Add coolers to the turbo's oil and water supplies?

[Tim_K]

I wonder if it'd do the turbo any good to have it's oil and water pre-cooled.

The water can simply be routed through a spare heater core located in the grille area somewhere, then on to the turbo.

Oil can go to an engine oil cooler, also located in the grille area, then to the turbo.

Result - cooler oil and water to cool and lube the turbo.

[Tim_K]

No one has ever thought of doing this before?

[MachineHead]

The coolant going into the turbo is already pretty cool. It goes from the radiator, through a few inches of the block and then right to the turbo.

As far as an oil cooler, it is the same amount of work to add one that will cool the entire system. I am thinking about getting a thermostat controlled system myself. If you are going to add a cooler, you might as well get the full benifit of it.

[Tim_K]

The cooling system is not reverse flow. It goes through the entire block first. The coolant is HOT once it gets to where it can go to the turbo. Then it is routed back into the block, where it gets even hotter.

[MachineHead]

I know it is not reverse flow. Look at where the outlet on the block is. It comes out right behind the #1 cylinder. All it has to do is go from the radiator through the water pump, then around part of the #1 cylinder and then out. It is far from going through the whole block. After it goes through 6" of block I doubt it is very hot. Most of the heat in the cooling system is from the cylinder head anyway, and it bypasses the head and goes right to the thermostat after it goes through the turbo.

[Tim_K]

Oh. Somehow I thought the water went from the thermostat housing to the turbo, then was returned to the block. Now that I think about it, that seems stupid, and I had it backwards.

[xrattiracer]

I would imagine that the turbo needs to be at a certain temperature to keep the bearings from wearing prematurely, just as the rest of the engine needs to, so getting it too cold might be a bad idea. the addition of a whole engine thermostatically controlled cooler (stick yer head under the front end of a RX7 in the junkyard next time youre there) would do nicely, as suggested.
as for water, it does basically nothing while the engine is running, and boils anyway after you shutdown, so cooling it off would have no effect on anything, except to provide more points of failure in the cooling system (thats a bad thing).

[MachineHead]

-Oh. Somehow I thought the water went from the thermostat housing to the turbo, then was returned to the block. Now that I think about it, that seems stupid, and I had it backwards.

Yeah, I used to think it went that way too. I thought that the thermostat controled the amount of flow through the system. It turns out the headgasket holes control the flow while the thermostat controls temperature only. Since the gasket controls the flow, there is a pressure difference on the two sides of the gasket (higher on the pump side of course). The coolant wants to flow from the higher pressure area to the lower pressure area, hence the path through the turbo around the gasket.

[R/T]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim_K Oil can go to an engine oil cooler, also located in the grille area, then to the turbo. Result - cooler oil and water to cool and lube the turbo.

I use Conquest oil coolers on both my cars, I ran a rubber line from the oil takeoff on the block, to the cooler, then to the turbo feed.