SteamSpeed GEN2 Ball-Bearing Turbochargers
This Is SteamSpeed's GEN2 Turbocharger
Years of research and development and continuous improvement have led to the SteamSpeed STX Generation 2 or GEN2 for short. GEN2 takes all of the learnings from the wheel design and engineering starting from the initial STX journal bearing prototypes the the last revisions of the SteamSpeed GT-style ceramic ball bearing turbos, and takes them to the next level.
GEN2 Ball Bearing Cartridges
GEN2 ball bearing cartridges are the best ever, improving upon all previous dual ball bearing cartridges. Spearing no expense, the GEN 2 turbos utilize super-high-precision ABEC 7 all-ceramic dual-row angular-contact ball bearings. GEN2 ball bearing cartridges surpass all previous achievements in durability and performance providing better heat resistances, cooling, oil supply, and over-all harmonics.
GEN2 Wheel Designs
GEN2 utilizes the most cutting-edge billet compressor wheels first introduced in 2019 STX, outflowing the original high-performance billet STX compressor wheels. GEN2 turbos are the first ball-bearing turbos to utilize low-mass 9-blade turbine wheels pioneered in the first STX JB turbos but previously unavailable for ball bearing turbos. These 9-blade turbines significantly out flow similar sized ball-bearing GT turbine wheels by utilizing less blades and lower mass while still maintaining the same turbine blade surface area of the older GT style wheels. The STX 9-blade turbine combined with the GEN2 ball-bearing cartridge adds up to the fastest-responding highest-flowing turbine sections yet.
GEN2 BB at GEN1 JB Prices
The goal of GEN2 was to prefect dual ceramic ball bearing turbocharger manufacturing where journal bearing and all other ball bearing designs were made redundant. Model by model, GEN2 SteamSpeed turbos replace both older outgoing STX JB and BB models at roughly the same retail price as the old JB turbo.
GEN2 Is Backwards Compatible
GEN2 ceramic ball-bearing cartridges are designed to be compatible with all existing SteamSpeed journal bearing housings. The are backwards compatible with the previous generation's housings, and are interchangeable. This means existing STX JB turbo owners can take their existing turbo, and simply replace the cartridge to upgrade to GEN2. This also means our vast catalog of JB housings are suitable to use with GEN2 BB cartridges expanding housing options that were not available for GT style BB cartridges.
Continuous Improvement
An Auspicious Beginning
Since the first STX prototype turbos for the STI, SteamSpeed has designed and manufactured the best engineered highest quality and performance turbochargers possible. The initial research and engineering payed off pairing ideally matched wheel geometries for the STI's EJ257 with cutting edge billet compressor wheels and low-moment-of-inertia high-flow turbine wheel designs.
First generation STX turbos exceeded expectations by being faster spooling and making more power than existing larger turbos on the market. SteamSpeed found why with extensive gas bench testing and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. Simply put, the SteamSpeed STX turbochargers out-performed out-flowed similar sized of the then state-of-the-art Garrett GTX parts.
SteamSpeed Ball-Bearing Turbocharger Evolution
The very first SteamSpeed ball-bearing turbos started life from Garrett Japan GT3037 (aka GT3076R in the US market) cartridge, a reliable starting place, albeit an ancient design, with lower grade steel ball bearings, a cast compressor wheel, and an old turbine wheel design. To turn them in to SteamSpeed STX turbos, an all-new custom billet compressor wheels would replace the outdated Garrett cast part, and then would be paired with SteamSpeed STX custom stock-location housings.
SteamSpeed could do better and developed its own dual ceramic-ball-bearing cartridge and center housing to replace the Garret GT parts it had been using. Using superior ABEC 7 ceramic ball-bearings SteamSpeed was able to achieve higher level of balance and reliability to its turbochargers while using more modern higher-flowing turbine wheels.