Remote Mounted Turbo?

[jdm_master_X]

i carpool with a guy to and from school every day. every now and then a conversation breaks out between us. one day he told me about his Camaro Z28. he then went on to talking about a turbo kit for his car that was Remote mounted, meaning out of the engine bay and under the car, mounted literally on the exhaust system.

normally, i took his word for it but i was a little skeptical with his story. however, he gave me a website (http://www.ststurbo.com/) and told me to check it out. after going through the page, it finally made some sense to me.

considering that the turbo is exhaust driven, this company's claims for their unique turbo setup makes a lot of sense. i wonder if anybody would consider doing this on their nissan....

i wonder why nobody thought about this until now....

but i wonder if their claim that water and dirt would never be an issue with the setup, or that an intercooler or turbo timer wouldnt be necessary.

what do u guys think?

[rico05]

I remember in an issue of Turbo magazine about a year ago an article about a company making a turbo kit for Silverado/Tahoes that put the turbo just behind the rear axle. There was an oil pump that kept oil flow to the turbo, and long piping that brought the compressed air back to the intake, but other than that, it was a pretty simple affair. Issues that I can see:- Oil starvation from being that remote. Sure, there is a pump, but 10 feet of plumbing makes me nervous.- Hello pressure drop!- Road debris damaging the piping/oil feed

Benefits:-Ease of install- Cooling

Sounded like a cool idea, but come on, who wants to pop their hood and NOT show off their turbo?

"Oh, you wanna see it? Well, lets get to a lift. I'm turbo, I swear!!!"

[PantherRacer]

IIRCNo pressure drop due to the sizing and configuration of the turbo is what they claim. The oil really isn't a problem, their pump works, Otherwise they wouldn't have gotten a SEMA product of the year award. No intercooler needed because the air under the car cools that long piping b4 it gets to the engine, and the turbo is not subject to the high underhood temperatures. The turbo isn't hanging low, so It wont get hit by dirt...and scince the turbo shouldn't be to hot getting it a lil wet or even submerged won't cause catastrophic cracking (memba I said IIRC)I'm also sure they worked out all of the kinks lol before they sold it to the public.they have a kit for the Integra type-R.... yeah well....

[InsanityInc]

Seems people were pretty skeptical at first, especially due to the decrease in velocity by the time it hits the turbo, but considering the decrease in heat is SUBSTANTIALLY greater than the decrease in velocity by the time the exhaust stream hits the turbo, the turbo can actually do better than an underhood one due to better mechanical efficiency, even if the charge velocity is lower.

I imagine the turbo will last SIGNIFICANTLY longer as well.

[PoorManQ45]

For this setup to work properly you MUST insulate you exhaust up till the tubo housing

[StrangeLove]

I saw this being installed on a camaro z28 on the speed channel. They said the install took about 4 hours. They dynoed the car afterwards, 450hp at 6psi or something similar! I think its a great setup for cars that can't fit a turbo under the hood.

[naed240sx]

I can see two disadvantages....

A lot of added weight in comparsion to typical systems

Very small ground clearance. If your car was lowered, you could end up knocking your nice new bb garett off onto the groung.

[DanCouga]

I've always thought this would be great for some of the guys on honda-tech forum that have gone to MR configurations. Move a turbo(s) up into the old engine bay, direct the exhaust out of the fenders for that Mad Max feel and fab up an air box to help direct the passage of the air. After I finish all the other projects in my head AND if I get crazy enough, I might do something like that.
Modified by DanCouga at 5:52 PM 12/24/2005

[Flicktitty]

i think they are pretty cool, My friend is gonna try and do that pretty soon with his Big Block Chevelle, I will post pics once he starts it!

[siks13sr]

has anyone ever had a twin turbo set up where you can have for example an sr20det then did a remote turbo also?

[JESTER]

Wonder how bad the boost creep is?

