yoda-g3
SILVER Star
Well it happened again, more fun with my Safari setup. I'll have a future thread to outline the journey so far.
I had the unit rebuilt in 2012 and converted the turbo outlet from Safari's proprietary housing to a common 5 bolt T3 Ford style so that I could mate an internal WG flapper to retain the Safari functionality. This required making a new custom down-pipe.
At the time I couldn't source any type of premade gasket, so my mechanic made custom ones from a sheet copper gasket kit. That mated one of these guys between the turbo housing and new downpipe. - Flapper Valve with Ovalized Opening T3 5-Bolt
Well, 24k later, the copper COMPLETELY melted and took my adapter with it. Luckily the turbo is unharmed. (We discovered new cracks in the safari exhaust manifold.... but that is a story for a different day...) You can actually see the pooled copper in the adapter.
So now I'm at a cross road. I have found an SS gasket option to put on both sides of the WG valve flapper: Stainless Steel Gasket - Garrett T3 Flanged, 5 bolt "GT", & Internally Gated Turbine Housing : atpturbo.com
But that gives me two mated surfaces like before which failed. But would SS be better than copper?
Or I could ditch the flapper "spacer", and get a solid unit that converts to a V-band. That would eliminate the need for two flat gasket surfaces. Instead I'd only have one, and then a more standard V-band joint.
Like this: Ultimate Internal wastegate valve for T3 5Bolt, high flow 3" V-band Style
But that would require re-building the down pipe... $$$
Thoughts? Are there any better gasket options out there that might work?
For reference, here is the turbo itself:
I had the unit rebuilt in 2012 and converted the turbo outlet from Safari's proprietary housing to a common 5 bolt T3 Ford style so that I could mate an internal WG flapper to retain the Safari functionality. This required making a new custom down-pipe.
At the time I couldn't source any type of premade gasket, so my mechanic made custom ones from a sheet copper gasket kit. That mated one of these guys between the turbo housing and new downpipe. - Flapper Valve with Ovalized Opening T3 5-Bolt
Well, 24k later, the copper COMPLETELY melted and took my adapter with it. Luckily the turbo is unharmed. (We discovered new cracks in the safari exhaust manifold.... but that is a story for a different day...) You can actually see the pooled copper in the adapter.
So now I'm at a cross road. I have found an SS gasket option to put on both sides of the WG valve flapper: Stainless Steel Gasket - Garrett T3 Flanged, 5 bolt "GT", & Internally Gated Turbine Housing : atpturbo.com
But that gives me two mated surfaces like before which failed. But would SS be better than copper?
Or I could ditch the flapper "spacer", and get a solid unit that converts to a V-band. That would eliminate the need for two flat gasket surfaces. Instead I'd only have one, and then a more standard V-band joint.
Like this: Ultimate Internal wastegate valve for T3 5Bolt, high flow 3" V-band Style
But that would require re-building the down pipe... $$$
Thoughts? Are there any better gasket options out there that might work?
For reference, here is the turbo itself: