Ok, I finally got around to mocking up the turbo on my S4 engine with the Jay-Tech manifold. Turns out the turbo just clears the manifold, but only by about a half inch. Do I need more clearance than that to prevent the manifold from heating up too much?

 

It would work but the less heat you have near your intake the better. Ebay has some manifolds that pushes the turbo forward that will get you more clearances. OR if you have a header from your N/A setup flip it over and hack it up and make your own manifold for fairly cheap.

 

as long as you have some clearance, it's enough.

the turbo on my FD clears the manifold by like 1/10th of an inch.

what's right near the intake manifold, the compressor or the turbine? The compressor gets hot, but not all that hot.

you can wrap the whole turbo in exhaust wrap if you're concerned about it, it insulates pretty well.

 

I'll have to get a pic of it, but the turbine and compressor are within about a half inch of the secondary runners of my Jay-Tech manifold. Its almost like the manifold was designed to go around the turbo in this way.

 

If you have any scrap aluminum sheet metal, it would be wise to make a heat shield to go between the two. Any heat you can keep away from the intake, the more power you will make.

 

Here are some pics of the turbo mocked up on the car. Hopefully its easy enough to see the clearances.

 

That's a little tighter that I thought. Still enough room for a heat shield. I would also suggest stripping that paint off the intake. Makes it harder for the heat to escape.

 

Paint also keeps heat out, and in this case I think it would help me more than hurt. If I stripped the paint off, I would be left with a fugly looking intake. Whoever had it last decided to try to polish it up but did a horrible job.

I'm thinking I'll just wrap the turbine in exhaust wrap, along with the downpipe. Should do the job I think.

 

IIRC aluminum doesn't make a real effective heat shield, but more or less lets the heat pass strait through. i think tin or steel would do a better job.

w/ my current turbo project, the turbo is nestled real close to the intake manifold. hopefully ill have enough room for a turbo diaper, although im also a little worried that wrapping my S4 turbo may cause more cracking than they are already prone too

 

Its mostly the manifold that has cracking problems. My turbo and manifold came off the same car with the same miles on them, and the manifold was cracked pretty good, but the turbo is in really good shape as far as that goes. For the cracks in the manifold, I just welded it up.

 

^my turbo already has 1 little hairline crack in the divider between the 2 ports on the turbo. im not too worried bout the turbos current condition, but i dont want that crack to spread from the heat being held in by the diaper