Purchased Vargas GC+ turbos on 6/27/2019 on sale for ~$3600 – received within a week.
Dropped the car off to my shop on 11/24/2019 after getting all my other parts stock piled.
The plan at the shop was as followed:
1 – Do a base line pull on the stock car with the BM3 Stage 1 tune
2 – Install Turbos, Crank hub, charge pipes, Intakes, Intercooler, Heat Exchanger, J pipe, downpipes and new colder plugs
3 – Tune the car on 93 pump gas, stock fuel system and compare and plan from there
Right out the gate we were having some codes from needing to adjust the gate in ISTA. Not a huge deal, pretty straight forward thing. My shop had it resolved quickly and started tuning the car. We were seeing weird bank to bank AFR variance. Vacuum and smoke tested the car and found no leaks so we decided to do the coils as well since the car was around 25k miles. This didn’t really fix the issue so we got the car to a good running point on low timing and low boost and I picked it up while we determined what to do next.
I drove the car ~50 miles back to my house and as I was pulling in my driveway I received the following code: 123518 - Electric wastegate 2, wastegate flap: sluggish
Called the shop, notified them of the issue and we started doing some research. Double checked the adjustment in ISTA and it was off. So we readjusted. The code came back. Verified the connection to the wastegate actuator wasn’t corroded or the wires weren’t pinched / melted somehow. Drive the car home after clearing the codes and over the course of the next few months got the code a bunch more times, the whole time researching and trying to resolve the issue (car drove fine and pulled fine, would throw the code, restart the car and the code was gone). In the BMW ISTA plan it recommends replacing the actuator, so even though it’s not a common thing, we figured $#@! it, these are brand new turbos so that might be the fix. Dropped $400 on a new actuator, adjusted in ISTA again and was still getting the same code. So I messaged Vargas.
Tony responds with the follow on 4/10/2020:
That is always an issue with wastegate adjustment. If it comes, and goes it usually means you have a iffy connection somewhere. Swapping the actuator is not going to fix that.
I would say
A: Poor connection, corroded connection on that bank EWG harness
B: Sticky wastegate which is easy to test, just pop the arm off if it moves free that is not your problem.
We then popped the arm off (while the turbo was in the car) to test the wastegate movement and it was moving just fine. I reported back to Tony and 5 days later got this:
I gave you the only two scenarios it can possibly be. Sticking gate or wiring issue. Its possible he also has them adjusted wrong, but if it clears sometimes then I doubt that is the case.
There is really nothing we can do without having the car here. Those are the 3 things I would look into. The turbos do not control boost in any way. Boost is controlled by the ECU and actuators. If you are g getting boost codes it's one of those things 99% of the time.
After talking to my tuner and thinking about it, does the internal gate that’s physically part of the turbo not also help control the boost? Either way, after not being able to figure it out I made a few forum posts trying to get help. Chris responded to one and the email chain was picked back up by him on 4/27/2020.
Chris told me the following:
If you've done those troubleshooting steps, then really the car needs to be looked at in person. There are some things that really need an experienced eye to look over.
So I responded with:
Great, I can have my shop check it out, we just need to know what to look at / for.
In which Chris responded with this:
We may be miscommunicating. We gave you the things to look at, you're saying you addressed those things. Additional troubleshooting would start with us -in person- validating all of those things were done correctly, with a hand over hand in-depth look/touch/validation of each of those steps, as well as an overview of anything in the general vicinity. Anyone that is touching your car should inherently have this knowledge and capability, if your local shop can't do it for you then you need to find someone who will. I understand this can be frustrating, but troubleshooting over email only goes so far. There is a big difference between being able to bolt on parts and fully understanding how things integrate. This could be caused by some minor misunderstanding or mistep at a variety of points along the appraisal and inspection. That's why Tony was saying he'd need to see the car in person to continue to help diagnose.
Did you do the work yourself? If not, what shop did? Are they the same shop you're going to go back to for inspection? Have you tried any software adjustments? What tune is on the car? Are there other shops local to you that maybe have a better understanding? See the direction I'm going?
I'm trying to push you to get new (to you), experienced eyes on the situation as most likely it's something being overlooked.
Basically blame anything but the turbo, no way it could be the turbo. After a little back and forth, on 5/1/2020 I emailed them stating the following:
My shop is thinking that it might be possible that the housing isn't clocked 100% correctly and might be slightly binding the gate causing my issue. Have you guys ever seen that happen before? Do you guys clock the turbos on a jig to make sure they are as close as possible?
Chris came back with:
We have not seen that before.
