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Jay Bamrah

Fensport vs Tuning Developments

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Hey, I’m just looking around and saw Tuning developments does a stage 1 turbo kit for £4000. A lot of people speak very highly of their NA kit too for £1500. I have heard good stuff about fensport too but just from less people. Their AVO turbo kit is £4500

The drive would be almost 7 hours including the drive back to TD vs 4 hours to fensport.

Thirdly theirs the Harrops supercharger kit but that comes in at almost £7000.

 

A debate or pros and cons of both from any previous customers would be so helpful.

 

thanks :)

((my Subaru BRZ is currently stock) Ideally 230+WHP is what I would like I’m not trying to get 300+ WHP I simply want a faster car but not a new car u know?)

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Consider Abbey Motorsport too, they're based at Oxted in Surrey, so even closer to you (under an hour from Basingstoke maybe?). Well regarded in this community, so worth contacting them for advice. Pretty sure you could buy the TD kit and have it fitted and tuned by Abbey if you don't want the 7 hour round trip. 

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1 hour ago, MartinT said:

I can thoroughly recommend the Harrop kit.  It feels like a bigger engine and is not like a turbo, which to me is a benefit.

How much did you pay and how many miles did your car have on it when you got the kit. How long have you had the kit for now, and have u had any reliabikity issues?

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3 minutes ago, Kodename47 said:

Abbey is my choice too for whatever kit you choose.

What kit did you choose? I did look at abbey and they look amazing but I don’t know if I want to spend £7000 on a kit when I see some for £4000

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2 hours ago, Conscript said:

Consider Abbey Motorsport too, they're based at Oxted in Surrey, so even closer to you (under an hour from Basingstoke maybe?). Well regarded in this community, so worth contacting them for advice. Pretty sure you could buy the TD kit and have it fitted and tuned by Abbey if you don't want the 7 hour round trip. 

If we ignore the distance, what kit for the car would you recommend, budget and reliability is main factors. Maximum power gain etc means nothing to me as all kits get more than enough power to make me happy 

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13 minutes ago, Jay Bamrah said:

What kit did you choose? I did look at abbey and they look amazing but I don’t know if I want to spend £7000 on a kit when I see some for £4000

I was one of the earliest supercharged cars in the country, running the Sprintex - not really used much these days but a good SC for a daily car. The pound is doing a bit better now so the rate vs the Aussie dollar, so something like the Harrop could be a bit cheaper, best bet is to speak to Mark at Abbey direct.

None of these push too much power to really be any difference in reliability. I personally prefer an SC, mines been that way for 7 years.

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42 minutes ago, Kodename47 said:

I was one of the earliest supercharged cars in the country, running the Sprintex - not really used much these days but a good SC for a daily car. The pound is doing a bit better now so the rate vs the Aussie dollar, so something like the Harrop could be a bit cheaper, best bet is to speak to Mark at Abbey direct.

None of these push too much power to really be any difference in reliability. I personally prefer an SC, mines been that way for 7 years.

So 7 years that must be 70,000 miles or something and your car still runs completely fine? And do you burn through transmissions and clutches and stuff like every 2 years?

 

oh also are u stage 1 stage 2? What have u had done

 

another question. Looking back would you say selling your car for say £12000 and keeping the £7000ish from the SC kit would have been better then having £19000 to buy a different car?

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7 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

How much did you pay and how many miles did your car have on it when you got the kit. How long have you had the kit for now, and have u had any reliabikity issues?

All-in, including installation by Abbey and dyno tuning, just over £5k. About 30k miles. I've had it for 16 months. No issues with it at all, it's a superb bit of kit.

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You need to use the search functionality and read some threads and debates about SC vs TC etc and the dealers.
All 3 of them are reputable in this community. TD do their own kit, the rest install kits from AVO etc. So choose based on convenience and preference than comparing one against the other.

Superchargers are of 2 types , centrifugal ( HKS kit) which is more like a turbo and positive displacement ( Harrop , Cosworth). PD delivers torque from low down while all our turbo applications only deliver power beyond 3K RPM. So what application do you want it for - City/ Town driving or track days?

