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Important PSA regarding improperly built TPC20 Turbos

ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
If you've purchased a TPC20 (and maybe TPC25) recently, and it's not making boost as it should, you should contact TPC immediately. I've been made aware that they've recently sold some turbos which have improperly machined compressor covers. The bad compressor covers would make reaching target boost difficult or impossible for the turbo. Trying to reach target boost on a turbo with this problem will overspin the turbo and will likely result in catastrophic failure of the turbo and possibly your engine.

My own TPC20 turbo had this problem. Boost response was sluggish and it was requiring a lot of wastegate to make boost. I was told to do boost leak testing etc. A lot of time and money was wasted installing the bad TPC20, then boost leak testing it, and then swapping it for a Vortex (which works great). That was 9 hours of travel time alone lost there. Hopefully, TPC won't make everyone go through the whole boost leak testing thing. I assume they can tell who has a bad turbo by the serial number? It seems they are reluctant to reach to to people that purchased these bad turbos, but relying on people reporting it to them. I'm posting this to make any TPC customers aware of this issue. Today was the first time I heard of this issue, and it may be yours also.

Please spread the word to any TPC owner you know who has bought a turbo in the last year. I know of 770s that have had similar problems also. I was hoping TPC would be proactive and reach out to people who purchased bad turbos, but based on my direct conversations with them, this doesn't seem to be the case. They are making claims it's all been taken care of, yet I again personally know of one person with such a bad turbo on their car and waiting for resolution.

To anyone currently thinking of buying a TPC20/25 type turbo, you're probably better off with a Vortex. Anyone looking at the 770, the Mamba 3076 units seem to be great for the price. Mamba seems to have great support, and Vortexs just seem to all work right now.

https://golfmk7.com/forums/index.php?threads/best-low-end-power-turbo-upgrade.410487/post-7898080
 
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Daily Driver

Drag Racing Champion
Location
New York
Car(s)
2020 GTI SE
Bump!

Sucks to hear that bro, I will be keeping an eye on these new TPC Turbos. I was looking into a 770 in the future, I current have TPC38BB for 3yrs. My Turbo problems were Tuner Based which cause me to spent 3 months of time and money trying to find an issue that didn't exist until I switch tuners. If TPC has a bad batch of turbos, I hope it gets addressed soon, and maybe this post will help get attention on the matter.

Was your Link deleted? Cant find it anywhere.
 
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ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
It looks like the link to the thread where TPC says they had some bad turbos was deleted. Not sure what happened there. Here are the screen shots.

1668349892146.png


This is what the TPC20 was doing on my car. It was struggling hard to barely make any usable boost.
1668349953368.png
1668349968653.png


This is what the same setup did once I switched to a Vortex:

1668350000505.png
1668350007644.png


I want to make sure people know what to look for because not everyone understands the first set pics is a problem. Many guys don't log or don't understand the logs and just go with what TPC tells them, or what a bad tuner may tell them. The result will be a blown turbo or blown turbo and engine.

I feel like TPC not proactively reaching out to all customers directly about this really shady. They told me they will not pay for any install time, or damages resulting from them selling a bad turbo from the start. I can understand if the turbo was good at a point and then failed. But they were selling turbos that were band from the start. They are responsible for wasting their customer's time and money at that point. Any purchase agreements etc are based off the customer buying a good working turbo, which they admitted was not the case.
 
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ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
Here is more proof that they think the rules they set only apply to them and work for them. They can tell me that any reasonable person should know the turbo is bad based on my testing.

1. A lot of people don't have the ability to do the testing/logging I did or understand it.
2. I showed you the bad results and you have admitted it was an issue. If you were a turbo expert, why are you still requiring people to run in circles and do boost tests? You should know better, right TPC? If someone bought a turbo from that batch that was bad, then call them up or email them and replace their turbo. Instead, you're requiring people to contact you, and when they do, you make them do all sorts of run around. You know about Cory, give him a new turbo (or a full refund) and stop making him do boost leak tests. If everyone has reached out to you and you know it's a problem, replace the turbos. What it looks like to me is you hope nobody comes to you so you can keep their money. And if they do, you want to make sure getting a new turbo is as painful and slow as you can make it.

