what is a stage 3 to start with. There is no deffinate of what is what. Who is to say its not a stage 5 by someones standards.

For example (and piss taking)

my stage 1 could be to clean all the parts and fit it back together.
stage 2 paint the compressor housing.
stage 3 sign my name on the exhaust housing.

lol.


Sell it to you as a stage 3 turbo and you are none the wiser. Thats why the Turbo market is full of crap and scrap turbo's. You can never be sure what you have unless you ask for what you want!

I always state exactly what i want inside and pay the supplier for each part seperatly then build it to that spec. I never quote stages or expect people to know one from the other.

The best thing to do is remove the compressor housing carefully without damaging the paper gasket and measure the size of the comp wheel. This will tell you which one has been used i.e 2wd or 4x4 or even std T3 ERST.

Then take pics of the comp housing as the 4x4 unit is easy to spot if its genuine. Most Turbo suppliers will machine out a std T3 ERST to the size they want. It works but causes the air temp to be higher due to the size of the housing being smaller to start with the it should be. Obviously large coolers make this less of a problem now days but the turbo is less efficiant.

Hope that explains a little from my experiance working for a turbo manufactor.