Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
I was looking forward to reporting great performance from my new stage II turbo from Tom at Turbo Re-Source for my 06. I emailed him a lot and finally decided to get one of his turbos even though it cost quite a bit more that the S300 based turbo I considered. My decision was largely based on what was in the TDR article about Tom's products.
I'm am disappointed to say, I have no report. After a whole weekend of trying, this turbo just isn't going to fit. The problem is the compressor elbow will not come anywhere close to match up the the intercooler hose. I tried every thing. I must have installed and removed the thing 20 times clocking and re-clocking the compressor housing to try to get it to work. To make matters worse, the waste gate is mounted to the compressor and clocking the turbo required moving this around, re-drilling the access whole, re-setting the waste gate pressure, etc. This turned out to be the most maddening thing I think I've ever done. The truck sites now with the stocker back on. A whole weekend to put on an ATS manifold (I did this at the same time as the turbo. ) I'm not going to bore anyone with all the other little things that went wrong (like removing and re-installing the heater line, wasting all the antifreeze, (although it looked like it needed replacing even after only 30K) the hour it took just to get the oil return line back on the stock turbo, etc. , etc. ) expect to say that the very last thing I noticed was that #5's bottom manifold bold was loose after torquing it down
. Took it out and the threads where booggered up but it wasn't cross threaded. I think a piece of the gasket might have gotten in there and messed things up. A new bolt is easy to fix I just hope the block is OK. My fault, but it was OK the first time I put it one. I took it back off to put the stock turbo on.
I'm going to send this turbo back and go with my original plan. As you can imagine, I'm extremely disappointed (to put it politely). Anger has long been replaced by humor then dispair. Tom may have a great product, but I"m not going to R&D for him.
I'm am disappointed to say, I have no report. After a whole weekend of trying, this turbo just isn't going to fit. The problem is the compressor elbow will not come anywhere close to match up the the intercooler hose. I tried every thing. I must have installed and removed the thing 20 times clocking and re-clocking the compressor housing to try to get it to work. To make matters worse, the waste gate is mounted to the compressor and clocking the turbo required moving this around, re-drilling the access whole, re-setting the waste gate pressure, etc. This turned out to be the most maddening thing I think I've ever done. The truck sites now with the stocker back on. A whole weekend to put on an ATS manifold (I did this at the same time as the turbo. ) I'm not going to bore anyone with all the other little things that went wrong (like removing and re-installing the heater line, wasting all the antifreeze, (although it looked like it needed replacing even after only 30K) the hour it took just to get the oil return line back on the stock turbo, etc. , etc. ) expect to say that the very last thing I noticed was that #5's bottom manifold bold was loose after torquing it down
. Took it out and the threads where booggered up but it wasn't cross threaded. I think a piece of the gasket might have gotten in there and messed things up. A new bolt is easy to fix I just hope the block is OK. My fault, but it was OK the first time I put it one. I took it back off to put the stock turbo on. I'm going to send this turbo back and go with my original plan. As you can imagine, I'm extremely disappointed (to put it politely). Anger has long been replaced by humor then dispair. Tom may have a great product, but I"m not going to R&D for him.
. Looks like I may get to core the cat before I intented to. I had to fix the little issue with the manifold bolt first, so I decided to tackle the turbo also. The new compressor elbow in going to work, but it still has the intercooler tube touching the air box. The water lines turned out to be a real pain, but most of the problem was I was trying to get to the engine side line from above. Below is much better. If I can get my wrench out the exhaust, and find the bolt, I should be have it running in about an hours worth work. I'll report back with a drive report. BTW, can I just leave the electric boost actuator unplugged (with the Smarty on after market turbo) or do I need to plug it up and zip tie it out of the way?