All kits are generally reliable until you go overboard with tuning or forget additional oil cooling etc if you hit tracks regularly.

PS: Spend a lot of time searching this forum reading up build threads and dyno graphs and any blown engine cases etc , where you will also know why.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

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11 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

What kit did you choose? I did look at abbey and they look amazing but I don’t know if I want to spend £7000 on a kit when I see some for £4000

You can DIY the Harrop kit for a lot less if you’re half capable with a set of spanner’s. Have a look at the review I wrote at the end of lockdown 1 and see what you think (feel free to ask if you want more info on something).

 

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The Fensport turbo kit used to be a lot more expensive, they brought the price down not long ago to be more competitive with the TD kit, which when it arrived blew the others out of the water on value.

Personally if I was going for a turbo, I prefer the design of the Fensport kit with the turbo mounted low and keeping an enclosed air filter so less heat soak. Also Adrian has done a lot of track development with it's design in sprint series, and supports those series financially. I believe the cheaper AVO kits have less headroom for power increases than the standard TD turbo units, though - and the TD is dyno mapped, which is nice to get real data on the improvements beyond the arse-dyno.

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2 minutes ago, maurice said:

I believe the cheaper AVO kits have less headroom for power increases than the standard TD turbo units, though

The AVO, as per all turbo kits really, are limited by the turbo you fit to it. AFAIK there is no difference between the higher power AVO vs lower other than turbo and supporting hardware. I also agree with you, the AVO setup is much nicer IMO. Many adopters in the USA and elsewhere as this was one of the early quality kits, then the cheaper ones came to market.

11 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

So 7 years that must be 70,000 miles or something and your car still runs completely fine? And do you burn through transmissions and clutches and stuff like every 2 years?

oh also are u stage 1 stage 2? What have u had done

another question. Looking back would you say selling your car for say £12000 and keeping the £7000ish from the SC kit would have been better then having £19000 to buy a different car?

Car's on 40k miles - no issues. Only just replaced the stock clutch, not because I had to (report was only minor wear) but as the engine was out so made sense to refresh it. The gearbox becomes an issue at around 350bhp apparently, so probably 275-300lb.ft, so will never become an issue for most. More likely to damage axles if you launch the car a lot, but again I don't try for 0-60s so not been a problem. In fact, bar servicing and wanting to mod the car it's not cost me anything.

Stage 1/2 terminology is rubbish IMO, mine is just tuned for the setup, although much of that tuning has been done by myself from Abbey's foundation. Also with a SC you don't just turn up the boost ;) 

I have also done almost all the spannering work on the car myself and the cost of what I've done had probably cost about half of £7k TBH. As I am in the process of selling the car my feedback is as follows: The GT86 is awesome when FI. I stopped chasing numbers as 240-250ish WHP on this platform is really fun without pushing the car too far. The chassis makes it great fun, make it playful and not without excess grip IMO and as the Sprintex is one of the PD blowers the torque for daily use is great. One reason I have kept it so long is that I have struggled to find something that I would want to replace it with and I find myself in the lucky position I can now get something that works both as a family car and is fun to drive. I've tried some more modern sports cars, such as the new Supra, and the SC on the 86 (and the 86 in general) I found more engaging and not far off the pace, despite the 100+hp deficit on paper. I'd have to spend way more than what the car is worth plus the mods value to get into something else that I would want.

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5 minutes ago, Kodename47 said:

The AVO, as per all turbo kits really, are limited by the turbo you fit to it. AFAIK there is no difference between the higher power AVO vs lower other than turbo and supporting hardware. I also agree with you, the AVO setup is much nicer IMO. Many adopters in the USA and elsewhere as this was one of the early quality kits, then the cheaper ones came to market.

