flashgordon666

this articale below says turbo timers and dump valves are a waste of money.

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And if you've got a turbo car, you're sure to have been told that a turbo timer is a good idea. You know, to give time for the turbo to cool down and so stop frying the oil in the turbo bearing after you switch off. Well, I think that turbo timers are a total waste of money. I'll go further - they also make your car easy to steal.

So why are they a waste of money? If your car has a water-cooled turbo (all turbo cars of recent times), the heat build-up in the bearing after switch-off isn't so terrible - the water transfers the heat away. The use of synthetic oil also reduces the likelihood of oil coking - and all turbo cars benefit from the safety of running a synthetic. And finally, if you've been driving your car hard, exactly what is the problem in sitting in your car for a minute or two while it idles? You can then let the engine cool down for as long as needed - and it doesn't cost you a cent.

And easier for thieves? Remember that a turbo timer is an ignition switch bypass. That means that a thief spotting a turbo timer prominently mounted on the dash only has to pull out the wires leading to the box to have ready-made access to an ignition jump-starter. And that doesn't even include the vulnerability of leaving your car idling when you wander off!

In six turbo cars I've owned I've never fitted a turbo timer - and one is just passing 170,000 of mostly urban kilometres with the original (and boosted!) turbo still happily in place. In summary - why'd you bother?

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

er, great!
What about if you have a drive way with gates? Is it ok to use one then?

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

That article contradicts itself a number of times...

Says you don't need to cool the turbo down, and then says, if you need to cool the turbo down, sit in the car for a few minutes

Also, urban driving is unlikely to get the turbo spinning at 100,000 rpm - the engine might get hot, but not the turbo (relative to how hot it can get), unless the person drives in 1st gear everywhere?

My turbo timer does bypass the ignition key (dur, that's the whole point!), but you still need to disarm the immobiliser to get the engine started!

I don't need to use the turbo timer every day, but it does have its uses.

The rookie

iTrader: (1)

Sorry, but the article is substantially correct, turbo timers with modern watercooled turbo's and synthetic oils are pretty much a waste of time, feel free to have one if you want though, and they do make a car less secure, but autospeed is an Oz site, so most cars probably don't have alarms, and they certainly haven't heard about Thatcham!

Simon

snowyEJ20

I can see the point of the article in essence (about the turbo timer). I had a Reno GT turbo with no turbo timer and she worked fine till it decided it didn't like head gaskets much When i bought my Impreza, it had one fitted already. It's also secure because there is a trigger on the handbrake, and when released, will kill the engine so no one drives off in her. Secondly to my immobiliser, i have a fuel pump switch. Better be safe than sorry i reckon. Its a handy piece of kit to have, the turbo timer........................... and it only cost me €8000

And whats that gibberish about dump valves. I think most of us normal people know they don't increase performance but yet he says to an extent turbo cars don't need them and then goes on to talk about why manufactures put them in and the cars do need them

Crazy Ozzy man

JohnD

iTrader: (5)

Turbo timers are, let's face it, a bit of a gimmick. By all means get one, but you could spend the money on something more useful.
Make the last part of your journey at low revs and let the engine idle for a minute before switching off - job done!
Dump valves (blow off valves) are an integral part of a turbo - charged engine, they're there for a purpose. Low pressure turbo applications can get away without one. You don't need one that makes a silly noise, though!
JohnD

rks275

oh my! what a contradiction the whole article is!

silent running

I was ready to have a laugh at this article, until I read it and realised it was Julian Edgar of Autospeed. The geezer knows his stuff. I think he has probably not made it clear enough, but when he's talking about 'blow off valves' he's not talking about factory recirculating valves. He's talking about VTA dump valves and in this, I can't find anything to disagree with him about. In fact the whole article makes a lot of sense. If you dig a little deeper and have a proper look around Autospeed's archives, you'll find a lot of absolutely fascinating stuff. These guys are no keyboard warriors inanely repeating stuff they heard on a forum or from a 'well known tuner'. If there's something they don't understand they go and find out how it works and how it could be made better, and they do it all themselves, not trusting other people's say-so. And that's how it should be. I wish there were more people on SN who were into finding stuff out for themselves instead of relying blindly on others' opinions.

sterobbo01

So if you don't have a turbo timer, what's the recommended time to allow it to cool down? I normally leave mine two mins but is that long enough??

STI_Baly

iTrader: (23)

Fair enough and i can understand that the above is a fact. But just wanted to say........i have a clifford alarm and a HKS T Timer, i leave her running all the time for the 60 seconds and the alarm looks after the rest, tried to hijack the scoob myself sitting in it and didn;t even alarm it, i dropped the handbrake and pow she stalled with alarm blaring...Just my 2p's worth.