Return Of The Taiwan GT turbos (background)

[TaiwanGT]

Howdy kids, just thought I would do this community a big big favor and put up a big red flag on ZAGE turbos.

A little bit about me, I sold the "MOMENTUM EJ5-40T" turbocharger in the United States (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22ej5-40t%22) and before that I sold the EVOIII GT turbo (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...2&btnG=Search).

I sold about 100 of each turbo,which is a good representative sample of the total number of these turbos sold in the USA. I believe that I sold 25% of the EVOIII GT turbos in 2004, and 80% of the Subaru turbos in 2004/2005.

As the top seller in the entire country, I visited the manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and met Mark Tung. Mark actually GAVE me the first Subaru turbo himself in Taichung.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...try/zage06.jpg

That's mark. His dad owns a really big parts distributor for trucks in Taiwan. I've met his dad, but he doesn't speak english. Mark does, and he's not a bad guy, in fact. Very generous, easy to get along with, etc. etc.

The EVOIII GT turbos were direct copies of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries "EVOIII" td05h big 16g turbo. The earliest ones were direct replicas intended to fool the public and the distributors. Since I was a retailer, I was told that the EVOIII GT turbos were made in the same factories in Japan as the Mitsubishi turbos. No difference. I sold them like this.


Well, of course, everyone got really mad at me, so I had to sell the turbos differently. And then they started to fail. (see next post).

Since I was the super salesman, I went to taiwan and established the MOMENTUM brand for the Subaru version of the turbo for the U.S. after meeting mark and his dad. When I was in Taiwan, I got a pretty good song and dance about how well the turbos are tested, how well they are built, etc.

I was good to go and was looking to sell about 500 units a year, EVOIII GT and Subaru, comined. And then the turbos failed, en masse.

[datbacker59]

man... failure and people still buy i feel bad

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by datbacker59

man... failure and people still buy i feel bad

Dude, I really hope no one bought these kits for their new cars? The turbos used to explode, and that is bad for engines....

[LoverOfCivics]

Wow .. im just at a loss for words...

[TaiwanGT]

a word about ZAGE TURBO ethics...

When MARK found out that all of the turbos were failing, he did NOTHING. Perfect example, I had some subaru turbo failures because they didn't have all of their parts. I tell mark, and his solution? If they make 100 turbos, they will get 100 sets of parts together, and if they have parts left over, then they know they have a problem! Not "we'll test them better," or "we will introduce a new quality control officer to address this problem." "Oh well, we'll do better!"

Another big problem was the compressor wheel. It exploded all the time, so they stopped using them for a while. Or so I was told. Instead, they just kept shipping the subaru turbos with the bad wheels, and told the dealers that they were not. Result? People got turbos that lasted ten minutes before they exploded.

Did ZAGE ever fix the problem? No one knows, becuase we were told "we fixed the problem," and the turbos kept failing.

[datbacker59]

no protection from bad products in taiwan? if i was closer id give that mark guy a good whoopin if i got screwed buyin his turbo kit

[LoverOfCivics]

im sorry but im kinda lost?

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by LoverOfCivics

im sorry but im kinda lost?

I used to be a turbo dealer for ZAGE until I found out that zage turbos fail. A lot. And now I'm telling you.

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by datbacker59

no protection from bad products in taiwan? if i was closer id give that mark guy a good whoopin if i got screwed buyin his turbo kit

No protection for you, no protection for Greddy (whose products they have counterfeited). If your turbo fails, oh well, too bad for you.

turbochargers.com did their best to warranty the turbos, and stood behind EVERY SINGLE unit that failed, so did I, but ZAGE? Nope, sorry. Buyer beware.

[DetachmentBravo]

God, turbos exploding... I couldn't imagine producing a sub-par product that I knew could fail catastrophically. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'm terribly sorry TaiwanGT that you had the misfortune of getting involved with Mark. Product scams like this hurt the consumers and the distributors like TaiwanGT the most. Rarely do the manufacturers experience any backlash, its everyone down the pipeline that must bare the financial burden.

[06civictx]

wow,just wow



ajp here i come

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by DetachmentBravo

God, turbos exploding... I couldn't imagine producing a sub-par product that I knew could fail catastrophically. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'm terribly sorry TaiwanGT that you had the misfortune of getting involved with Mark. Product scams like this hurt the consumers and the distributors like TaiwanGT the most. Rarely do the manufacturers experience any backlash, its everyone down the pipeline that must bare the financial burden.

Well, the big problem is that your car gets damadged and is out of service for weeks waiting for replacement parts. This happened over and over and over and over....

Sure, the turbos got warrantied by us, but we could not do anything to fix intercoolers that had metal in them, cars that sat for weeks with no turbos in them. Bottom line, don't buy these turbos. ZAGE will not warranty anything, and if someone does, it does not include towing, rental car, etc. etc.

