DrBrown54

How many of you good little boys and girls let your turbos cool down when you arrive to your destinations?

Anyone have a turbo timer and was is worth the money? I'm not really too lazy to just sit and let the car idle down for a minute before I turn it off. I always waited with my last car and I had 2 turbo failures (ebay lol). I wasn't sure if turbo timers wait until the turbo is at a certain temp before they turn off or if you just set the amount of time and walk away. Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of how long it takes for turbos to cool down to a normal temp so you can kill the engine? Thanks for your input.

sc3757

iTrader: (2)

I have mine set to 1 min. I usually let it sit longer if i have been driving harder though.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

I have a generic 61mm single turbo, no water cooling, and no oil cooler.
I push the turbo pretty much all the time and I shut it off when I arrive at my destination.
Sometimes it smells a little funny and I know its time to change the oil, and I have never had a problem with the oil getting baked anywhere especially in the turbo. pull the drain line every once in a while and take a look at it and make sure its not stopped up. mine has always been clear. I guess you would need to open up the turbo and check the bearings to be certain, but who wants to do that all the time.

If you use synthetic oil and change it regularly you prob won't have burnt up oil in your turbo generally speaking.
I think turbo timers are for when the oil used to not be full synthetic and needed extra help.

there is a whole debate on how much it helps or not, IMO an oil cooler would probably be a better modification as it would lower the average temps.

With turbo's and longevity, the best favor you can do yourself is save some money and get a Quality Journal bearing turbo, so if anything like that happens you can just have it re-built and it will be back to new. If you have a BB turbo in that same scenario you just got yourself a really expensive paperweight that can't be rebuilt.
Just my .02 I know BB is slightly superior in spool but that one point makes it not worth the tradeoff to me, and a quality built journal turbo will still spool quite well.

IOWNALEXUS

iTrader: (14)

Turbo timer is a total waste of money period. How many OEM cars/trucks with turbos have you seen come with a turbo timer from the factory? None.

Sc375

oil temps get crazy hot i never knew how hot till i put in a gauge, holding 3k-ish on the freeway (going 70-75) was taking the oil temps to 230+ F after about 20 mins

oil cooler with the thermostat brought it way down, boosting and city driving it stays around 175 and longer highway traveling it wont creep past 185 huge differance

Need4Speed

I have a HKS Turbo Timer on my Supra and Subaru and love it makes it easy to just walk away and leave the Turbo to cool down a little. You can adjust the time from 30secs-5mins anytime you want ..
Looking to add it to my IS now as well never had no problems with it....

1997Soarer

iTrader: (1)

They make great warm up tools if you havn't installed a remote start and you don't want to leave your keys in the car. I do that all the time. Start car, set timer to 9min 60seconds, take keys and go back inside. I also used it a couple times in winter to keep the car running while I was inside a store shopping lol.

Turbo timers do come in handy if you tend to drive really aggressive then park your car. Everyone had one in the street racing scene back in the early 2000s.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

Interesting. So with today's synthetic oils (i.e.: I always use Mobil1 synthetic) it's less of an issue than it was in the 90's? Was this also why GTE engines (and many factory turbo engines) got oil coolers from the factory? I assumed a turbo timer was recommended for any aggressively driven turbo car.

Ali, given your comments on modern turbos do you think it's still a good idea to use one of these with 2JZ stock twins since they are a decades old design at this point?


This is what I thought the reason was (aggressive driving and parking soon after). I remember the turbo timer craze well from all the popular magazines in the late 90's.

DrBrown54

Thanks for the replies. At this point I don't think I can justify the price of a timer, way too many maintenance jobs that come first. I like the idea of leaving it running in winter when I go to a store to keep the car warm.

I inherited this T61 with the car and it's a simple journal bearing. I really need to take the turbo off when it gets warmer out and measure the inducer/exducer to see what trim it really is and check shaft play. Then I can check the oil lines as well. On my previous car I had to run an oil feed restrictor that had a .063" hole. Based on a few searches it seems some 2JZ guys do this as well to prevent blowing seals in the turbo.

For anyone not using synthetic oil, start! My daily driver is a supercharged 06 cobalt SS. The oil filter setup is a drop-in cartridge style and is very hard to install. I did an oil change in the dark and I installed the oil filter cap crooked. The next morning I take off for work and the car spewed all of the oil out on my 1 mile trip to the freeway. I know because after I got home I saw the trail of oil 10" wide from my driveway to the freeway lol. I drove 55 miles to work that morning (all freeway) with virtually no oil. About 15 miles into the trip the oil pressure light came on but it was running fine and I have a coolant temp gauge in the display so I watched it like a hawk. I made it 55 miles to work and the ECT never went over 180. That engine is still running today, 3 years later with 196k miles and has 190psi compression on all 4 cyls. I will use Valvoline synthetic oil in every car I own the rest of my life. On the contrary, the last time I used Mobil1 in a track car the motor blew up lol. Probably just circumstances but I'm a believer in Valvoline now.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

This is what I was lead to believe after my research into the subject. synthetic oil was more expensive at first, basically you could use Royal purple or the conventional stuff and we all know how expensive the royal was so not everyone used it. Synthetic is much much more resistant to breaking down at extreme temps vs conventional and the conventional stuff will burn up and get thicker hence all the problems with clogging up small clearances inside the turbo.

