pt-54 vs. te-61

[henschman]

i'm lookin at some turbos for my street car, and am trying to decide between these two. anyone have experience with both? it will be used on a street car with pump gas, DRs, and a pretty low stall converter. help me out!

 

[YellaGN]

Never used a 61 but i did run a pt54 for about a year. Its a good turbo...especially for a street car. I believe i went high 11's with stock motor with about 22-23 psi. It will spool good with about a 3200 stall. What kind a "goods" do you already have on your car?

 

[henschman]

it's all stock except for a walbro 240 and hotwire. while the turbo's off, i might have a 3" DP put on. eventually, i'll port the heads and get a cam. maybe a FMIC, too.

 

[bison]

You really need a better converter to run those turbos. A 9" 3200-3400 stall with the PT54 and .85exhaust would do you well if you had more mods. You need to figure out what you want to do with the car because with stock heads and cam and no exhaust mods you wont gain much. Fwiw my friend ran 11.90's@114+mph with a crappy tune and 1.65 60' with an untouched engine, including the original gaskets. It was never opened once. The trans didnt look like it was ever removed either. It should be noted that he had a fm intercooler though. Boost was 22 psi. He was out of injector. Would have went quicker with more boost but limited by injectors/chip. Had to torture it on the line to build boost with the stock converter and it was very lazy on the street.

 

[brian]

i'm lookin at some turbos for my street car, and am trying to decide between these two. anyone have experience with both? it will be used on a street car with pump gas, DRs, and a pretty low stall converter. help me out!

Those turbos are identicle, except for who builds them. PTE vs. Limit.
When I had a stock build up, my car was quicker, and more fun to drive with a TE-44. I had a TA-61, with a stock converter and transbrake which was slow to spool at best at the track. With the 44 it was a much better combo. I went 11.4`s @ 121 with 24 psi all day. With the bigger turbo and unported heads you probably will not spool well at all.
Stay a touch smaller, you will not regret it.
Just my $.02.
Thanks, Brian

 

[henschman]

the reason i'm buying a new turbo is because my stock one is shot. i was originally planning on maxing out the stock one before buying a new one, but now i figure it would be a waste of money to spend any on fixing the stocker or buying a new one since i was planning on eventually upgrading anyway.

btw, i do plan on getting a higher stall too. forgot to mention that in the list of mods i plan on doing soon. you really think an .85 exhaust housing is the way to go? i was thinking until i got heads and cam i would be better off with a .63.

 

[MoeJr]

If you are gonna upgrade the converter now I think a 61 would be a good choice. With the right mods it has 10's in it.

 

[henschman]

according to this, http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/turbo/turboupdate.html , they look very close in max horsepower, minimum converter, and required injectors. i don't know how accurate these numbers are, but going by this, the pt54 would possibly support a little bit more hp (620 compared to 600) and need a little less TC (3000 compared to 3200). it says the 54 needs more injector (55 compared to 50). right now, the 54 looks like the best bet.

 

[Grandnat]

i'm lookin at some turbos for my street car, and am trying to decide between these two. anyone have experience with both? it will be used on a street car with pump gas, DRs, and a pretty low stall converter. help me out!

I think those turbos are virtually identicle...

either way I have done 6.77 @ 101.7mph in the 1/8th with the PT54 turbo. so it is a mid 10 second turbo. (it ran 127 mph in the 1/4 but the 60ft was bad and it only did a 10.8)

and my car was 3750lbs with me in it.


I needed a 9" non luckup 3500 stall to really make it spool good on the street with the .85 precision exhaust housing though... so be prepared to get a loose converter. The 3000 stall I had was still very laggy on the street.

It was a BLAST with the 3500 stall though and would roast the tires from a stop.



P.s. I also had a V2 front mount, champion GN1s a 212/212 flat tappet and F.A.S.T.

Also I was runnning at the limit of a single Walbro 340 fuel pump and 55s.

 

[henschman]

the ones i'm looking at all have a .63 exhaust housings... i assume this would let me get away with a little bit lower stall? also, no worries about spooling it. i plan on camming and porting soon. maybe even a little n20 to get it out of the hole. it will be on the stock block for a bit, but i really want a turbo i can grow into.

