Oil Cooled Only Turbos? Experiences?
 

Just wondering how many of you are running Oil Cooled only turbos and what you are seeing in terms of reliability, oil life, etc? On one of my past 1.6 builds I was running a T28 Oil Cooled Only turbo that seemed to cook oil like crazy (Oil needed to be changed every 1K or so) despite allowing extensive cool downs.

Just curious if you all have had similar experiences? :bang:

Supposedly with synthetic oils cooking isn't really a problem anymore. Most turbo failures I see are oil seal problems from poor drains. That said, I run a restrictor and a -12AN drain to be safe. My seals don't leak and I have no shaft play, ~3k miles on the setup so far.

most turbo race cars ive seen are oil-only cooled and they all work just fine.

The turbo used in the Greddy kit is oil cooled only. I have about 7K on my mine. Doesn't seem to burn oil. I guess you could run a query of how long people run the TDO4H-15G before upgrading/how long they've lasted.

Oil-cooled Greddy Kit, 20k+ miles on it. No issues.

run oil cooled only turbo too, no problem, track with it as well.

700hp srt4's oil cooled, you should be fine on 1/3 of that power.

No reason you should ever have any issues unless you run shit oil or dont change it often enough. In which case you would have issues with a water cooled turbo also, so its really not an issue. I would have no problem running an oil only turbo daily driven and tracked. Like Pat said, with modern oil, its not an issue as much to have oil break down like dino oil used to on really hot setups. However, given the option I would run water cooled just to help spread out the cooling duty.

5 setups, all oil cooled, no problems

be a man.

The main purpose of water through the turbo is to prevent coking oil, basically after shutdown.

I believe Dr. Turbo stated the reason for water cooling a turbo not too long ago, and it is what Braineack said.

The coolant keeps the CHRA at a more uniform temperature, but ultimately it's the oil that still passes over the bearings/shaft and provides the most cooling benefit.

Were you running an external air-oil cooler? Bad drains: ftl. You get back pressure and keep the oil suspended in the chra.

Drain was more than sufficient. The car in question was built, run and sold over 6 years ago. So no way to diagnose it now! I was just curious as to others experiences.

Excessive crank case pressure will cause drain issues, even with a sufficient drain. Nearly everything I've read states what's posted above- the water cooling was implemented by OEs to prevent oil coking after the car was shut off.

We've got plenty of folks who have 10,000+ hours of run time at various loads and rpms on original turbos with oil only on the diesel side. Some push 45psi boost. On Rotella dino oil.

When we do have failures it is usually due to hot shutdown and can be traced back as a recurring problem with certain operators. Human error.
BTW - anyone know where to find a 24v turbo timer? God knows we need some in this industry.

Ya I have problems with my operators not alowing idle time before shut down, the best solution I found for that is to send the home for the rest of the day. All 40 or so of our machines are oil only cooled and some have lasted over 10,000 hours.

Ok experts- what is the target oil temp for shut down?

We don't use oil temp just time, not all of our machines run at the same temps, or even have oil temp gauges. CA new laws state that we can only allow and engine to Idle for 5 minutes or we can be fined.