[StatixNWH]

yeah if IIRC these have been out for some time now right? my buddy was thinkin of putting one on his LT1 TA. But its already 450hp+ and he is 18 lol.....i think hes going to go with the normal front mounted turbo system, atleast thats what he says lol.

[Rex]

There's a company that makes them, so keep in mind most of their "info" will be biased.

As for weight, if the remote mount reomves the need for an IC, wouldn't the trade off of piping be about even?

I would think if tuned/designed properly, the issues regarding lag/creep would/could be minimized as pressure is pressure regardless of volume ... realizing it would take more to make that pressure, but it would just have to be factored into the set up??

FYI - I know nothing about turbos

[Florida240sx]

Once my current engine in my tahoe goes and I get one rebuilt.I'm going to do this.Very cheap setup IMO. Cost of turbo. maybe $100 in piping. And safc with maybe some bigger injectors. But this is on a SUV so it has clearance. I already scrape with my 240's.

[C-Kwik]

It will work. But it is a system that is largely compromised. The long exhaust path to the turbo will lose energy before reaching the turbo. This will take away some of it's ability to use a more efficient high flowing set-up as you will need to use a smaller turbine to keep boost threshold reasonable. Lag would also be an issue otherwise. What this means is less air will be let out through the wastegate and ultimately, more backpressure...less power.

AS much as I am posting the negatives, as I said a system like this wil work. But not as effectvely from a power and efficiency standpoint of a traditional system. If you're looking for a cheap, easy to install system and a bit more power, it's not a bad choise. But there are many drawbacks. Many of which won't be mentioned in their marketting. Or at the least it will be downplayed.

As far as intercooling, ther esill be some natural heatloss, but not much. Especially under full throttle boost. Low boost systems can get away wirh no intercooler, but if you;re looking for a lot of power, use an intercooler - enev with a system like this. Keep in mind that intercoolers can't even shed all the the heat as fast as a turbo makes it. Intercoolers act as a heatsink as well as a radiating device. A pipe has less ability to heatsink and shed heat effectively and would not be able to reduce the heat as effectively as an intercooler. You'd have a marignal heat loss through the charge air pipes, so it would have virtually no difference than getting away with no intercooler on a more conventional design. Especially under full load where air velocity is high and dwell time would be low. Even with long pipes, the air moving through it will get from the turbo to the TB rather quickly at full throttle and high RPM's.

[Looneybomber]

I've heard about them, but could you imagine 10-12 ft of exhaust and then another 10-12 ft of intake. The lag would be so long, by the time you down shift and punch it (in your pickup), you will probably be around the car before your get spooled up...Maybe not quite that bad but it will be very noticable!

[xyster]

For this setup to work properly you MUST insulate you exhaust up till the tubo housing

Are you joking, or is this more PMQ idiocy?

The pipe needs to shed heat...

[Looneybomber]

Are you joking, or is this more PMQ idiocy?

The pipe needs to shed heat...

Why's that? header wrap helps boost HP, why would it be a bad idea in this case?

[JESTER]

It would seem that you would keep from insulating the exhaust that way the heat can bleed off some before it reaches teh turbo housing at teh back end of your car. When they insulate the piping in the engine bay, it is to keep the heat in the exhaust pipe where it blongs instead of in the engine bay, heating up the other components, like intercooler piping and CAI's. Sound logical??? Hope so, that is just my take on it.

[Looneybomber]

Also, wrapping the pipes keeps the exhaust gasses flowing faster. Instead of being cooled and condensed along the walls of the pipe, interupting the ease of flow since there are slower moving gasses along the walls of the pipe, all the gasses stay close to the same temp and flow smoother.

Don't turbo's also use heat transfer as a means of assistance in rotating the impeller? The gasses cool once leaving the housing into the dump pipe, condensing and taking up less space, consequently dropping the pressure and allowing the hot side to pass through the housing faster. I'm no expert though.

