Opinions on Turbo Timers?
 

Do I really need one? If so which one would you recommend and why?

Advantages/disadvatages to having one?

Just a little run down on my set up if this will help

Custom SS tubing equal length manifold
GT28RS
Greddy EMU
550 Injectors
Treadstone TR8 Intercooler

While i'm slowing learning turbos please remember i'm a noob for the most part.

i always thought they were a waste of cost, time, and complexity added to the car. if you've been driving hard just let the car idle for 30 seconds

They're totally gay, unless maybe if you have one of the 2 remaining aerodynes.

I didn't realize it was that short of a period of time. What temp should the turbo be before you turn off the car. I could install a temp sensor and monitor it for the correct temp and then shutdown. Where should temp be measured from?

I always let my turbo civic's egts drop to at least 700 before I shut the car off. I have an oil/water t3 on it without water run. No issues on the turbo and its been in use for 30k so far.

Funny, I do the same thing. Except my EGT probe is *exceedingly* slow, so it's usually 800° for me. I find that:

1- When I get home in the evening, my drive from the front gate to my apartment is sufficiently long and slow that I'm already below 800° before I get to the garage, particularly if I stop to get the mail on the way.

2- When I get to work in the morning, I have a shorter "slow" portion, so I usually have to wait about 30-45 seconds after I pull into my parking space. If I've been datalogging, it takes me longer than that to save the data and upload it to the network (I have WiFi in the car, and a WAP installed inside the office that's reachable from my parking spot- ditto in my garage at home)

3- If I've really been flogging it and then I pull into a restaurant parking lot or something, it can take up to two minutes to cool down. I use this time to pause and reflect on the purity of my soul and the state of world affairs. :bigtu:

Thanks guys this is a big help and a good reason for me to add an EGT to my list of Gauges.

By your responses I get the sense that no one but you guys drives your respective cars. Since that is not my case (3 sons who all have a "heavy foot" and the "so what, it's dad's car anyways!" attitude) I did buy one of those gay turbo timers. :)

FWIW, I went with the pen style one.

I just installed a relay on a 90 second timer. Every time I shut the car off it stays idling for 90 seconds. Cools things down, gets people asking questions, and doesn't cost enough in gas for me to care.

The first mistake was letting the sons drive the car :)

You got me there! Too late for me now. :)

the other thing that worried me was what if you were overheating and wanted to turn your car off NOW, wouldn't that be annoying if you pulled over real fast, took the key out, popped, the hood and hopped out of the car to see what was up and you're still running. i'm sure there is a defeat, but if someone else were driving you might be sol

Sorry to beat an old thread.. but what if your car was on FIRE!? and some stupid little gizmo continued to belch 115 octane fuel into the underhood fire?? :eek:

http://www.jugrnot.com/Dsc00670-2.jpg

Point in case. Might not look too bad, but the insurance company decided it did over $35,000 in damages to the car. Total loss. :td:

Who's supra is that?

We all have our reasons to like or dislike turbo timers, but I just pulled my GReddy off after 50,000 miles to do some other work.

There is no shaft play in any direction and I can spin the turbine by blowing on it.

I'm crediting the turbo timer for this:bigtu:

Man that's wierd. I went thru two greddy turbos in half as much miles. Good for you though :)

And I can't spin even the smaller BB garretts by blowing on them, let alone the sleeve bushing ones. you must blow better than me.

I use an apexi pen style timer. It doubles as a a/f gauge when calibrated properly to one of the LC-1's outputs. As for the shutting the car off if you need to instead of it running, just drop the e-brake and it kills the motor. I bought my timer for $40 used on ebay, not bad for a/f gauge that could also prolong the life of my turbo.

yes tim......you do blow.

