Any thoughts on 'drop in s300' turbo

kiwilml

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Nov 4, 2015
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So I've recently come across this s300 series non vgt drop in turbo for the lml. It's from Smeding diesel out of Texas, not sure how to post the link but easy to find.

Anyways I've been wanting to put a fixed vane in the valley but haven't been wanting to get all new piping since I've already got the full hsp compound kit. I just haven't heard of this turbo before so I'm wondering if anybody else has heard anything, good or bad. They have the sxe version with the heavy duty 360° bearing looks like also.

And says in description that it's just available with a 73mm turbine. Is that acceptable to run with no waste gate on my current setup in sig?

Any and all thoughts appreciated.

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JoshH

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I haven't run that particular setup, but I have run S300s in a duramax without a wastegate (T4 housing/73mm and smaller turbine) in both single and compound setups. As long as you aren't trying to run a lot of RPM or spray a bunch of nitrous, it will work well. Might be a touch laggy compared to stock, but it should provide a decent performance increase.
 

Bdsankey

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I’ve got one guy up here with a Smeding drop-in for a LML. He went with their billet 64.5 and it runs extremely well in terms of overall power and drivability. He’s running a sportsman CP3, lift pump, and tuning along with the Smeding charger. Smeding is one of my newer suppliers so I can’t offer much more insight (on the LML drop-in) than that. Their turbos themselves are good, they aren’t great but they also aren’t eBay specials that are going to blow up extremely quick.
 

kiwilml

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I haven't run that particular setup, but I have run S300s in a duramax without a wastegate (T4 housing/73mm and smaller turbine) in both single and compound setups. As long as you aren't trying to run a lot of RPM or spray a bunch of nitrous, it will work well. Might be a touch laggy compared to stock, but it should provide a decent performance increase.
Well I definitely won't be spraying or running high rpm (under 4k, not sure what you call high).

Any thoughts on if this Smeding turbo will hold up as good as a BW would? I'm sure there is no way of knowing for sure though.

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kiwilml

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I’ve got one guy up here with a Smeding drop-in for a LML. He went with their billet 64.5 and it runs extremely well in terms of overall power and drivability. He’s running a sportsman CP3, lift pump, and tuning along with the Smeding charger. Smeding is one of my newer suppliers so I can’t offer much more insight (on the LML drop-in) than that. Their turbos themselves are good, they aren’t great but they also aren’t eBay specials that are going to blow up extremely quick.
I hear ya, thanks. I'm just a little worried that it won't fit EXACTLY like my stocker and my intake pipe won't fit coming from big turbo. It's extremely close to not fitting right the way it is.

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JoshH

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Well I definitely won't be spraying or running high rpm (under 4k, not sure what you call high).

Any thoughts on if this Smeding turbo will hold up as good as a BW would? I'm sure there is no way of knowing for sure though.

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I would assume they use a stock BW center section with a custom compressor cover and turbine housing.
 

Bdsankey

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I hear ya, thanks. I'm just a little worried that it won't fit EXACTLY like my stocker and my intake pipe won't fit coming from big turbo. It's extremely close to not fitting right the way it is.

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I didn’t experience any fitment issues on this truck, looked like a factory install other than the temp sensor since they do not have a port on the cover for the temp sensor. I cannot comment on how it’ll fit with a compound kit but I don’t think you’ll have any issues running one.
 

kiwilml

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I didn’t experience any fitment issues on this truck, looked like a factory install other than the temp sensor since they do not have a port on the cover for the temp sensor. I cannot comment on how it’ll fit with a compound kit but I don’t think you’ll have any issues running one.
Kind of what I was thinking too. "should be fine" lol. I'll maybe call them sometime here and see if i could return it if I couldn't get it to fit right. Would be an expensive mistake if I had to just put it on the shelf.

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Bdsankey

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Kind of what I was thinking too. "should be fine" lol. I'll maybe call them sometime here and see if i could return it if I couldn't get it to fit right. Would be an expensive mistake if I had to just put it on the shelf.

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Shoot me a text and I’ll call them tomorrow and see what we can work out in the event it doesn’t fit.
 

kiwilml

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Thanks I couldn't find turbo section for some reason (on tapatalk).

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Ne-max

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Smelding is a copy cat company. They copied the specs on borg units. Recently copied steed speeds Cummings manifold design. It's hard to support companies like that. I like my engine brake to much to loose my vgt. Wherli has the nicest kit I've used so far for fixed vain swaps.
 

kiwilml

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Yeah I don't think I'd even heard of Smeding until a day or two ago so I don't know anything about them.

I agree, wehrli has nice kits. I had a s400 single kit from them on my last lml. But on this lml I went with hsp for my compound kit for some reason and that's who I'd prefer to use to put a fixed vane in the valley now but it'd just be twice as much money to get new piping for my current kit then to go with this drop in.

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Bdsankey

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Yeah I don't think I'd even heard of Smeding until a day or two ago so I don't know anything about them.

I agree, wehrli has nice kits. I had a s400 single kit from them on my last lml. But on this lml I went with hsp for my compound kit for some reason and that's who I'd prefer to use to put a fixed vane in the valley now but it'd just be twice as much money to get new piping for my current kit then to go with this drop in.

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What makes you want to ditch the vgt?
 

kiwilml

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What makes you want to ditch the vgt?
I'm just tired of not being happy with how people tune the vane positioning. I'll be cruising at 63 mph on flat roads and boost will be 10 to 12 pounds and then all of a sudden vanes will open and it'll go to 3 or 4 pounds and then next second it'll be back up to 12 and sometimes it'll hunt back and forth constantly. Very annoying. If I'm cruising 80mph it does better, holds pretty steady at 12 or so but I don't travel much interstate where I live.

And I just like a fixed vane sound way better and tuning seems like it'd be more simple and easier for them to get to run like I'd like since don't worry about vane position. I loved my last lml that I had a single s468 on.

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slowlml

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Feb 6, 2015
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I agree with ne-max on this. I havent heard great things about smeding, and the few guys i know that have bought their s400s or ive put them on havent had good luck. Slightly above ebay chinese turbos, they just have the smeding name on them.
Not knocking brad or his company what so ever. Just my opinion and experience with them over the years.
Kiwi, give blake a shout on here about new tunes and you may not want to switch to a fixed vane for the tuning reason. But i agree fixed vanes are where its at