Frankenturbo meet Mamba

The turbochargers that I intend to try out with the Mamba wastegate actuators are the Frankenturbo F21 retrofits.  This evening I installed the Mamba wastegates to see how well they would fit on the turbochargers.

Frankenturbo F21 with Mamba wastegate
Frankenturbo F21 with Mamba wastegate

The new wastegate actuators fit onto the turbochargers without any problems.

Frankenturbo F21 with Mamba wastegates
Frankenturbo F21 with Mamba wastegates

So far I am impressed with the Mamba product, it looks well constructed and the initial fitting went well.

Frankenturbo F21 and Mamba wastegates
Frankenturbo F21 and Mamba wastegates

Next up I am going to play around with the preload spring options.

Mamba Billet Wastegates

I’ve been waiting for some time for Turbo Concepts to finish the development of their billet wastegate actuators and with the arrival of the FrankenTurbos I had the itch to try out some different wastegate actuators.  After some searching I came across these and decided to give them a try.

Mamba Billet Wastegates for the Audi B5 S4
Mamba Billet Wastegates for the Audi B5 S4

The Mamba wastegate actuators are built for the B5 S4 and outwardly look to be a quality product.  Hopefully they perform as well as they look.

More FrankenTurbos – F21 v3

Since I last gave a look at the FrankenTurbo F21 there has been an update made that legacy F21’s can take advantage of.   As FT has developed a turbo for the BMW N54 engine the legacy F21 turbo’s can be retrofit with a similar product that leverages the work being done for the BMW engine.

I came across an old pair of F4H turbo’s that were ready to be rebuilt and I contacted FT to see what could be done with them.

FrankenTurbo F4H-BT Turbocharger Turbine Housing
FrankenTurbo F4H-BT Turbocharger Turbine Housing

The turbine housings were appropriate to reuse with the latest turbine wheel so I shipped those off to Swaintech to have their White Lightning ceramic coating applied.

After the coating was applied they were forwarded to FrankenTurbo for the update.

FrankenTurbo F21 version 3 Audi B5 S4 turbocharger
FrankenTurbo F21 version 3

Now that the turbochargers are back with me they’ll be on the shelf while I make my way through a number of projects.

The changes that this version of the F21 has are:

  • Smaller billet compressor wheel compared to v2
  • Continued use of the Mixed Flow turbine rotor
  • Size like original F4H turbine with updated design for improved performance at slow exhaust speeds

The change to using this design with legacy (original F21 compressor wheel) rebuilds started around summer of 2017.

FrankenTurbo F21 v3 Compressor Wheel
FrankenTurbo F21 v3 Compressor Wheel
FrankenTurbo F21 v3 Turbine Wheel
FrankenTurbo F21 v3 Turbine Wheel