Dont alot of turbo timers have little buttons that you could just shut it off or not even have it run the car after shutting it down? I remember getting pulled over in my buddies supra and him reaching overs pushing a button on his Apex pen style turbo timer and the car instantly shutting down, After the key was turned off of course :)

A properly installed turbo timer will, at a minimum, be interlocked to the clutch pedal and emergency brake. This is a safety feature, to prevent some kid from getting into your car while it's still running, putting it into gear, and crashing into something. While the timer is active, stepping on the clutch or releasing the emergency brake will turn off the engine.

So if your engine bursts into flames while you're driving down the road, turning off the key and pressing in the clutch is likely to be an instinctive reaction. This will shut off the motor.

i have a greddy turbo timer and i know a bunch of people do.....while not needed its a nice feature to be able to get outta the car without waiting for the turbo to cool down.

i had one in my old car. I could have used the money better in other areas.

That was my best friends supra waay back in the day. He was unfortunate enough to pay some shit hole "tuner shop" a ton of money to build the car top to bottom. It looked great at first, then we started finding his little shortcuts. Car was supposed to be fully built motor, cams, HUGE FMIC, AEM, T80, was built for 35+PSI. Dynoed the way it sat a little over 550rwhp on 18psi.

Fuel pressure gauge in cabin had a hard line from the pressure regulator run to it... no electronic isolator. That pressure gauge started leaking fuel inside the car. One day we started to wonder why we smelled gas everytime we got on it.

Pass 7psi boost and half the boost pipes would blow off.

Found out later installing the 2 HP fuel pumps in the rear of the car, he actually managed to drill a hole in the gas tank and set the back end of the car on fire... which he cleaned up and didn't ever tell us about.

Improperly installed the turbo timer. No matter what you did, the car would continue to run until the timer ran out.

-10AN Stainless fuel line routed from rear of car to FPR alongside the 4" exhaust, and less than 4" away from the downpipe at turbo outlet..


So one evening we were bored and the guy who owned the car wanted me to try and teach him to cut some donuts. Told him what to do, let him try and cut some. During some donuts I saw fire coming off under the front of the car, so we stopped and he opened the hood. He only had some little cheeze dick "tuner" fire extinguisher so I attempted to put out the fire. After he removed the key he started to panic and coudln't get the god damn timer to shut off, I ended up ripping the entire thing from the car and finally shut down. Only took the fire dept. 4 minutes to get there, but it was way too late. Car was still running while it was on fire for almost a solid minute with 2 Aeromotive A1000 pumps feeding fuel to the fire. We found after the car was taken back to his house via. tow truck a HUGE hole in the fuel line right next to the exhaust.

Think I found the video of the fire, uploading to youtube to see if it'll work right now..

/\ just wow lol

Can you program a megasquirt to act as a turbo timer?

I dont know of anything as of now... maybe could be programmed...

Yeah he got back about half the money invested into the car from the insurance company. Found out after that, the shops insurance company had about 50 cases pending payout and they soon after were out of business.

We called the place Pyro By Design.

Sorry for the shitty camera work, some idiot was operating it. (not me! :P)



Car caught on fire, we all panicked, but the moron with the camera just dropped it instead of filming.. He was too busy running around screaming like a little girl..

WOW! Poor supra...

Tragic.

Back to the Turbo Timer, my opinion is that they are completely un-needed. I drive a Stealth on its original twin turbos, 140,000kms, and 15 years of use. Sure, the body is rusting out but the turbos dont blow oil, have minimal play and still hold 14psi to redline. ??

This is after lots of WOT runs down the track, head back to the line and shut it down immediately. Basically doing the OPPOSITE of what you are supposed to do with a turbo. Run hard then shutting down, popping the hood, and trying to get it to cool as fast as possible.

If you imagine still having your same car, engine and turbo 100,000kms from now, maybe it would be worth it... Otherwise, I would say put the money in your gas tank and drive it off! :)

for $20? why not? i have better things to do than to sit in my car for even 90 secs longer than i have to (taking a piss only takes 8 seconds)

elesjuan's story's scary but... it was improperly wired. EOS.