Garrett t2 water cooled turbo - pipework
Posted: 27 Apr 2026, 12:25
I have recently breathed some life back into my JX engine (syncro). A previous owner has swapped some parts of the engine, one of which is a water cooled Garrett t2 turbo. It looks to be indexed ok with the oil return at the bottom.
Searching the forum I can see a few people have mentioned the turbo came from an SB engine which had ports in the block to take a water feed.
For cooling, they have used the return line from the heater matrix to run through the turbo.
I feel like the turbo would be better cooled if it got spliced in after the auxiliary water pump.
Has anybody fitted or knows others and how they cooled the turbo? Or even cooled it at all?
Is the Garrett t2 any better or worse than the original or should I just source a correct turbo?
For reference in the picture the rocker cap wasn't fully bolted down so a small amount of oil has been coming out and ran down the side of the turbo. The red pipe needs replacing as it's kinked. The actuator I can't work out whether it's stiff or stuck.
Searching the forum I can see a few people have mentioned the turbo came from an SB engine which had ports in the block to take a water feed.
For cooling, they have used the return line from the heater matrix to run through the turbo.
I feel like the turbo would be better cooled if it got spliced in after the auxiliary water pump.
Has anybody fitted or knows others and how they cooled the turbo? Or even cooled it at all?
Is the Garrett t2 any better or worse than the original or should I just source a correct turbo?
For reference in the picture the rocker cap wasn't fully bolted down so a small amount of oil has been coming out and ran down the side of the turbo. The red pipe needs replacing as it's kinked. The actuator I can't work out whether it's stiff or stuck.