1668350794411.png
 
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ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
Either they get pre-machined compressor covers from their china supplier, or they are modifying their china compressor covers in-house. Either way, they know they have bad turbos out there, they should know how many.

I really hope they aren't doing the compressor cover modifying in house cuz the compressor cover extension weld jobs are a joke. I'll bet anyone that bought a TPC with a "Performance Cover" chuckled to themselves when they saw the welds on that extension.

I'm not saying the TPC turbos are all bad. I'm saying they lie about how much work they do in producing them. I'm saying they sold bad turbos and make it really hard for you to replace the turbo or get your money back. This applies to TPC20/25 and 770s. They claim the TPC770 was good for like 40 psi on their website, but it could barely make 34-36 psi on some models.


Link to similar turbo/turbo cover sold on Alibaba:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.0.0.5485196eav8KA0

1668351061751.png



1668351088455.png
 
Last edited:

Daily Driver

Drag Racing Champion
Location
New York
Car(s)
2020 GTI SE
It looks like the link to the thread where TPC says they had some bad turbos was deleted. Not sure what happened there. Here are the screen shots.

View attachment 265464

This is what the TPC20 was doing on my car. It was struggling hard to barely many any usable boost.
View attachment 265465View attachment 265466

This is what the same setup did once I switched to a Vortex:

View attachment 265467View attachment 265468

I want to make sure people know what to look for because not everyone understands the first set pics is a problem. Many guys don't log or don't understand the logs and just go with what TPC tells them, or what a bad tuner may tell them. The result will be a blown turbo or blown turbo and engine.

I feel like TPC not proactively reaching out to all customers directly about this really shady. They told me they will not pay for any install time, or damages resulting from them selling a bad turbo from the start. I can understand if the turbo was good at a point and then failed. But they were selling turbos that were band from the start. They are responsible for wasting their customer's time and money at that point. Any purchase agreements etc are based off the customer buying a good working turbo, which they admitted was not the case.
Interesting, I may want to do a log and make sure I'm actually good.

I send in my Logs to the tuner, I only know basics when it comes to reading it.

I may want to do a Log soon to see where I'm at. Currently on 93oct when I do my pulls on a race I reach 28psi. On the TPC38
Mods:
R600 intake
CTS intercooler
RS7 Spark Plugs
4" Catted TrackSlag downpipe
PagParts LPFP
HPA HPFP
Upgraded Fuel Lines.
MPI

Next year I plan to tune for E85.

What are your mods?
 

ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
Interesting, I may want to do a log and make sure I'm actually good.

I send in my Logs to the tuner, I only know basics when it comes to reading it.

I may want to do a Log soon to see where I'm at. Currently on 93oct when I do my pulls on a race I reach 28psi. On the TPC38
Mods:
R600 intake
CTS intercooler
RS7 Spark Plugs
4" Catted TrackSlag downpipe
PagParts LPFP
HPA HPFP
Upgraded Fuel Lines.
MPI

Next year I plan to tune for E85.

What are your mods?

I've actually never seen a bad TPC38, just TPC20s and 770s. But if the TPC38 has a "performance cover" I guess it's very possible those could have problems also? You should def be seeing WGDC under 80% for 28 psi at higher rpms on that turbo. If you're seeing something like 80% or more to make 28 psi, you have a problem.

My car is FBO MPI flex etc etc etc.
 

ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
It has come to my attention that TPC is on the internet again claiming they machine and build turbos in house. And I'm a fucking chef cuz I can make a mean fucking scrambled egg.
 

ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
Tell me more about that scrambled egg though, we talkin black pepper? Onion?

Dude.. seriously.. Butter.. keep stirring it slowly. I like it a little under done. Fresh black pepper and fresh sea salt if you want that extra pop.
 
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