Generally speaking, every part of the turbo build is a controlled assembly. Could have happened during installation perhaps?
At this point I was getting frustrated. I pin pointed the car would only throw the code while decelerating. Basically when the gate wants to slam open to bleed off boost. After some more back and forth, the whole time giving them the benefit of the doubt, they finally tell me on 5/20/2020 that if I think it’s defective I can send it back. So I schedule shop time to pull the turbo and send it to them. The shop clamped to a welding bench and pulled measurements from the stock turbo vs the VTT one and noticed that it did in fact seem to be clocked wrong. I finally get to speak to Chris on the phone on 6/11/2020. He mentioned to me to make sure it’s packaged extra good because they have had things damaged during shipping. I told my shop what I was told and they made sure to package it well. I informed Chris that I would be shipping the turbo back with the new Electronic Actuator on it so that Tony could inspect it exactly how it came out of the car.
After almost 2 weeks in the mail and some crazy delayed shipping (assuming due to COVID) they finally receive the turbo in the mail on 6/22/2020. After 9 business days the turbo finally ships out to me. All I received was an automated email with tracking so I emailed Chris on 7/2/2020 to see what they found out. I was curious to know if Tony found any issues with the turbo so I could put my mind to ease. Chris said
“We didn’t see anything awry with it, but sent you a new one just in case. “. I felt this was a little odd because as a business I wouldn’t ship out a brand new $1800 turbo “just in case” but I figured, $#@! it, take it and hope it fixes the issue! I asked about the actuator that we shipped with it and was told they didn’t even bother swapping the actuator over to the new turbo because it came damage with a cracked plug and that something must have happened during shipping.
On 7/8/2020 I receive the new turbo in the mail and bring it to my shop. We open it up and notice that it’s not a new turbo at all. The CHRA and cold side housing were the ones we shipped to them, they just replaced the exhaust housing. Ok, Tony did the work, might have been miscommunication between him and Chris. Once again, still giving them the benefit of the doubt. That’s when we decided to clamp them both back to the bench and double check the measurements. The VTT turbo CHRA was clocked 13 degrees off the stock turbo and the cold side housing was also off enough to make the wastegate arm not straight. We hook the actuator and arm up to the stock turbo, goes on nice and easy and straight. We move it back to the VTT turbo, was much harder to put on and the arm wasn’t straight still… So we start looking a little closer and notice the tab that comes out of the exhaust housing that the arm attaches to is TWISTED. On a brand new exhaust housing.. twisted. So I email Chris again with pictures showing how it’s twisted and how the arm sits. I was told to just bend it straight. That’s right, just bend it straight on a brand new exhaust housing that “every part of the turbo is built in a controlled assembly”. This is LITERALLY the reason I shipped it with the actuator. So it could all be checked before shipping it back to me.
After talking with my shop we decide to just make the VTT turbo meet the OEM turbos measurements on clocking angle on the CHRA and cold side housing. We couldn’t move the CHRA because it’s pinned to the exhaust side housing, so we disassembled the turbo to pull the pin and made it match the OEM turbo. Did the same with the cold side. And you guessed it.. BENT the tab straight. Now the actuator and arm go on straight with no binding issues. We installed it into the car and adjusted the arm in ISTA and tossed it on the Dyno.
Boost is dialed in via Wastegate Duty Cycle. On the 26psi tune that was in the car we let out at 34psi @ 4k RPM. Wow, looks like the gate is fixed. Adjusted the WGDC and now the car spools 500rpm sooner at the same boost level and I haven’t had a single code in over a week. No more weird bank to bank AFR variance either. Guess our initial diagnosis on 5/1/2020 was right! Should have pulled and checked the turbo sooner, but assuming it’s high quality and gets some sort of quality control we didn’t bother.
I have since asked for them to cover the ~$1500 I'm out in extra shop time swapping this turbo and diagnosis the problem since I feel this is a failure on their end. I was told the following:
After initial troubleshooting was not successful, we encouraged you to send them to us for inspection. We inspected the unit, found nothing wrong and replaced the housings for no charge because we stand behind our products. All 200+ sets of these we have sold have broken records and ran trouble free pinned the same. The number of wastegate issues can be counted on one hand, using two fingers. If you are unhappy we totally understand and you can remove the units and return them for a full refund for your trouble. Outside of that there is nothing we are offering as far as monetary compensation.
The other "wastegate issue" can be found on my other thread (images oddly look exactly like mine) found here by
MikeeM4:
https://www.bimmerboost.com/showthre...547#post840547
I'll add images of my stock vs VTT turbo below.
