Take care of your turbo

[Pmpkinhead]

I'm going to put out some turbo info. Feel free to beat me up. I have 155K miles on my 88 323GT Turbo and here's what I have learned. When you start your turbo, wait 30 seconds b4 you even touch the gas. After this you can drive away but don't drive like you have to get anywhere soon. Don't get on it hard for at least 2 full minutes. The molecular structure of the turbo can cause it to shatter (deform) until its warmed up. When it's warm (hot) ENJOY!!! My 88 has an alarm (buzzer) if it got too hot. Just slow down for a bit and give it hell some more. I don't know if the MSP has this feature. It also has a light on the dash when to tell you when you are in boost.
The cool down is just as important. A lot of people buy T. Timers and this is recommended (I made one for my 88 with a 555 timer chip). Here's why: Motor oil will begin to smoke around 525 Deg F (274 Deg C). The constant oil flow will keep the temp down. When you shut the engine off, the temp of the oil can exceed 600 Deg F (316 Deg C) around the turbo bearings. When the oil is this hot it WILL crystalize and make little diamonds form on the bearing surface. Each time you start the car, these diamonds erode the bearings. This WILL cause a turbo bearing failure over a few years of service. Again, with 155K miles I have never had any service on my turbo! The car runs like the day I brought it home. Don't say I baby'd it, I went thru 46 tires and some tranny work (repair)!!! Thats only 16K miles or so avg per set of tires (4 are still good). In closing, WARM it up and COOL it down.
I will talk about fuel for turbos in another thread.

88 1.6L 323GT Turbo (Vogue Silver)
99 1.8L Prot ES (Sunlight Silver) and NOW...

#1244 (mspo) (wiggle)
PS: For the Zoom Clunk Update, They are Polyurethane with grease fittings. Summit Racing # ENS-9-5157G (Akron/ Talmadge, Ohio) 4 weeks, still no zoom clunk!

 

[Street KingFD]

Very good. Just an add on about the wait 2 full minutes, I suggest wait till the car is fully warmed up before ANY boosting is done.

 

[ForceFed]

Let it WARM UP BEFORE any boosting is done??:wtf: I'd like to see you drive for 2 min. without going over 3K rpm's!If you can do it come over to my house and i'll let you drive Miss Daisy around town!(laugh)


*PUTS ON FLAME RETARDENT SUIT!*(flame2)

 

[Red99Xtreme]

I'd like to see you drive for 2 min. without going over 3K rpm's

Obviously you have not Learned how to Control the Gas Pedal. You can run the Car thru the Revs......Even as High 6K without Ever running into Boost.....If you cannot do this, This must be your First Turbo car......Try it sometime and you will see exactly what I mean.

I have owned Several Turbo Vehicles and Around town Driving, I rarely ever was in boost. Cept when I had to make moves in Traffic.

Great Write up......Here are some other Turbo Tidbits you might not have known...

~The average temperature of the exhaust gas, at the entry point to a diesel
turbo, is 800 degrees centigrade. A petrol engine can reach 1000 degrees,
glowing bright yellow. Hot enough to melt window glass.
~New generation turbo's impellers rotate at up to 220,000 revs per minute.
The impellers on a Boeing 747 engine rotate at about 7,000 revs in
comparison.
~The air entering a turbo's compressor impeller can be travelling at a speed
close to mach 1.
~At average engine revs, a medium size turbo will swallow 130 cubic feet of
air per minute, equivalent to the interior volume of a transit van.
~Turbo shaft balance is crucial - imbalance at maximum revs equivalent to a
2 kilogram force is acceptable. Turbo rebuilders often find turbos supplied
for service with 6 kilos of imbalance. This is equivalent to driving along
with a brick attached to your wheel rim.
~The "hot end" turbine blades in a turbo, are made from a high nickel
content alloy, as used in jet aircraft engines. A blade will travel in the
region of 820 mph at average engine speed, and the exhaust gas entering it
will be supersonic.
~A turbo will accelerate from 20,000 revs per minute to over 150,000 revs
per minute in less that one second.


...NOW YOU DO!

Later,
Mike

 

[ForceFed]

I'm sorry:'( For the most part i was being funny HA! HA!! but I'm also sorry because no matter how easy you are on the gas pedal your turbo is still spinning whether it be at a low speed of 20K rpm's .Even at idle your turbo is spinning(for you guys that thought otherwise)If it didn't your car wouldn't run.Every car's turbo characteristics are different too!Some vehicles begin to build boost faster than others ,this we call the lag time,the time it takes a car to create enough exhaust pressure to spool the turbine to a speed under load to create boost.I am no idiot about tuning or turbo's .All in All i was being funny for the most part SORRY!I am also not trying to start a FLAMEWAR with this post so PLEASE do not take it the wrong way! JUST MY .02 cents THANX

 

[loj68]

hey FORCEFED I see you're in Dayton.....I was born and raised there and was wondering how it is these days??? I went a few years ago and downtown was like a ghost town.

 

[ForceFed]

Downtown has come to LIFE!New minor league ball park(SWEET!),new performing arts center where Rike's used to be,and all the business's(SPELLING=is this right???)are remodeling and new stuff pops up everyday!Night life is decent,still the tried and true Oregon district.I have been toasty there one too many times!If you hanen't been here in a few years you would be impressed!OH BTW,the also made a place called Riverscape where they do concerts,have ice skating outdoors in the winter,and do laser light shows over the river W/one of the worlds largest water cannon set-ups to make a wall of water in mid air to project the laser light shows onto like a giant big screen TV!It's turming out not to be such a bad place to live after all!Now if we could do something about the DAMN mood swings mother nature throws at us it would be wonderful!

