My Octavia has been into the garage and a fault has been identified 17608 (which I knew from my liquid gauge anyway). This has been investigated and the mechanic seems to think it could be a dodgy valve but when he contacted Skoda they refused to sell him saying it was a common fault and it's never the valve thats the problem. They said my turbo is knackered I will need a recon turbo. Something to do with a carbon build up?

Anyway the mechanic says I should try running it and in his opinion it's running ok. I'll try it on the liquid gauge again and see what readings it's giving out. It was 145bhp on the way to the garage so I'm hoping I'm back over 200 now.

In any case my modifying motto is 'if it breaks upgrade it'. That way I'll get there eventually and without the wife complaining that I'm wasting money!! Applying the same to the turbo what options do I have? I don't have the cash to stick a garrett capable of 400bhp on there along with the other mods needed to support it but I don't know what other turbos would apply a decent increase in power without requiring other costly mods. I understand that the 225TT turbo doesn't fit. Can anyone suggest anything else?

Is this worth a try?

Turbo Technics Hybrid

It says it's based on the K03 rather than the K04 so not sure if that requires a different manifold and other bits like the K04 off of the S3 / Leon Cupra R / TT225 would do if you tried to fit that :confused:

Good find. That's the sort of thing I'm after and it's affordable.

Anyone have any knowledge or experience of the S162 turbo?

As far as I know, you have a KO3 and the vRS has the KO3s. I don't know what the difference is, if any, but maybe it's worth looking into if you only want 230ish bhp max and your on a budget.

Check out the BTN catalogue: BTN Turbo

Maybe the difference is just the fittings, but maybe they have different size wheels......

I don't know how to find out, as I don't know the Borg Warner nomenclature.

Someone will know....

There's probably nothing wrong with your turbo anyway! People that know nothing about turbos always blame them first! Carbon build up? Did they say where? Maybe the wastegate actuator is just nakkered, or the valve itself. Or maybe just needs a clean for some reason...

Well I've given Turbo Technics a quick call and they have basically said that they don't know if the S162 will fit but that they will find out and get back to me tomorrow. They have said that if it doesn't then they may be willing to carry out some work on the S162 to create the S162A which will fit the Octy 1.8T.

The prices they quoted me are £550+vat for a standard replacement turbo or £565+vat for the S162. With the S162 being a much stronger turbo the extra few pounds would be worth spending.

I'm not doing anything now anyway as I'm hopeful it won't be the turbo thats gone. Unfortunately with my limited technical knowledge some things go over my head when it's being explained so I can't really give you any more info in relation to the problem. I'll run it and see how it goes anyway but there is also a part of me that would like to try out the S162!

Keep any further opinions coming anyway. Cheers

Found this great page!

The Mk1 Audi TT Enthusiast Resource: KKK Turbos - K03, K03s, K04, etc...

Explains differences between K03, K03s, K04-001, K04-020 etc...

So the vRS (180) is different to the 1.8T (150) turbo then. Different compressor wheel and housing, which allows it to make a bit more power.

According to them, the absolute max power using a K03s is 250whp, but thats running nitrous!