Car's on 40k miles - no issues. Only just replaced the stock clutch, not because I had to (report was only minor wear) but as the engine was out so made sense to refresh it. The gearbox becomes an issue at around 350bhp apparently, so probably 275-300lb.ft, so will never become an issue for most. More likely to damage axles if you launch the car a lot, but again I don't try for 0-60s so not been a problem. In fact, bar servicing and wanting to mod the car it's not cost me anything.

Stage 1/2 terminology is rubbish IMO, mine is just tuned for the setup, although much of that tuning has been done by myself from Abbey's foundation. Also with a SC you don't just turn up the boost ;) 

I have also done almost all the spannering work on the car myself and the cost of what I've done had probably cost about half of £7k TBH. As I am in the process of selling the car my feedback is as follows: The GT86 is awesome when FI. I stopped chasing numbers as 240-250ish WHP on this platform is really fun without pushing the car too far. The chassis makes it great fun, make it playful and not without excess grip IMO and as the Sprintex is one of the PD blowers the torque for daily use is great. One reason I have kept it so long is that I have struggled to find something that I would want to replace it with and I find myself in the lucky position I can now get something that works both as a family car and is fun to drive. I've tried some more modern sports cars, such as the new Supra, and the SC on the 86 (and the 86 in general) I found more engaging and not far off the pace, despite the 100+hp deficit on paper. I'd have to spend way more than what the car is worth plus the mods value to get into something else that I would want.

Thanks for that! 
so what did it cost you to buy the kit and the clutch and you’re saying you saved about £3000 by fitting it yourself? 

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30 minutes ago, maurice said:

The Fensport turbo kit used to be a lot more expensive, they brought the price down not long ago to be more competitive with the TD kit, which when it arrived blew the others out of the water on value.

Personally if I was going for a turbo, I prefer the design of the Fensport kit with the turbo mounted low and keeping an enclosed air filter so less heat soak. Also Adrian has done a lot of track development with it's design in sprint series, and supports those series financially. I believe the cheaper AVO kits have less headroom for power increases than the standard TD turbo units, though - and the TD is dyno mapped, which is nice to get real data on the improvements beyond the arse-dyno.

Thankyou, I’m looking forward turbo or sc and to be honest they all seem just as reliable so it would probably just be the cheapest one in that case I would go for

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30 minutes ago, Jay Bamrah said:

Thankyou, I’m looking forward turbo or sc and to be honest they all seem just as reliable so it would probably just be the cheapest one in that case I would go for

They're not all equal TBH, this will be controversial... that's why people are suggesting you search on previous discussions. 

There's a fair difference between a turbo and an SC. An SC feels more like you've got a big 3.0 NA engine, probably a touch easier to drive on the limit. A turbo is more of a punch, the sort of push you back in the seat feeling, bit more drama.

Cosworth SC's discontinued, getting replacements parts in the future might be interesting.

HKS SC - there were some issues with the SC unit itself failing but it appears to have been quietly resolved. Not as much mid-range as a PD supercharger (i.e. Cosworth, Harrop), more of a screamer.

Harrop SC's haven't seen much reliability issues reported, but they are expensive.

Sprintex SC's run hot intake temperatures on track, bit of a first-gen SC. Fine on the road. The track issues can be worked around but if this is for regular track use you'd be advised to look elsewhere.

TD Turbo - Can be clearance issues with the exhaust > coolant pipe, and the air filter with the oil cooler fittings. There's a regular trackdayer on here who has to take a spare filter with him to trackdays as the engine movement keeps contacting the airfilter and snapping it's mounting. I've seen it myself.

AVO Turbo kit - I don't know of any reliability issues with these but probably a lot more TD kits out there at the moment due to the big price difference until recently. I get the impression the turbo unit itself in the cheaper kits is not of as good quality as the TD one.

 

There you go, that's my unbiased anecdotal opinion guaranteed to annoy some people!

 

 

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2 minutes ago, maurice said:

They're not all equal TBH, this will be controversial... that's why people are suggesting you search on previous discussions. 

