Back to turbos.
Last week I got a text from a guy in Queensland who bought one of my turbos and onsold it as a package with pump and injectors. They installed new injectors and dialed in the fuel and ran the 1HDFT up opn the dyno. Made 30psi by 1600rpm and 230whp. Im waiting on a dyno printout. It was heavily fueled but still managed 18:1 running 30psi at 1600. 18:1 is some smoke, but not too bad.
I *do not* reccomend 30psi on the Bad Boy although I have done it. I limit to 25psi, you are safe at that. I do build for 30+psi however its special order and good for 270whp.
I convert the CT26 to run with a Superback (Garrett term) style wheel on all my turbos. Back in 06 I did run ~ 25psi with a modded comp wheel thats not "superback" and a 360 degree thrust bearing only but the wheel did distort, thankfully without a real blowup. If anyone does do just a comp wheel change because they are only after top end improvements and are on a budget, dont set boost to over 20psi as a regular setting, the wheels with flat back and rear cut back (you have no choice to fit these on a stock CT26 without substantial changes) arent designed for the high rpms required to do that. It may last a couple of years (or not), but you dont want it to fail in that fashion anywhere away from home. The reason is simply that the oil, which is full flow on a CT26, bypasses the destroyed front seal and your engine will run on, using engine oil, typically to ~ 5-6000rpm, unltil oil level drops or something breaks. It is happening relatively frequently on 300kkm 1HDT's these days, even on stock boost.
Comments that are made at various times about "hot air after 15psi on a CT26" by "those experienced with 3SGTE and 7MGTE's etc, while they have valuable experience, its limited to those engines. The CT26 can most definately pump efficiently at higher boost levels though to do this reliably you need to make some difficult mods, otherwise the comp wheel will break. Anyone running a larger comp wheel can testify that they pump nicely higher than 15psi.
I should restate that my mods are not all about power, its about response early in revs while STILL getting great power; and there lies the conundrum in turbo sizing. Typically you can get one without the other. The Bad Boy and Grunter does both. If you tune to the max a stock or otherwise modded CT26, remove it and do nothing but replace the turbo and set boost the same, the bottom end difference will be substantially improved and top end, within reason should be about the same, may be better depending on what the other spec is.