 

[melicha8]

Hate to break it to you pal but diamonds do not form. Realize that diamonds take years(thousands) of high pressure and heat. What really happens is what is called coking. What happens is the oil breaks down into carbon deposits called coke. This can be formed from burning any petrol product in an oxygenless environment. These carbon deposits are what ruin your turbo. It 1)slows it down similar to using tar as a lubricant and 2)reduces cooling efficiency (by coating the bearings it acts as an insulator). These ultimately lead to wear and then failure. Not being anal just trying to get the real word out

 

[Aricjm15]

those crystals/carbon deposits are still solid, so it will damage your turbo regardless

so what if he didnt use the right term, atleast he knows what he is talking about, so if your not being anal, then why post?
IMO, it looks like you are being anal.

 

[chwood]

those crystals/carbon deposits are still solid, so it will damage your turbo regardless

so what if he didnt use the right term, atleast he knows what he is talking about, so if your not being anal, then why post?
IMO, it looks like you are being anal.

LOL

are you freakin serious?!!?
who cares about the difference between diamonds and coke?!!??

Sure, everyone mixes up things from time to time; even though he DOES know what he's talking about - using the right terms IS PART of knowing what you're talking about and its not like discussing the difference between effect/affect here - there is A BIT of a significant gap between diamonds and coke. Sheesh if some guy came in here giving advise about taking care of the "supercharger" on the MSP, you guys would laugh your @ss off at him for that gaffe.


"Oh honey, so what if its a coke ring, don't be so anal..."

 

[twiztedjeckel]

~The average temperature of the exhaust gas, at the entry point to a diesel
turbo, is 800 degrees centigrade. A petrol engine can reach 1000 degrees,
glowing bright yellow. Hot enough to melt window glass.

now i'm not up to date on my conversions but those don't seem that high. try playing with mr wankel and watch the fire those engine belch. EGT's usually range from 1500 degrees up to 2000.

 

[Newf]

I think sometimes people need to use something called...common sense?

I'm sure none of us actually believed our cars made Diamonds in our Turbo's. Christ, that would be really cool, I wouldn't need to work anymore, I could just drive around, make some diamonds, and sell them for a living.

It was just a metaphor. Stop playing with words and making arguments out of it, christ, my woman does that and it drives me nuts.

 

[yashooa]

Hate to break it to you pal but diamonds do not form. Realize that diamonds take years(thousands) of high pressure and heat.

Well they can make real diamonds now that are indistinguishable from the natural thing without a special light test. The manmade diamonds glow for a couple of seconds after the light is removed.
Even a specially trained gemologist can not tell the difference without the light test. Several people have pioneered this new technology some of which were Russian. I saw a really cool PBS special on man made diamonds

Yeah I know, useless info

 

[funnylittlman]

and I quote myself from the Turbo Timer thread:

Here is the article I found....

It was on the Mazda website

and I quote:
"The water cooling lines that run to the turbo allow the unit to resist the traditional 'coking' of oil during hot engine shut-downs. When the engine is shut down and the turbo is still very hot, a thermal syphon is created in the turbo water jacket. This has the effect of thermally pumping water through the turbo to keep it cool."

Here's the link if you're interested.....

Garrett T25 Turbo

Even Garrett (whom makes a lot of turbos daily) said that OUR, and I say OUR T25 has both water and oil cooling lines.... thus you can wait your 30 seconds or more if you'd like, but it's not necessary.

I myself wait 30 sec. to 1 min and then shut it off (and just for the record, I am by no means, a turbo expert. The article further goes to say that w/ proper oil changes, the turbo should last longer than the life of the car)

 

[chwood]

I think sometimes people need to use something called...common sense?

I'm sure none of us actually believed our cars made Diamonds in our Turbo's. Christ, that would be really cool, I wouldn't need to work anymore, I could just drive around, make some diamonds, and sell them for a living.

It was just a metaphor. Stop playing with words and making arguments out of it, christ, my woman does that and it drives me nuts.

LOL

well, while I would dispute that the usage was a "metaphor," I know whatcha mean.

 

[blynzoo]

Well they can make real diamonds now that are indistinguishable from the natural thing without a special light test. The manmade diamonds glow for a couple of seconds after the light is removed.
Even a specially trained gemologist can not tell the difference without the light test. Several people have pioneered this new technology some of which were Russian. I saw a really cool PBS special on man made diamonds

Yeah I know, useless info

I saw that special, cool as s***. You want to see something even funnier?:

http://www.lifegems.com/

AUGH!!! This is some freaky s***!!!

 

[BremertonMSP]

:wtf:

Great!! Just what I want to carry around, something made from a dead person!!

Well maybe if it was from my ex!!

 

[Street KingFD]

I don't know about you but I can drive without boosting any LBS till the car is warmed up fully. Rather be driving Miss Daisy than driving like a jack ass around town when any engine is cold. See you soon at the local Mazda service department! =)

 

[RX-KEVIN]

Twizted jeckel I know what you mean when you said the rotary's get hot I have had the whole manifold, down pipe, and mid pipe section glowing. I lit a cig off of the section past where the cat should be, yeah it's turbo.

 

[twiztedjeckel]

like i've always said. gotta love those rotaries