Turbocharger oiling - how thick is too thick?
- Thread starter Ike84
- Start date
MolaKule
Staff member
Interesting idea, but I see some problems with using Jet Turbine oils.
If we are speaking of Jet Turbine oils, those oils are 5.0 cSt oils with a single base oil of polyol esters. They may not be compatible with the Turbo seals.
Secondly, the kinematic viscosity may not be high enough to provide a sufficiently thick oil film to keep the shafts from wobbling in the bearings and generating harmonics and bore wear.
As stated before, sufficient mass oil flow, oil pressure, viscosity, and cooling seem to be the critical items for consideration here.
Speaking of Jet oils in car engines...
Don't do this on any vehicle you care about.
Don't do this on any vehicle you care about.
Found something that could be of interest to you, stolen from another forum.
"I did a closed loop system for low mount single turbo 03 Cobra. We used a Turbowerx pump.
Basic layout went something like this... Turbocharger, drain line into oil tank, 3qt custom tank (w/ internal baffling, vent, and fill), Turbowerx pump, Aeromotive fuel pres regulator, return line, feed line to turbo
-10AN drain from turbo, -8AN pump inlet, -6AN return, and -6AN feed ( which is regulated down to 20psi).
Of course you want things like an electronic level sensor with low level LED, as well as a safety switch when pressure drops below set amount, or pump failure.
When you incorperate these saftey features into the system, it's really as reliable as a belt or gear driven system."
Edit: Also found this - https://rbracing-rsr.com/oilsystems.htm
It all makes me wonder if maybe a full dry sump is a better option? Could be a good bit more money, but probably the same amount of trouble. But (as far as I know) a reputable dry sump system will be a lot more reliable than both stock engine oiling setup & stand alone turbo oiling setup. Plus with dry sump you can have a much higher oil capacity, meaning it will be much easier to keep the oil at optimum temperatures, no matter how hard the engine and turbos are working. And never an oil starvation problem.
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Hey guys, sorry for the radio silence. New born baby at home! Less time for car talk.
Molakule, yes I read your paper. Thanks for posting that. Those same points are emphasized heavily during installer training, but the paper takes a more detailed dive into the mechanisms. I especially thought the point about cavitation was interesting. They didnt talk about oil filtration though, which I was a bit surprised by, as polishing will destroy turbos and is one of the main reasons for turbo failure. Bottom line - oil the turbo properly or the results will be bad.
Correct me if I'm wrong about this but one of the points they made in the paper - regarding the extremely high pressure, minimal wedge thickness, and partial contact between bearing shaft and journal being a cause of wear on components - wouldn't EP additives be beneficial in this situation? I understand that original EP additives become acidic under these conditions, but if there are EP additives that do not display this behavior then maybe they would work quite well?
I fully admit that this idea is ridiculous. No one, that I have found, has ever attempted such a project. And please don't think that my excitement over the viscosity charts was anyone's thumbs up to doing this. I fully understand (and appreciated) that vladiator was just sharing info. I would LOVE to find someo e who has done this before and failed!
That would make me quit thinking about it lol. Alas, if it has happened, I can't find the documentation.
Molakules point about additives is extremely helpful, and something that I had not previously considered. It seems likes this is a whole field in and of itself and something that I will need to read more about.
Btw, the setup described above is exactly what my tranny cooler setup is. Transmission - turbowerx pump - cooler - transmission. I'm really not as bone headed as suggested by some posts, just trying new things on my personal project car.
Molakule, yes I read your paper. Thanks for posting that. Those same points are emphasized heavily during installer training, but the paper takes a more detailed dive into the mechanisms. I especially thought the point about cavitation was interesting. They didnt talk about oil filtration though, which I was a bit surprised by, as polishing will destroy turbos and is one of the main reasons for turbo failure. Bottom line - oil the turbo properly or the results will be bad.
Correct me if I'm wrong about this but one of the points they made in the paper - regarding the extremely high pressure, minimal wedge thickness, and partial contact between bearing shaft and journal being a cause of wear on components - wouldn't EP additives be beneficial in this situation? I understand that original EP additives become acidic under these conditions, but if there are EP additives that do not display this behavior then maybe they would work quite well?
I fully admit that this idea is ridiculous. No one, that I have found, has ever attempted such a project. And please don't think that my excitement over the viscosity charts was anyone's thumbs up to doing this. I fully understand (and appreciated) that vladiator was just sharing info. I would LOVE to find someo e who has done this before and failed!
That would make me quit thinking about it lol. Alas, if it has happened, I can't find the documentation.
Molakules point about additives is extremely helpful, and something that I had not previously considered. It seems likes this is a whole field in and of itself and something that I will need to read more about.
Btw, the setup described above is exactly what my tranny cooler setup is. Transmission - turbowerx pump - cooler - transmission. I'm really not as bone headed as suggested by some posts, just trying new things on my personal project car.
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Btw, vladiator, you are right. The IDEAL setup would for me to install two additional scavenge pumps in the tappet covers and then 4 in the oil pan , drain everything to an external resivoir with baffles, and then feed that back into the engine oil pump pickup and tee off to the turbo lines. The cost and effort required to do such a thing though is prohibitive to say the least though. There are some less intense versions of that setup, but none of them are great. Taking a line off the oil pan and through a pump to the turbos certainly is an option though, which is obviously what most every other NA to FI conversion involves (unless using the filter sandwich adapter plate, which has its own drawbacks).
Hang on, you want to cook your gear oil with your turbo and then pump it back to your tranny? I'm no genius but I'm pretty sure you're going to ruin both your turbo and your transmission in short order. Just because some gear oil is a similar viscosity to some motor oil doesn't mean it's going to work.
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Far as I'm concerned,this is a trainwreck of a thread and an totally rediculous idea of what he is hoping to accomplish.
This forum is fun, I like you guys.
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