silly rabbit! trix are for kids!

 

Try turning the turbo timer off.

 

I gotta Blitz turbo timer that includes a boost gage. The controller/display unit is very small and connects with a cable to the gizmo itself which mounts under the dash - I have the display stuck on top of the steering column shroud, just below the tach. It is a good spot, easy to see and doesn't block any other gages. You can set the timer to set amounts by minutes and seconds, add minutes or tens of seconds on the fly after you turn off the ignition, OR you can let it decide based on your boost usage. You can configure it to start with a fixed amount of time and then it adds to that based on how long you run the car and how much boosting you do. If you decide any time you just want to kill the engine after the timer is engaged, there is an OFF button.

I guess we all have our opinions about what is reasonable or lazy or whether or not "coked bearings" is a real phenemon or not. I am a mechanical engineer and I just believe its true that if you get something really hot and then just kill the circulating oil supply, you ARE going to coke the bearings and/or oil passages. This can't be good for your turbos, period. It is common sense.

But how long for the cool down period, I dunno. For the stock turbos, made of typical materials (cast iron, aluminum, etc.), they probably cool down fast because these materials conduct heat well - fast warm-up, fast cool-down. Exotic turbos (ceramic) probably don't cool as fast and are more fragile (with regard to heat cycling) so probably could use more time. Probably a minute or two for conventional turbos and an extra minute or two for ceramic ones would be appropriate. This presumes they are good and hot from some spirited driving. For 2 miles of mild driving, you can probably just shut the car off without ill effect.

 

The OEM turbos are watercooled also.....I've NEVER heard of a single case of turbos being ruined by "coked" bearings....EVER.

I HAVE however, heard of people losing a motor because a coolant line blew while the turbo timer was idling their car and it overheated. More than once.

 

so, blitz turbo timer looks like the way to go.

 

I hope you are kidding...

Dave

 

early morning, and I cracked up when I read this...thanks!

 

This thread is hilarious

 

.

 

Yep.

 

The truth is spoken!

 

Anyone miss this?

 

Having trouble getting your point across?

Dave

 

What happends when you cant wait 30 seconds or a min...

 

As an engineer myself, I ponder this to you: Reliability and Mean Time Between Failures. What is your justification in still choosing to add a uncessary equipment that dramatically decreases the MTBF? comon sense is not to WOT 2 minutes before shut down.



Why is it soo hard to not floor it the last 2 minutes??? It seems that some people *just can't* get off the damn throttle and are @ WOT 100% of the time. If that's truly the case a turbo timer still is not gonna do **** for them. 5000 miles of pure WOT equates to a lot **** breaking due to abuse. Including: Apex seals, turbo seals, coolant hoses. Take your pick

 

Well that was their fault for not securing the coolant lines, not the turbo timer's fault. That could happen anywhere at anytime, so I can't see how you can blame it on anything other than misfortune.

 

well at least you are in the car when it happens and hoefully you catch in time.

Coolant hoses break. I had one brake split on me and it only had about 15k miles on it. I was ther to shut off the car hence nothing happened

 

Right, but I'm just saying that the reason for the engine blowing isn't definitely because of the turbo timer. They only run for around a minute, which is normally either equal to or less than the amount of time it'd take you to pull over and troubleshoot the problem.

 

Common sense:

1) Nobody has ever lost an FD turbo due to coking.

2) Turbo timers served a purpose back in the 80's with 80's motor oils and non-water cooled turbos. Today they are nearly useless. With a water cooled turbo they are completely useless.

3) If your goal is to cool the car you're far better off driving the last couple minutes off boost rather than parking and idling the motor. When parked even if the radiator fans are running the oil coolers get nothing. The entire underhood area gets tremendously more airflow when the car is moving.

 

You missed that you have too many commas.

 

It does not take me a minute to pull over. 15 seconds tops and that's without me turning off the car while it's still rolling.

see you are under the impression that turbo timers never fail. The real concern here is that in fact these things have been known fail. Do search if you don't believe me.

 

I'm actually wondering about getting a turbo timer, but for 1 simple reason.

Each morning when I drive to work I have to catch a ferry. I have to park the car and get on the ferry. Usually I have plenty time, but sometimes there are lots of big trucks and so on slowing me down. That means I run late, and have to step on it when I get the chance to catch the ferry. Have to many times been in time, but had to see the ferry go, cause I have too cool down the car before getting on the ferry.

I have 2 soulutions to the problem: Driving from home 5 min earlier each morning, and wait for the ferre 5 min extra each day. Which I'm not going to do (since it's so hard getting up in the morning). The other is getting a turbotimer.
So it's a easy choice. Better safe than sorry. And if it start making trouble, I'm just gonna remove it. It's easy math, if I run an hour late every know and then, but won't when I get a turbotimer, It's might actually save money.

Ìf I hadn't had this problem, I would never consider getting a turbotimer.

Mazdalavista

 

Unless that last 5km is uphill at 150kmh, forget it. The engine will get a little hot, but not a big deal. Autocrossers have to grid a sorta-hot car regularly, and it doesn't matter that much.

Dave

 

You guys obviously have a lot more direct or anecdotal experience than I do about how FD turbos typically DO fail. So how is that? I am curious how you could know exactly what caused the failures and whether any ill treatment they received during their lives might have hastened their deaths?

You guys point out they are water cooled. This is great while the water is circulating. Obviously this makes the turbos able to take a lot more punishment while in use than in the old days. So too, the bearings float on pressurized oil, while it is circulating, in use. Both of these things happen while the car is running. When you turn off the motor, bye bye water cooling and bye bye oil cooling.

Look I am not suggesting that a turbo timer is the end all. I am suggesting that a modest cool down period is appropriate when shutting the car off suddenly after some hard driving. And if you don't mind sitting there in your car for a minute or two after hard driving, when appropriate, this is obviously better, from a systems reliability perspective. I weighed these considerations and in my case, I selected a unit that provided a very helpful function in addtion to enabling my laziness - a built-in boost gage, integrated with the timer. I have never had any problems with it of any kind, find its functionality to be an asset, and do not regret installing it.

Works for me. I guess I am just a big foolish kid!

 

Actually, the oil and coolant stay in the lines. They will continue to flow (more slowly) due to convection and carry away heat.

So while temps in the block and turbos will rise due to heat soak from the lack of flow over the radiator, they don't just sit there and marinate.

Well if you watch your water temps, you might find that they get hotter during idle. So idling can actually leave the engine bay a lot hotter than if you simply shut it off when the car comes to a stop. Idling makes my engine much hotter. So a turbo timer would create worse heat soaking than none, in my case.

It's hard to argue meaningfully about this point, but suffice it to say a turbo timer is not *necessary* for long engine life.

Dave