There's a fair difference between a turbo and an SC. An SC feels more like you've got a big 3.0 NA engine, probably a touch easier to drive on the limit. A turbo is more of a punch, the sort of push you back in the seat feeling, bit more drama.

Cosworth SC's discontinued, getting replacements parts in the future might be interesting.

HKS SC - there were some issues with the SC unit itself failing but it appears to have been quietly resolved. Not as much mid-range as a PD supercharger (i.e. Cosworth, Harrop), more of a screamer.

Harrop SC's haven't seen much reliability issues reported, but they are expensive.

Sprintex SC's run hot intake temperatures on track, bit of a first-gen SC. Fine on the road. The track issues can be worked around but if this is for regular track use you'd be advised to look elsewhere.

TD Turbo - Can be clearance issues with the exhaust > coolant pipe, and the air filter with the oil cooler fittings. There's a regular trackdayer on here who has to take a spare filter with him to trackdays as the engine movement keeps contacting the airfilter and snapping it's mounting. I've seen it myself.

AVO Turbo kit - I don't know of any reliability issues with these but probably a lot more TD kits out there at the moment due to the big price difference until recently. I get the impression the turbo unit itself in the cheaper kits is not of as good quality as the TD one.

 

There you go, that's my unbiased anecdotal opinion guaranteed to annoy some people!

 

 

Thankyou so much really! I will have to come back snd like the comment tomorrow I have hit a daily limit on likes haha.

can you just go over the part where you say the AVO turbo unit is not as good quality as the td one please. 
One other thing, if I get a turbo does that mean yes it’s cheaper than a sc but I now need a more free flow exhaust which makes the price equal anyway. Or will my stock exhaust be fine so long as I am not pushing 300whp from the system ?

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1 minute ago, Jay Bamrah said:

Thankyou so much really! I will have to come back snd like the comment tomorrow I have hit a daily limit on likes haha.

can you just go over the part where you say the AVO turbo unit is not as good quality as the td one please. 
One other thing, if I get a turbo does that mean yes it’s cheaper than a sc but I now need a more free flow exhaust which makes the price equal anyway. Or will my stock exhaust be fine so long as I am not pushing 300whp from the system ?

TBH it's a while since I compared the detail of them, I can't remember exactly but the TD looked a better unit than the cheapest AVO. The AVO kit as a whole looked better to me, but this is all a matter of opinion and I'm sure a number of people will disagree. There is a lot of info on the AVO kits on ft86club.com.

Your second question is for a tuner really. This is a very slippery slope in modifications you are teetering on the top of which could include bigger wheels, oil cooler, bigger brakes, better suspension and so on..

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Just now, maurice said:

TBH it's a while since I compared the detail of them, I can't remember exactly but the TD looked a better unit than the cheapest AVO. The AVO kit as a whole looked better to me, but this is all a matter of opinion and I'm sure a number of people will disagree. There is a lot of info on the AVO kits on ft86club.com.

Your second question is for a tuner really. This is a very slippery slope in modifications you are teetering on the top of which could include bigger wheels, oil cooler, bigger brakes, better suspension and so on..

Thankyou so much again!

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Some people have said that if you have boost, the stock manifold and exhaust don't matter. This is wrong. Not only does a good manifold flow a lot better, but I have had differences between them with dyno graphs to prove it.

For instance, my Rogue manifold gives better performance than the TD one I used to have. I do have the TD exhaust, though, which flows well.

Sent from my LG-G7 using Tapatalk

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18 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

Hey, I’m just looking around and saw Tuning developments does a stage 1 turbo kit for £4000. A lot of people speak very highly of their NA kit too for £1500. 

The TD turbo kit is £4500, not £4000. The £4000 pirce is there black friday price which has now expired. 

If you've already got the TD N/A tuning package, then to upgrade to the turbo kit is: £3850.00

 

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1 minute ago, will300 said:

The TD turbo kit is £4500, not £4000. The £4000 pirce is there black friday price which has now expired. 

If you've already got the TD N/A tuning package, then to upgrade to the turbo kit is: £3850.00

 

I am completely stock right now

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