Best Oil For Turbo engines

[Cujet]

Very cool car!

As a BITOG resident turbo engine builder, I prefer full synthetic oils.

A previous post claimed his Subaru had many miles, used dino oil and experienced no problems. That's entirely possible. Today's water cooled turbo's are easier on oils. And turbo's don't get all that hot if not pushed hard.

I'd guess that Subaru has had a nice life, with a responsible pilot at the controls.

However, track days, aggressive driving, towing and so on really do heat up the "hot section" of the turbocharger, far beyond normal driving. This is when the failures start. And this is where oil choice matters most.

We see turbine inlet temperatures go from 540 degrees F, to 1500 degrees F under hard use. The parts glow cherry red, the oil that comes in contact with the hot side bearings and shaft will be significantly heated. Regardless of the water cooling. The water cooled housing keeps the shaft cool by conduction of heat through the bearings and through the oil.

 

[Cujet]

Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Point being that well engineered fleet oils do their job just fine and there are not turbo related failures to report.


Not so. Turbo City does a booming business providing replacement turbos.

The vehicle specific forums are chock-a-block full of examples of failed turbochargers.

 

[Shannow]

Cujet,
kudos on taking the Oz falcon engine to the US !!!

 

[userfriendly]

Instead of sharing the engine oil, could turbos have their own designated lubricant supply? What is in the nose drive in the 6.2L supercharged engine? What ever it I bet it's expensive.

 

[mojocvh]

A starter for ten....

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/esters-in-synthetic-lubricants/

 

[TiredTrucker]

Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Originally Posted By: gabriel9766
My 15 malibu ..... i bought some PP 0w20 and fram XG and plan to run it for the full OLM.

Thats the best one can do. Why not go for it? Sure we could all get by with less, but we care. A name brand full synthetic dexos1-qualified oil, any name-brand you see in Walmart, and the Fram XG Ultra filter. Go by the OLM precisely, it knows more than you.


Does it know the dusty gravel roads I drive up and down daily out here in the rural hinterland? I highly doubt it, but I do, so there is one thing that the I know that the OLM doesn't. The OLM's are pretty good, but they are not the know all, see all type of thing that they are promoted to be. So while the OLM is an interesting thing to me, it is not what I go by, and until it is actually testing the oil, I never will.

But there are many things that OEM's put on vehicles now that I have no use for. Daytime running lights that come on automatically for one. Again, in a rural setting, especially around livestock in nighttime or low light conditions, having the lights come on when the key turns on is about as stupid as it gets. And I guess the OEM's never thought anyone would use a pickup to go hunting. But then, while the OEM's will design pickups to do wonderful things, and the ads show them doing things that they tell you not to do, they somehow forgot those of us that actually use a pickup for what it was intended for. And that involves using it in conditions that the OLM hasn't quite figured out how to deal with. This also applies to our cars. They have to run down the same gravel roads to and from the house.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Watching those glowing turbo pictures, one of the reasons I use turbo blankets on my turbos. Keeps a lot of that heat from affecting the intake side air temps. Intake side air temps considerably cooler with a blanket. And if one has a VG turbo, it keeps a lot of the heat off of the actuator and extends the life considerably. Haven't lost a turbo yet using a blanket on them. But then, not racing, just a lot of serious towing.

 

[BrocLuno]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Does it know the dusty gravel roads I drive up and down daily out here in the rural hinterland? I highly doubt it, but I do, so there is one thing that the I know that the OLM doesn't. The OLM's are pretty good, but they are not the know all, see all type of thing that they are promoted to be. So while the OLM is an interesting thing to me, it is not what I go by, and until it is actually testing the oil, I never will.

But there are many things that OEM's put on vehicles now that I have no use for. Daytime running lights that come on automatically for one. Again, in a rural setting, especially around livestock in nighttime or low light conditions, having the lights come on when the key turns on is about as stupid as it gets. And I guess the OEM's never thought anyone would use a pickup to go hunting. But then, while the OEM's will design pickups to do wonderful things, and the ads show them doing things that they tell you not to do, they somehow forgot those of us that actually use a pickup for what it was intended for. And that involves using it in conditions that the OLM hasn't quite figured out how to deal with. This also applies to our cars. They have to run down the same gravel roads to and from the house.


Made my living doing "Off-Road" trail surveys for the Gov't for many years (decades) running by myself during normal business hours and evening getting "home". No back-up and often in the Desert SW. Hated driving lights that would wake up the "coyotes" smuggling folks (or other stuff) across the boarder ... Had only one bullet hole in the windshield in 20 years, but many more near misses...

Blame the short sighted politicians!! They were enacting legislation to reduce accidents in urban areas. OK, the statistics say they were right. But they should have included an off-highway mode for those of us doing other things as pointed out above ...

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted By: Cujet

Judging from the shade of yellow at the turbine housing inlet, I would say that the EGT there is ~1800F. When I was at Eaton, we had OEM customers asking us to design exhaust valves that would be durable at 1920F exhaust temperatures. Hay Chihuahua! Downsized turbocharged engines have HOT exhaust temperatures.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: Cujet

I've never seen that pic of a 934/5(??) with the Turbolader and piping glowing like that.

Did it lose it's back cover, or did they run them like that to aid in cooling those white hot components??

 

[DeepFriar]

For the sake of information, there may be some who've never heard of them, turbo timer devices are still available in the marketplace. The advice to drive easy before shutting down after a hard run makes good sense. But these new, smaller turbos running hot and north of 200k rpm at slow speeds may be "hard" enough. A turbo timer will idle the engine for a period after the key is turned off. You can get out, lock the door and walk away. Designed when not all turbos had water cooling, they may still have a use as turbos become more widely applied, water cooled or not. Just a thought.

 

[dino33]

Impossible, iron melts in that kind of envirement. Did you not learn anything from 9/11??