There's someone in the Modular section that's ran one over a year with no problems and loves it . I haven't really looked into how they work, spend my time draining low mounts. lol

 

If they are sized properly for the application and mounted up front they seem to hold up great.

Id think mounting them in the rear then water cooling them, "might" have kept the grease to cold to really turn over to liquid properly while running, its a very high temp grease, and I'd imagine if the turbo never really got over 250-300 degrees that may have had something to do with it. Of course I may be totally wrong here to... lol

 

No update yet... I have been out of the country and have not yet installed the turbos. I am planning on doing my piping next week and turn key by end of this month. Ill keep up with the tread after I am done. I hate it when people dont let anyone know what happened and fall off the face of the earth and we never have real world data...

 

This thread is awesome. Haha, entertaining and informative. Look forward to
some results.

 

Throw a couple of thoughts at you:

Normal Turbo System uses oil from the engine. Say you have 6 quarts of oil in the pan which is constantly recycling from the pan to the engine and turbo(s)
and cooled by the engine coolant system. So on a long cruise (at 80 mph ) from Grand Rapids to Detroit the oil temp basically is the same temperature
throughout the whole trip.

Now we talk about your reservoir style remote oil system for your turbo(s).
If we run the same long cruise, you have to ask, a few questions:

1) How are you going to cool the oil? (Normal oil pans for transmissions do a lousy job of cooling. The finned ones are a bit better BUT YOU STILL NEED
TO HAVE THE TRANSMISSION COOLED BY THE RADIATOR OR BY A REMOTE HEAT EXCHANGER.)

2) There is quite a bit of oil volume/mass in a transmission oiling circuit. The pan holds oil, the converter holds oil, the pump holds oil, the lines hold oil,
and the radiator or heat exchanger holds oil. More oil capacity, more time before the oil reaches overtemp on a long cruise.
WHERE IS YOUR OIL CAPACITY IN YOUR SYSTEM?

3) Typically if you had a circle track car that used a Pump mounted and driven by the yoke of the driveshaft, you still needed to plumb lines to a heat exchanger that
had access to a lot of cooling air. (So you now had a fool-proof pump and a bit more oil volume but rear axle systems are not turbos. You can't stop pumping oil to the
turbo like you can with a rear axle that has its own reservoir in production and can live with no external cooling forever with Grandma driving the car.
SO YOU CAN'T USE THE REAR AXLE STYLE OF PUMP ON YOUR DEAL. YOU NEED A PUMP THAT IS WORKING AND PERFORMING PERFECTLY EVERY SECOND THE TURBO
IS TURNING.

Post up some ideas on how you are going to protect your turbo(s) for each one of these items with your remote system. Thanks

Tom Vaught

 

So the OP made a 7 Qt. reservoir. I'd say mount a temp sensor in the reservoir and see what the temps are doing to start with. IMHO it would take a VERY long drive to heat 7qts of oil to critical temps with just the turbo(s) heating it up. (could be totally wrong here!) Standard electric oil sump pump(s) would have to be used. Then if the OP were to run a trans cooler/fan setup remote mounted as well inline pre-turbo, I don't see why oil temps couldn't be kept in check fairly easily? Again I haven't done any of this, just guessing.

There are alot of "short cuts" that could be taken if it's just being built for a local cruiser. Alot less R&D/cooling/problems to worry about. My C5 sits most of the year and gets cruised around town on nice days. If it were my setup I don't think it would even require a cooler.

 

Agree, actual data would tell you if with your car's "Duty Cycle" you are over 230 degrees F oil temp for any period of time, it is time for a heat-exchanger.
We use the same spec on Cop Car automatic transmission temps.

Tom Vaught

 

I have been reading suggestions and comments and I am nearing the end of this journey. I have been spending a ton of time engineering it trying to figure out the fittings needed etc. and only waiting on a few more parts to be done. I am going to run some bench tests before mounting the system, if all my theoretical data checks out then I will mount it and do some road testing. I am worried about the cooling elements as well so i may have to do some more figuring. I will keep this tread updated as a i build. Thanks for your inputs.

 

I went back and looked at the drawing of your first post.

1) Bad idea to have ANY RESTRICTION on the drain side of the turbo as shown in your drawing.

2) You do not want the filter media to catch the trash before the oil reservoir. Let the trash (what little there is)
go to the reservoir so that you can drain it out like a oil pan with a drain plug.

3) ok to have a 60 micron screen (Oberg/Holley) on the inlet side of the pump for the turbos. Line to the turbos
should be minimum -3 and hopefully -4 size.

4) OK to have a sensor on the pressure side of the system to detect oil pressure (even a gage) but you should also probably
have a oil pressure warning light (like a shift light) to tell you things are not good with the system. A 'Kill Switch' might save the turbo(s)
but kill you if the 'kill switch' killed the engine during a hard acceleration with a bus on your butt. Turbos are cheap vs surgery.

Tom Vaught

 

Recheck his drawing. Magenta=Return Black=feed.

Good to hear you're still working on it. It will be interesting to see how the bench testing works out for you.

 

After reading through everything on here about this. Why go stand alone on the turbo's only? Why not just go to a dry sump system for everything? and then that way you could use a 3 gallon tank with a multi stage pump and get the same results.

 

The drawing basically says that he will pull the oil out of the turbos using the pump, send it to a cooler, and then into a reservoir.

The reservoir is supposed (I assume by gravity), leak the oil thru a filter and then into the turbos inlet side.

