Was looking at the wicked wheel 2. Just curious would I notice a difference in installing a wicked wheel over the stock wheel? My truck is bone stock.

 

I started a thread in the 99-03 powerstroke section regarding after market turbo wheels, so far me and a member SOUS have left a report on the wheels. Im using a wheel called SPX from spturboost.com with great results but, im also not stock, SOUS is using the Riffraff 4 blade wheel he had great results and he is stock but, he also has a super duty turbo so diff comparison to our 1.15 exhaust hausing.
Im on my phone so I cant post the link but look for the tittle "Spx, Riffraff, Barder and other turbo wheel review thread"

 

I exchanged a few emails last week with one of the well known turbo gurus and asked him the same question about installing a billet 4+4 blade compressor wheel in an otherwise bone stock truck. His response was that it would spool a little faster and would gain maybe 5 HP. His suggestion was that unless my stock compressor wheel was damaged and needs replacing anyway it probably isn't worth it on an otherwise completely stock truck.

The same wheel with the addition of a chip, intake and exhaust mods evidently picks up 17.4 HP and 32 ft/lbs of torque over a stock wheel.

 

How does one know if your wheel is wore or bad. I never hear my turbo whistle.

 

You can take off your intake boot (with the engine off), shine a flashlight into the housing and get a pretty good idea. If your wheel is worn from dirty air, the leading edges of the blades will be visibly kind of ragged or rounded lilke they have been sandblasted. A wheel in good shape will have straight edges. If a foreign object has somehow got in there, the wheel leading edges will be very visibly damaged.

To determine if your bearings are worn, you can grab the end of the shaft with your hand and try to wiggle it horizontally and vertically. There should be very little movement. Maybe someone else can say exactly how much movement there should be, I don't have a number for it. The wheel should turn easily. The clearance between the wheel and the housing isn't much and there shouldn't be any scrape marks or sign of the wheel edges making contact with the housing.

I took mine out while doing an efuel upgrade and decided to get new bearings and take it apart. After 180,000+ miles both the bearings and wheel were still pretty much perfect. There was some carbon buildup on the shaft near the ring seal on the turbine side, but that's about all.

I never hear any turbo whistle from my stock turbo, not that I care much about whistling. I didn't buy the 4+4 wheel and I'm having a minor case of non-buyer's remorse.