<VV> Turbo exhaust housing heat blanket or wrapping

[Dave Leonard]

You will certainly bring the boost up faster and stronger by wrapping the
cross-over and inlet pipes, but I doubt you will make much if any difference
in the head temperature in insulating the turbo.  I don't have any hard
data, but I would think the turbo's contribution to heating of the in-bound
cooling air is really minimal in the big picture.  You could try to duct
cool air from the rear plenum using some suitable air ducting directly to
the fan inlet to see if there was any effect - likely easier than wrapping
the turbo inlet and outlet.

I ran a wrapped cross-over and inlet on my '66 e-flow Corsa for quite a
while.  It's a pain to install - not much space around the pipes - and under
boost the cross-over will almost melt under the insulation.  Very late one
night, after a bit of "boosted" running, I bottomed out on a drainage grate
in a dip in the road.  I hit hard enough to worry me, so I immediately
pulled over to assess any damage.  Where I had bottomed-out, the wrapping
had been torn off the middle of the cross-over, and the pipe was glowing
bright cherry red.  Up to that point, I had no idea the retained heat was
that great.

But boy did the boost come in quick with the wrapping on!  Pipe life is
certainly shortened, but rust is probably not the main reason.  A blanket on
the turbo and wrapping the outlet will probably not have any significant
effect on boost, as it's the incoming gases that you need to keep hot and
expanded.  Once the exhaust gasses pass the turbo inlet nozzle there is no
value in keeping them hot as far as I know.

I think you would have more luck insulating the exhaust stacks and perhaps
the logs.

-Dave

> From: "Carlton Smith" <carlton55 at comcast.net>
> Subject: <VV> Turbo exhaust housing heat blanket or wrapping- what'cha
think?
>
> ...in the case of our Corvair air intake
> compartments and the turbo being in there too with the exhaust housing
> radiating heat like mad. Have any of you Spyder, Corsa or turbo racer guys
> out there tried putting a turbo exhaust housing heat blanket on and also
> wrapped the exhaust pipe within the engine compartment only. I would think
> this would eliminate a lot of heated air in the engine compartment being
> circulated down in the shrouded engine.