 

[m233roller]

Boys, Those turbo's are not quite identical. Remember a PTE .63 exhaust housing is really like .72

 

[Grandnat]

Boys, Those turbo's are not quite identical. Remember a PTE .63 exhaust housing is really like .72

Actually it is my understanding that precision dropped the TE-61 and started calling it the PT-54.

If they are not identicle... they are VERY VERY close and rated at the same HP.

They both use the same 69 trim exhaust wheel and I am pretty sure they use the same inducer/exducer size on the compressor wheel.


The exhaust housing has nothing to do with the turbo nomenclature.... you can order your turbo with any A/R ratio they offer and the turbo name stays the same. A TE-61 with a precision .63/.85 or garrett .63/.82 is still a TE-61.

 

[ijames]

Way back when, the TE61 had the garrett .63 turbine housing. When precision came out with their turbine housing they introduced the PT series (51, 52, 53, and 54). The 54 was a TE61 with the PTE turbine housing instead of the garrett. Shortly afterwards other vendors started offering the PTE turbine housing as well so for the last 2-3 years most TE61's were identical to the PT54. The PTE housing may have an a/r of 0.63 but it is definitely a little larger inside and hurts spoolup a little while giving more top end.

If you are buying a new turbo I'd go with one of the GT61's. Roughly the same spoolup as the 54 but more power, especially if you run real high boost. Or if you don't plan on cranking the boost and have good flowing heads the GT67 is nice (with my stock longblock I only picked up maybe .1 going from a 54 to the 67 on 93 octane, but I'm sure with good heads I will pick up a lot more). Somewhere between 3000 and 3400 stall with a 10.5 or 9.5 inch converter for any of these.

 

[henschman]

how would a pt-61 compare with all of those? i can't seem to find any numbers on it.

edit: i found the numbers on precision's website... looks like the pt-61 might be a little big for what i want... 76 trim as compared to a 69 trim on the pt54. it would probably spool pretty slow. am i right on this?

 

[ijames]

You'd have to call pte and talk with them. The pt61 uses the GT61 compressor wheel which is bigger than the 60 wheel in the 54 (and TE61), but uses the GT350 turbine wheel instead of the old turbine wheel in the 54 so the combo could wind up spooling about the same. They do list the recommended stall for the 54 as 3000 and for the PT61 it's 3200 so I guess it does spool a little slower. My recollection was that the difference wasn't so big. You may be able to get the GT61 compressor with a smaller turbine which would spool quicker but make less max hp, too. Also call Mike Licht at full throttle speed to see what he recommends.

 

[henschman]

i'm only looking at used turbos. buildin her on the cheap! :biggrin:

 

[GNguy]

Well, I had a PT54 and I blew it up quick, not a durable turbo in my opinion, some people have had better luck. Mine went 3,000 miles then blew out hard. I now have a turbonetics CPT61-65BB turbo and all I can say is that 61 pulls WAY harder at 19-21 psi then 25-26psi I was running on the PT54. Go with a 61BB turbo, its nice. My car is a 99% street car. rarely sees that track.

 

[henschman]

man, i wish i had the $$ for a ball bearing turbo! one of those would no doubt spool a lot quicker for the street.

 

[bison]

Well, I had a PT54 and I blew it up quick, not a durable turbo in my opinion, some people have had better luck. Mine went 3,000 miles then blew out hard. I now have a turbonetics CPT61-65BB turbo and all I can say is that 61 pulls WAY harder at 19-21 psi then 25-26psi I was running on the PT54. Go with a 61BB turbo, its nice. My car is a 99% street car. rarely sees that track.

Waht blew up on yous? I ran mine at 25-30psi for 5.5 years (over 25k miles) and it never developed any problems. I loaned it to a friend and he sucked air at the oil pick up and smoked the thrust in it. Went 6.70@102mph in the eighth with it.

 

[GNguy]

the fins hit the housing and all hell broke loose.