1) Turbos do not like pumps sucking on the drains. The Porsche Cayenne uses a dry sump system to pull oil from a collection box BUT ALSO HAS A VENT THAT GOES TO THE VALVE COVER.
This keeps the box from sucking crap past the piston ring seals on the compressor and turbine side and into the oil system/bearings.

2) Turbos need pressure to function properly and create the hydrodynamic film that allows the turbo to float the shaft in the bearings. Gravity feeding the turbos will provide very little pressure
to the turbos inlet side. Plus the filter will reduce the flow even farther (without adequate pressure to force the oil through the filter media.

Turbos need engine oil pressure and sufficient flow to allow the bearing system in the CHRA (Center Housing Rotating Assembly) to survive.

You have a lot of things backward in your design.

1) Pump from the reservoir to the oil cooler.
2) From the oil cooler to the filter and then to the turbos.
3) Drain from the turbos to the reservoir. large hoses (all downhill) and nothing between the turbos and the reservoir.

Tom Vaught

 

You know what happens when you assume something. Better just to look one last time at their drawing and read what they posted.

"if you look at my crude diagram you will see I have two pumps one to feed and second for scavenge."

I have seen many setups run off the mechanical pump for the supply and a small electric low pressure pump for the scavenge. Some will use the mechanical pump to to scavenge them as well (turbo drain routed to pumps low pressure side).

 

Gentlemen - and all the hotties who might be stalking us ....

Have read some of your forum subjects with great interest - I am about to build a twin-turbo rig for
my custom Blazer - this one has all kinds of toys including rear-wheel steering - which I will use to
drive the local natives crazy when it blows away their hopped-up wannabe race cars - as it takes off
side-ways like a crab in heat down the road ....my automobile background/experience is mostly in 911
930/917 with a little turbine tech thrown in for good measure - so rest assured I shall pester y'all with
all kinds of Q&A - as the Man once said .. "There aint no such thing as dumb questions - only a lot
of dumb answers"

My truck rig will have its own bespoke oiling system for its two turbos, always believed in redundancy
and dont want to lose all that slippery stuff out of the sump because a 25c hose fell off ... and take my
beautiful V8 with it ....rather replace the turbine bearings frankly .....

The motorcycles boys have been in the oil business a long time - I am also a proud HOG owner which
brings me to the nub of my reply .... hope this helps and have a profitable day

Best Regards

Jack

 

Ok so he has two pumps, in my mind twice the opportunity for a failure on a 'driver' type vehicle.

Someone posted that cheaper to change turbo bearings vs fix an engine. And how is the engine supposed to fail?
Trucks run hundreds of thousands of miles with turbocharged engines using a properly designed engine oil feed system.

If the electric motor oil system are really the hot deal then why are none of the oems using such a device in production on a large scale?
Not worth the risk apparently.


Tom Vaught

 

You bring up a good point but to be honest, I am not sure how changing to an electric pump would change the failure rate of a car. I know we used to pump the fuel with mechanical pumps and now we do it with electrical pumps. I am not even sure if a car is made that uses an mechanical fuel pump now. We used to use mechanical fans and clutches for the cooling system as well. Now it's all electric motor driven.

I am not sure we changed to mechanical fuel pumps and electric fans because they were the "hot deal" of the time. We were required to meet new standards, forcing EFI. I am sure all the MEs tried their best to make MFI work.

 

We had mechanical diaphragm pumps on early boosted engines. We had gear driven pumps on early Corvette Engines with fuel injection. In both cases, if the pump failed, the car just pulled over to the side of the road until the repair was completed.

Same deal today with the high pressure tank mounted pumps. If the pump fails, (happened to me on a company vehicle one time), you pull to the side of the road, call "Johnny the Hook" with his flat bed to pick you up and start over in a different vehicle to get home.

I supposed you could say having "Johnny the Hook" with his flat bed to pick you up costs this much IF THE ELECTRIC OIL PUMP ON YOUR TURBO SYSTEM FAILS AND YOU BURN UP THE TURBO.

So maybe you are right. It is only money and if you are willing to spend the money if the system fails, go for it.

I tend to design in terms of very high durability, if the vehicle program, allows it. Race cars are one thing. Being stuck on the road with your family is another story.
But stuff happens. 4 brand new tires, driving on I-75, the truck in front of you dumps some scrap metal on the road and 3 of the 4 tires are cut beyond repair.
In that case, no engineering on the vehicle is going to fix that deal.

So design up your stand-a-lone system, drive the vehicle and post up how it worked out. You will be the one on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck if you made a mistake.

Tom Vaught

 

I know we are using both Mech pumps and Mech. fans at my company.

On our turbocharged vehicles we still use old school oil feeds and drains and journal bearings.

 

Ran a self contained oil system on a turbo car for a while. The turbo gravity drained into a vented 4 quart reservoir that fed a turbowerx pump that fed the oil back to the turbo. Small inline filter after the pump. Used an adjustable bypass valve to regulate the pressure. Ran it for a few summers like that on a weekend warrior type car. Mostly street time with short drives to local stuff. Had a pressure gauge.and low pressure light for the the system.

It worked without problems for this car. Not the simplest design. Still using the same pump as a scavenge only pump now.

 

Nice Sean, I ended up selling the car and got something new that I am thinking of boosting. I may run an oil less turbo so I dont have to deal with re inventing the wheel