Hey guys, I'm about to be redoing my radiator lines, and was wondering what the best place is to be running coolant to my turbo from. Currently I have a line coming from the upper and lower radiator hose, and obviously going to either side of the turbo. It seems to me that not much coolant would actually be flowing through the turbo this way, I'm not sure though. I'm considering splicing into the hard coolant line that goes from the heater that runs right by the turbo.

What do you guys think? Any thoughts would be welcome!

-Jake

 

what turbo is it? i know a few ppl runing the TII turbos on 12a's and they dont run the coolent lines at all only the oil......

but the heater hose would probley be 1 of the best places to splice into

 

I've heard that some people don't run coolant lines at all. i have a s4 turbo, well sort of. It's been rebuilt and upgraded externsively by turbonetics; compressor and exhaust wheels are different, and the compressor housing is larger. Only thing the same is the exhaust housing. I'm not going to do anything to the turbo that might possibly shorten its life, so I want to keep the lines hooked up. But yea, I'm thinking the heater hose might be best... We'll see what other turbo guys have to say...

 

yeah i would keep the coolent lines seeing as its not a cheep stock turbo.....protect your money!!

 

Running coolant through your turbo may keep it a little cooler but I've never liked the idea of coolant and oil being so close together. But you'd want to take water from around the thermostat and dump it close to the bottom of the rad. In theory the water at the thermostat is the coolest (when at operating temp) since it controls the minimum temp the water can get.

 

You can tap a fitting into the water pump housing for the feed and braze a tee into the heater return hard line for the return. Simple.

 

Hmm, maybe I should drill and tap out where that sensor goes into the back of the water pump housing... or does anyone know what the threading is for it? I'm not even sure what it goes to, but it hasnt been hooked up in years

 

What water pump housing are you using? On the 13B motors theres a nipple next to the temp sensor.

Thanks, Ed

 

you must be referring to the 6port water pump housing

 

This is a standard 12a water pump housing. There's some sensor that screws into the back side of the housing, it's pretty large in diamter, maybe over 1/2 an inch. Not sure really, i don't pay much attention to it. I have a 13b 6-port water pump and housing sitting around, I imagine its a bit larger, and flows more.. i dont remember exactly what it looks like, but maybe I should rig it up to my 12a, get more flow, and if theres a nipple on it somewhere, there'd be a nice and easy place to run my coolant from. I'll have to check that out

 

Thats where I plan to get my coolat feed from if I decide to run coolant in my turbo. For the drain you can tee off the heater hose return going to the bottom of the rad.

Thanks, Ed

 

Some of the FD guys will take it off the manifold if IIRC. There are already nipples that are there.

 

What type of intake do you have? The coolant passage that goes through the stock intake might be a good place to tap into. If you have an aftermarket intake manifold depending on the set up you might be able to tap thougth the manifold to get to the passages in the engine. Take off the manifold and get a intake gasket see if drilling through the manfold will be a clean hole or if it will just mess it up. It would also make for very short lines. Just a thought.

 

Fwiw, the S4 TII's take the coolant supply from the rear housing, which then goes through the intake to the coolant feed line for the turbo. Imho, this set up, which is between the primary and secondary intake ports of the rear housing, may be a cause for the rear apex seals failing, due to the coolant heating the intake charge for that rotor.