best turbo upgrade for 98 1.9 tdi? please help

what's up fellow diesel owners. I recently picked up a stock 1998 1.9 Jetta tdi, within a couple months the turbo blew. so im in the market of buying a new turbo but I don't want to slap a stock one back on there, im ready to put some money into it. so my question is what's the best aftermarket turbo I could put on there for the best quality and power. I have up to 1g to spend. I do plan on getting injectors, chip, all the goodies. I've heard of the ko3/ko4 hybrid turbo but I have no clue of where to purchase one or how to hook it up to a 1.9, is it a different manifold? any help or input would be highly appreciated. thanks guys!

If you have designs on more substantial power upgrades, a GT2052 could be good. Lots of opinions will probably fly at you; it's a subject that stirs some passions with defenders and pushers for different solutions. I'd say your choice depends on a couple of factors: What are your performance objectives with the car? What is your typical driving profile? What is your ultimate budget?

I personally drive 99.9% of the time for economy, at the highest gear for lowest-revs under most circumstances. I have very little tolerance for turbo lag or smoke while waiting for boost to build up. I very rarely have the engine above 3500 RPM. A small, super-fast spooling VNT turbo would be my preference and I'm sure I'll get annoyed waiting for a large turbo to spool up in daily driving (when I say large I mean in the GT20-range or larger in a single stage, wastegated or VNT doesn't matter). That's just me. Others will say their GT-whatevs has NO lag whatsoever, that's patently BS.

On the other hand, if you've driven gassers for all of your driving career and keep the revs up by habit, you're probably not going to be bothered by a bigger turbo. So yeah, your own driving habits will be a decisive factor.

A VNT turbo to replace your stock wastegated one will open up avenues to a world of much more modern turbos that spool very quickly and support high flows in very small packages and should be something to consider if you're looking to do more to the engine in performance mods down the road.

I installed this turbo to replace the stock unit on my '97 when I bought it. The power increase was noticeable- not huge, but the car pulled better especially above 3,000 rpm. In fairness, the other turbo was shot!
http://shopping.boraparts.com/product_info.php?cPath=21_27_83_105&products_id=267

Then I installed a Stage II chip, and then the Titan 502 nozzles.

Then I installed a new clutch!

tdi meister covered it very well but i think that you have to do a chip tune at the same time if you switch from your current wastegate system to a VNT system. pretty sure you cannot do them separately so if funds are not available to do both, you may want to stick with a wastegate system.

gt2052 also is NOT a direct bolt on. depending on budget/fabrication skills, that may not be a good option for you because you will need to buy/make some adapters. the commonly used VNT's are integrated into the exhaust manifold so you just pull the whole manifold and swap

google search "malone tdi tuning" for some prices, there are several other tuners if you do a quick search but his site is easy to understand

bottom line to me is: if you can't do upgraded turbo, tune, and injector nozzles all at once... probably should just do stock turbo or k03 hybrid... which will limit you to stage 1, 2 or 3 on malone's scale when you do a tune and injectors later

If toy want to stick with wastegatet turbos, look at the Holset HE200W. There is som info on it in the link in my signature

The smaller Holset turbos have been working really well on a few IDI engines I've seen over on vwdiesel.net. They're capable of quite high pressure ratios too.

I have a GT2052 for sale (as new) in the classifieds at $390 delivered (I'm in the UK)
Only fitted a few years back, mint condition, I have the receipt.
PM me if interested

bhodgkiss said:

I have a GT2052 for sale (as new) in the classifieds at $390 delivered (I'm in the UK)
Only fitted a few years back, mint condition, I have the receipt.
PM me if interested

Click to expand...

They are talking about the wastegated GT2052, not the VNT one from the 2.5 V6 TDI

Is $1K the upgrade budget or just for the turbo? You may well spend more on the rest of the parts/tune than on the turbo itself.
You could easily spend your $1K on a stock turbo and the related parts that a blown turbo can ruin.

If you got lucky and the turbo caused no additional damage, a stock turbo plus a tune will come in at around $1K.

About the same with a stock turbo plus nozzles.

I realize you don't want to go with a stock one, but keeping it to $1K is a major constraint.

Actually there were discussions above of a VNT conversion

bhodgkiss said:

Actually there were discussions above of a VNT conversion

Click to expand...

Which will still cost more than the $1K limit.

The only option I see for a turbo 'upgrade' is the K03/04 hybrid, and I have heard it's not all that much of an upgrade.

The VNT will require an exhaust modification as well as a chip tune and a MAP sensor.

The GT2052 will require all of the above and a manifold adapter and modified rear motor mount.

GTB1756VK... ? definitely more than $1k total, though you could probably get one mounted up for $1k. It'd be the downpipe plus software change that'd take you over the top. Besides there is no point in upgrading the turbo without running bigger injectors, and you'd be hard pressed to buy nozzles and a turbo for under $1k let alone getting them all in your engine bay and programmed.

turbo

has any of you tried the stock ahu ko3 garret turbo with upgraded injectors and an exhaust? if so how well did that work?

There's no such thing as a K03 Garrett. It's one or the other as they were from different manufacturers but used in the same engine and have essentially same specs.

Look, a stock turbo is a stock turbo... Any unit is perfectly fine as long as you know their limits and target your performance mods and expectations within these limits. Member StealthTDI owned a 98 Jetta and tried many different mods, several different turbos and documented these extensively with dyno testing. He's the best man on this site of whose posts to read and opinion to value.

Edit: The correct username is Stealth TDI (there are several members with name variations). His site: http://www.stealthtdi.com/

what cars come stock with K03/K04 hybrid turbos?

none.