[TaiwanGT]

ZAGE turbos had the following manufacturing flaws:

Compressor Wheels:
Problem:Bad Balancing

Batches: ALL EVOIII GT turbos before Sept. 2005
All subaru turbos*

Symptom: Wheel partially explodes during operation

Result: Catastrophic Turbo Failure (total failure)

Cause: Balance procedure for smaller
compressor wheels followed on larger wheels

Remedy: Re Balance Wheels using correct procedure

*see ethics

Thrust Bearings

Problem: Bad Materials

Batches: ALL

Symptom: Premature thrust Bearing wear

Cause: Company that copied bearing was not the
Same company that designed bearing*

Remedy: Use Mitsubishi thrust bearings in all ZAGE units

instead of "knock off" bearings


Bearing Housings
Problem: No oil hole drilled in center bearing housing

Batches: Limited

Symptom: Turbo Failure

Cause: Unknown

Remedy: Drill oil holes in bearing housing


Journal Bearings: Problem: None Reported

Turbine Wheel: Problem: None reported

all parts in the ZAGE units are bad replicas of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries parts made in China and Taiwan. The biggest problem is that ZAGE did not do the origional R and D on the turbos, they just copied the origional turbos. They don't really know why a certain material was used for what, they just reverse engineer someone else's product. Sometimes they get it wrong, like with the bearings.

[TaiwanGT]

ZAGE/MOMENTUM/EVOIII GT turbos had the following assembly problems:

the main problem was attaching the compressor housing to the bering housing. The goon who put these parts together hit the compressor wheel with the compressor housing during assembly. This happened about 5% of the time.

2% of the turbos didn't have a oil ring for the turbine side. One turbo didn't have a heat shield on the turbine side. 70% of one batch had the turbine housing attached to the bearing housing incorrectly, where the turbine wheel would contact the turbine housing and die.....

[honda06si]

well ive never heard of them, but thanks for the heads up either way!

[Street2uned]

wow...sign me up! No really...that's terrible.

They should place one of those turbos between Mark's legs and use a 2JZ to spool it til it explodes.

[el_ben2]

thats weird....
cus i have been doing a reserach of this company for a while... and i dont hear any bad history from them...
i have contact a rep of ZAGE and now a good friend, and some guys in Hong Kong that haves ZAGE turbo kits, in theyre SWIFTS for example and many other cars
also theyre 3 civics running whit this kit... whit no problem at all
also the kit for our car is not 100% from ZAGE...
its 50% ZAGE and 50% HKS.... and tunned 100% by HKS.... so i think i HKS will not use crappy parts... or make a society whit crappy companies...

but this is good to know...
ill do a better research of this

[Street2uned]

whoa whoa whoa...where's the kit for our car? I haven't seen this company or HKS put out anything about our cars. Let us know what you know about it.

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by el_ben2

thats weird....
cus i have been doing a reserach of this company for a while... and i dont hear any bad history from them...
i have contact a rep of ZAGE and now a good friend, and some guys in Hong Kong that haves ZAGE turbo kits, in theyre SWIFTS for example and many other cars
also theyre 3 civics running whit this kit... whit no problem at all
also the kit for our car is not 100% from ZAGE...
its 50% ZAGE and 50% HKS.... and tunned 100% by HKS.... so i think i HKS will not use crappy parts... or make a society whit crappy companies...

but this is good to know...
ill do a better research of this

Mark Tung is your contact. See the above posts-he's not the guy you think he is. He doesn't drive fast, and he doesn't like fast cars. He is just a business man.

Don't be naive, man-your "CONTACT" in Hong Kong is Fuel Tank Racing, who sells ZAGE kits. They are not a neutral third party, they want to sell products.

And what parts are HKS, the piping, the BOV? I've got bad news for you, my friend, ZAGE has made a LIVING making counterfeit parts. Their counterfeit units include some of HKS's parts, as well as mitsubishi's parts. I can't believe that they are being so ballsy as to include HKS in their claims! If I worked for HKS, I would be pretty pissed.

I will say it: Zage is a totally dishonest company who will lie to move products. They have lied to me, and now they have lied to you.

And about the three civics running the kit, are they owned by people who sell the kit? Come on!

I've been pretty open and honest in this forum. You know who I am, what I used to do, and who I worked with. I have been truthful about the failures and problems with ZAGE as a company. I have nothing to gain by telling the truth, or by making up lies. I no longer work in the turbo industry.

Those who are telling lies RIGHT NOW to promote the ZAGE kits have everything to gain by making up claims and pretending their turbos are not just bad copies of a Japanese product. They have done this before, and they will do it again, and they do not care at all about who gets burned.

[TaiwanGT]

Originally Posted by Street2uned

whoa whoa whoa...where's the kit for our car? I haven't seen this company or HKS put out anything about our cars. Let us know what you know about it.

you didn't know that HKS is keeping this a secret, and letting a company called ZAGE sell a turbo kit in the US? Wouldn't HKS just sell the kit with the HKS name? HKS sounds less like a made up corporate word than ZAGE, and HKS has a huge market presence here. Yeah, it would make total sense for HKS to do this...