If you have popped the valve covers off an old engine that ran only conventional before, you will see the top end stained and probably deposits in all sorts of crevices.
On my motor to this day with synthetic when I pop the valvecovers, everything is squeaky clean without any deposits sticking to anything, not even a stain from the oil.
Do be aware that when you switch to synthetic if you have a motor that has sludge or deposits from burnt oil, it will likely get dislodged and hopefully cleaned out.
on a old motor I would recommend remove the valvecovers, head, pan etc.. and clean it up as best as possible.
Its also a good sign of how the last owner treated the engine and how often they changed the oil etc...
A surprising amount of GTE's from japan will have used conventional oil only, and its not bad as the stock gte's have watercooling but its something to be aware of.

the agressive driving and parking just means you heated up your turbo a bunch and now the oil sitting in there will get super hot after shut down as its draining back into the pan. the thin film left behind is the issue then and since conventional oil has a lower flash point, well its going to be the first to burn up and clog stuff. with a good synthetic, it will just wear it down but won't burn up like the old stuff.

most of the turbo cars in the decade got the oil cooler, and its just that the oil temps with a turbo are hotter in general.

With the stock twins, they are water cooled, and take advantage of the coolant cooling the turbo down even after the car is shut off. what they do is align the housings at a slight angle with the inlet coolant port being a little higher, and this creates a heating and cooling cycle in the turbo that pushed the coolant through the coolant system. This has been shown to lower turbo shut off temps by several hundred degrees.

looks at this from here http://www.airpowersystems.com/wrx/aps_turbo.htm


The type of oil will move that coking threshold up higher, and the type of cooling will affect the temps shown.

So in short, if you have a water cooled turbo like the stock twins, just beat on it and turn it off when you want, you will never hurt those turbo's like that if the coolant lines are hooked up.

a turbo times is mostly for single turbo;s that are only oil cooled and you are really rough on them, or you just want to look cool as your car is still on while you walk away.
There are some small things you can do with it as stated above, but I like my car to be off when I walk away, something about it makes me feel more secure.. lol.

oh and the stock gte oil cooler is pretty bad, but it does work well enough on a stock or bpu+ setup to not worry about removing it. many serious gte owners swap to a GE oil filter housing and then run an external oil cooler to really get the temps down.

What I do is T4 Journal bearing, I just run a -3 line and call it a day. if you run a -4, depending on the quallity of the seals and turbo (go hand in hand), it may handle the volume /pressure of a -4 line, but you would probably be better using that .063 restrictor if you have issues like finding oil in your downpipe and the exhaust pouring out white smoke. do not go too small on a journal bearing turbo either or you will overheat the bearings.

Mobil 1, valvoline, I have used them both, they are pretty good I just get whatevers on sale. FULL SYNTHETIC only, the blends are only marginally better than conventional.
For blends before I Was turbo, I used the valvoline blends alot and the motor seemed to like it. I even used the blend for a while when I was turbo but swapped to full synthetic after the overhaul as I was afraid of leaks, but in hindsight it would be better to run synthetic and let it leak a little with an oil cooled single turbo. just my .02 turbo timers are cool but so is not cutting up your ignition wires.

DrBrown54

I'm pretty sure the first owner just used a straight -3an for the feed and it looks like a -10 drain. What amazed me was how big the Ford and DSM oil feed lines were on the garrett turbos. I saw an SVO mustang that had a 1/4" ID feed line from the factory! They must have low oil pressure from the block. Cause I used that same T3 with a -3 feed and blew out the seals. If this turbo ever dies I may consider a water cooled turbo just for giggles.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

oil cooled is fine. as I said install an oil cooler and you will be good in the long run. turbo timer the turbo only cools so much when you are idling, so its just one of those things thats like a bandaid.

Sc375

oil temps after oil cooler install was crazy different as i said, without a cooler it would be in the 230 range 235. just going on the freeway at 75 for 30 mins. after the cooler install it takes awhile for the oil to warm up to 180 (15 or so mins of driving) and creeps to maybe 190 here and there sensor is in the sanwhich plate at theoil filter