worth buying??

24K views 15 replies 4 participants last post by  Turbosmart 
#1 ·
got a 2012 WRX daily driver and going with a stage 2 setup, I was just curious to see if it was worth it to get a new Turbosmart Internal Wastegate Actuator, I was adding parts to my wish list on rallysportdirect.com and that happened to pop up as one of the parts to fit the car. Does anyone have one on theirs and do you feel that much of improvement from the stock one??
 
#3 ·
Hey mate, we've done testing on our development Evo X with the stock vs. Turbosmart actuator and we've seen good results. We did a write up on it if you want to check it out here: Turbosmart IWG VS OEM Actuator | Turbosmart International

Basically we saw much better boost holding throughout the rev range as well as better response. These actuators are proving very popular and successful over here in Australia, even top level cars like the 2012 WTAC winner Nemo are running them in place of the OEM actuators. They also give you the added benefit of being able to change springs to up you base pressure, so if you want to run 20psi for instance on the stock turbo you are going to see a lot of boost dropping off as the revs rise. But with our actuators you can just throw something like 18psi worth of springs in there and you will have heaps less boost go missing up top and will be able to make a lot more power as a result.
 
#5 ·
It really depends on how you define unnecessary...

If you want to get the most out of your turbo and tune then I would say that holding boost in the upper rpm range is pretty important, and the fact is that the stock actuators supplied with most turbo's just aren't up to the task.

But if your OEM actuator works and you're happy with the response/boost levels you are getting out of it then by all means keep it. You could call our actuators a supporting mod I guess, something you do when you are going for more power and you want to eliminate failure points or weak links.
 
#6 ·
I'm new to this whole turbo thing so I'm just covering all my bases and learning things and tips along the way. well my stock one seems to working fine...at least I'm hoping with only 20k miles on it...maybe it's something I can look into later on as one of the last parts to put on when it got some more miles on it and got some extra spending cash, just to be curious what it does for my particular setup and if it doesn't seem to have much affect, then I'll just sell it to some that is need of one. thanks guys.
 
#7 ·
Turbosmart said:
It really depends on how you define unnecessary...

If you want to get the most out of your turbo and tune then I would say that holding boost in the upper rpm range is pretty important, and the fact is that the stock actuators supplied with most turbo's just aren't up to the task.

But if your OEM actuator works and you're happy with the response/boost levels you are getting out of it then by all means keep it. You could call our actuators a supporting mod I guess, something you do when you are going for more power and you want to eliminate failure points or weak links.
On the stock turbo, it is absolutely a waste. Unless you're looking to really push the stock turbo, at which point the customer would be better off with a CompGate or a HyperGate ;)
 
#8 ·
Haha yeah true, but it's kind of like saying poly bushings aren't worth it in the stock suspension and you should just upgrade to MSI subframes and arms...

For someone who doesn't want to spend big on a new turbo or modifying their up pipe to suit an external gate the actuator is a pretty good option. They are pretty cheap (probably cheaper than an OEM one in a lot of instances), and offer not only tunability but serviceability and longer life on top of the performance gains.

I'm pretty keen to get one on my rex to see how it goes, but we don't make one that fits the earlier models (I've been threatening to pull my turbo off and drop it on the engineer's desk and leave it there until they bring it back to me with an actuator on it though).
 
#10 ·
Turbosmart said:
Haha yeah true, but it's kind of like saying poly bushings aren't worth it in the stock suspension and you should just upgrade to MSI subframes and arms...
Not quite...

In my experience with tuning late-model Subarus, in order to keep the injectors within what I consider a safe margin, I have to reduce boost beyond the natural taper. Therefore, your argument of "holding boost in upper RPMs" doesn't really hold weight.

That said, I have not tuned a car with one of your aftermarket IWG actuators, but I don't think any noticeable response would be gained vs going with aftermarket boost control. Do you have any comparisons of boost response with a quality MBC (e.g., Hallman Pro RX) vs your WGA on the stock boost control?
 
#11 ·
We don't have any data comparing that sort of thing, but if you follow the link I posted you will see the data we have on our Evo X OEM vs. Turbosmart IWG.

What do you consider safe margins for injectors? Stock ones should be able to handle a decent boost increase with a tune. You will get far finer boost control with one of our IWG's as well, if you care about using a quality MBC then you should in turn care about the actuator that it is controlling. I think you would have fun doing some comparisons and data logging of the stock vs. Turbosmart actuator though, if you're in the US you could speak to our US office about maybe doing some testing if you want to provide some data.

I don't really want to argue with anyone, and I don't know heaps about tuning Subaru's so I'm just going to leave it at that.
 
#13 ·
I work for Turbosmart Head Office Mate, and I'm pretty sure we have an alert set up with google so we can see when our brand is mentioned (a lot of companies have that sort of thing) and that's how I found it. Incidentally I also have a wrx and also want to try out one of our actuators on the stock turbo... hahaha

Although mine's sitting in my garage without any manifolds on it at the moment :(
 
#14 ·
lytlec said:
Who are you and how did you find this thread.....you say Turbosmart and you only have 4 posts....all on this thread....
It's probably an employee of Turbosmart who happened to come across this thread.

Turbosmart said:
We don't have any data comparing that sort of thing, but if you follow the link I posted you will see the data we have on our Evo X OEM vs. Turbosmart IWG.

What do you consider safe margins for injectors? Stock ones should be able to handle a decent boost increase with a tune. You will get far finer boost control with one of our IWG's as well, if you care about using a quality MBC then you should in turn care about the actuator that it is controlling. I think you would have fun doing some comparisons and data logging of the stock vs. Turbosmart actuator though, if you're in the US you could speak to our US office about maybe doing some testing if you want to provide some data.

I don't really want to argue with anyone, and I don't know heaps about tuning Subaru's so I'm just going to leave it at that.
Respectfully, I'm not looking to argue with you. I'd be more than happy to perform some before/after testing with your products. I will be in touch with your offices in this regard.
 
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