turbo temp

[BLKMGK]

Some general info I learned on a Turbo'ed V8 I can share and hope it helps...

 

At an idle my intake air temp would rise pretty high. Heat off the intake and stagnent air flow allowed the intake air to get pretty warm. Moving off idle it would drop some but would be noticeably above ambient by at least 20 degrees or so (been awhile, I'm fuzzy here). Matting the throttle I'd hit about 10-12lbs at WOT and intake temps would PLUMMET! Pretty quickly I'd see intake temps pretty close to ambient.

 

So long as the intercooler is effecient, sees decent airflow, and the turbos aren't being run out of their airflow range you ought to see much the same thing I'd think. This is assuming that your air intake gets fresh air too BTW. Speaking of the intake - check the pressure drop there before the turbo inlet. If you see vaccum (sp?) you've got work to do as thismeans there's a restriction. Restrictions on a turbo inlet can really hurt performance a great deal.

 

Obviously you won't see below ambient unless you run spraybar (water spray on the intercooler - race planes do this mostly) or use a waterair intercooler and ice (drag race). Changes in ambient temps made BIG HP changes in my car to say the least so keep that in mind. A hot day could cause some nasty detonation and a cold one can cause you to go lean.

 

It sounds like you've got an intercooler now and are considering changing it, yes? Have you instrumented the one you've got now? You'll want to know pressure drop across the core - intake/outlet and you'll want to know temp drop too. Somewhere there's a formula for computing effeciency of the core, if you've got the readings or want the formula I can try to dig it up - I've got a book on turbos here somewhere. Honestly the numbers don't mean as much to me as performance tho' If you do the instrumenting and it looks bad then I'd consider a swap but do identify where the problem is first. High temps on the turbo outlet could mean it's out of it's map. High pressure drop across the intercooler could mean it's too restrictive for your boost range. If the temp drop is low look for airflow obstructions over the core, even paint on the core can screw this up!

 

Do be careful of your tubing lengths as this will cause lag and pressure drop that might negate a more favorable mounting position. The new ballbearing turboes look to be pretty sweet and if I hadn't gone a different direction would've been the upgrade path for my old twin turbo motor...

 

Good luck!