Bad Turbo: Should I upgrade, rebuild or buy a new k03?
 

I have 1997 Audi A4 1.8T A/T without any modifications. The turbo has about 200k miles on it due to a rebuilt engine and now has shaft play. I have been looking at upgrading it to the K04-015 and read somewhere it was a straight drop-in and wouldn't need to do any other modifications. If I were to do this, the K04 would be the first upgrade, then FMIC, then probably the ECU to a GPAC P16 chip and after that unknown. I haven't met anyone who has rebuilt a turbo so I do not know about reliability much less where to get it done in the Tampa Bay area. The final option would be to just buy the OEM K03. Any opinions, suggestions, or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I am pretty new with Audi's.

If you want a little more power then the K04-15 would be better then buying another K03.