[skillet]

i was pretty skeptical about these setups, until one of my friends customers wanted to try it. he did a low boost non-intercooled setup on a LT1 camaro, and it came out great. the guy wasnt looking to build a race car, and while maybe not the most efficient design, it made some decent power and was pretty easy to fab up.

[JESTER]

Looney,I would say that you have to make some exceptions with it being a non-intercooled system. Temperture is your biggest factor in this set up, as with most turbo applications because of detonation.

Now this is all theoretical on my part. I am formulating this from my limited studies on turbo application.
Modified by JESTER at 4:43 AM 12/26/2005

[Looneybomber]

I am now wondering why not just go the supercharger route?

[JESTER]

You would figure one of the many turbo experts would pipe up and tell us the in's and out's of this systems and why this may be done and that isnt done... Remember, I said I was theorizing on the heat wrap.

Anyway, a supercharger is not as effecient as a turbo system. But I wonder with everything involved in both types of system, which would end up being easier, cheaper, and more reliable.

How much does one of the Vortex supercharger systems cost for an LT1????

[Looneybomber]

Personally, Id go for the remote turbo system before I went Vortech.

Check the picture, at 2500rpms, on the 4.6L cobra engine, it goes...1st. Eaton 112cid (1.82L) stock 03-04 cobra super2nd KB 1.7L3rd Twin 54mm turbos4th Vortech.

The Vortech does cost less than the Kenne Bell, but you get a lot flatter torque curve with a roots style and the KB kit includes a lot more stuff.

[C-Kwik]

While I would disagree that it is absolutly necessary to get a system like this to work that you would need to wrap the exhaust pipe, but it would help make more power by retaining heat in the exhaust. Looney brought up a good point about the velocity of the exhaust gas, but it's not going to be a huge effect. However, hotter exhaust gasses at the turbine does indeed help deliver more power. When hot pressurized exhaust gasses flow through the turbine's nozzle, it expands into the turbine itself. This expansion cools the gasses while increasing the gas velocity at the turbine. This means a higher rate of flow subsequently providing more energy to drive the turbo. This also means more energy is available sooner as well allowing a turbo of a given size to spool up sooner. Having more energy available for a given amount of gas allows you to divert more of the gas through the wastegate. This puts less backpressure on the motor for a given boost level, subsequently providing more overall output from the motor.

The heat in the exahsut is of no concern to the intake charge. Most of the heat created in the intake is from compressing the air, not from heat transfer from the exhaust side.

[Dano]

It's OLD news, i've been around a couple, and have talked with ppl in the past about em. They have their ups and downs like everything else, just something else to try. WDRacing and I have been talking about one of these on a 240 for over a year...

-Dan

[PoorManQ45]

Anyway, a supercharger is not as effecient as a turbo system.

You were doing ok until this point. Blowers and turbos have about the same efficiency

Whoever said I must be joking about the exhaust heatwrap(xyster I think),

[InsanityInc]

You people saying that heat is necessary are morons. Heat is the biggest power robber for a turbocharger. Heat begets more friction AND reduces the lubricating properties of oil, which begets even MORE friction. Not to mention that hot metal makes for hot air passing through the turbocharger. Heat is BAD, not good.

While gas velocity and temperature are related, temperature is not the only cause of velocity. The remote-mounted system is as effective as it is BECAUSE the gas loses so much heat before reaching the turbo, not in spite of it.

Go to their site and go to the magazine articles/industry experts section. Brings up like 30+ multiple-page magazine articles with dynos. All of them say that lag is even better than a normal turbo system. That many independent sources is good enough for me.

[PantherRacer]

the guys correct...heat is not needed. the heating up and cooling down of the turbo is what causes it to crack/break. Air doesn't need to be hot to move in the exhaust system, and the temperature for air to compress is VERY cold. still, there is always a constant flow of exhaust gas coming from the engine so the exhaust is constantly being pushed into the turbo.

has anyone ever had a twin turbo set up where you can have for example an sr20det then did a remote turbo also?

I like that idea