I have been tuning engines for a long time and with that experience I tend to look a bit more at how other people tune their cars and bikes than anyone else. Now this is not true for everyone, but most of you will recognize yourself at some level.
About 25 years ago the level of tuning an ordinary street car would ever see was at most 30% increase in power. (Not true for every car out there, but I'm talking ordinary street cars here)
So if you had an Ford, Volvo or BMW the amount of power you could get would have been in the 150hp range and in some extreme cases 250hp. At this point this was the "limit" of ordinary naturally aspirated engines at that time. Yes there was a lot of racing going on at that time, and some of these race engines did get put into street cars and power levels would have been 300+ hp. But the amount of maintenance these race engines required and the cost to keep them running were too much for most people.
Back then you could not just go into a racing store and buy yourself a set of forged pistons and connecting rods. Let alone camshafts and valves to build your race engine.
With the introduction of turbochargers however the power suddenly increased to levels that are still uncommon in today’s cars. At the beginning people where not really sure how to tune turbo engines and intercoolers where something that most people had never heard of. Silicone hoses where did you get that?
You would have to know someone in the maintenence department that did service on trucks or busses that had turbocharged Diesel engines at the time to buy the simple things like, clamps, hoses, gaskets, oil lines etc. Even something like an external Wastegate that are availiable almost everywhere now today you could not get your hands on. And something like real drag tires where not that common either.
But as time passed by, engine tuners got their hands on more parts, most that had the machines and tools started to make their own intercoolers, wastegates and all the parts that were hard to get and the knowledge and the tuning business took of.
Now it still took some time before engine management systems and electric fuel injection where you could really start to extract power out of engines became common and figure out how to tune the software to make that work. To start if you found someone who could tune these you would have to fork out serious doe to get everything working. Well you still might have to do that today, and serious race teams do spend alot of money to get the electrical side working right. Today there are so many more things you can do with a powerful ECU, like traction control, different boost pressures for low and high gears, launch control, shiftcut etc.. This list is very long.
But before all that came chip tuning and fuel injected turbo engines. What was unheard of just 20 years ago would now become a reality for anyone with a few minutes of tuning. Some of you might know the story of the Ford RS Cosworth, Nissan Skyline, Audi S1 Quattro, Lancia S4 to name a few and other icons of the late 1980 and early 1990. The turbo engines back then would give you 200hp and that is still today 25 years on about the same power level you would get from a new car. However today this is a common power figure for a station wagon. And back in the 80s only a few racing breed turbo engines would give you that.
But with a few changes to the ECU with chip tuning and some larger fuel injectors all that was needed then was to turn up the boost pressure and 350hp where unleashed. The only real limit here was only how much air the standard turbocharger could supply.
Sure there where different levels of basic tuning you could do but the effect was the same, more power.
With more and more tuner friendly cars coming out over the years the power figures are still holding almost the same. Just until recently where the powerfigures have really started to go up and beyond what was thought possible only a few years ago..
But what have really changed today is the huge amount of DIY tuners out there. What engine tuners did 25 years ago have now entered the garage and racing parts have now become widely available to anyone. From the cheap Chinese made turbo exhaust manifolds to wastegates and almost every tuning part you can think of to the pure racing parts like forged pistons and engine management systems on sale that anyone can buy.
So what has happened is anyone with a little background in mechanics can now build their own race engine. Power levels have just gone up and up and up.. It’s not uncommon to see street cars today with 500hp and then there are the ones who have gone even higher, breaking the 1000hp barrier.
The one thing that all these engines have in common to achieve such power levels are of course the turbocharger. Without the turbo it would not have been possible. Well a supercharger or N02 injection could do the job too but that’s another story.
However time and time again people forget the most important parts when tuning cars. I’m talking about safety and racing safety gear. I do see that people buy racing seats and that’s good. But most of the time they don’t buy racing seats because of the added safety. It’s because they think racing seats look good. And what about things like auto racing helmets that keeps your head intact. Most of the time people come to the track without real racing helmets and if it’s street racing that’s taking place, no one seems to bother wearing any kind of racing helmets at all.
I do understand that people feel protected inside their cars and they don’t think they need roll cages and in some cases opt for roll bars instead but you really need to think about this.
Some of the racing safety gear you should look at are the following:
racing suit
racing shoes
racing helmets
racing gloves
This would be the minimum for my liking if your going on a trackday or similar race day event with your tuned car.
In case you don’t have a fuel cell in your car and there is a chance of fire or fuel leak then you should consider racing fire suits also because these will save your life.
Fire is not to be taken lightly. If you have a good fuel system in place to feed your engine and anyone who are looking for power is going to have that. Then you need to understand that at any given time those racing fuel pumps are pumping 2 gallons of fuel every minute. And if you get a leak and have an accident you are in real trouble if the power to the pumps are not cut right away.
So having the right racing safety gear to protect you is always a good choice. Today’s car are much safer than the ones years ago, but you need to understand that when we double and triple the amount of power and turn our 100mph car into a 200mph fire spitting monster of a car you really, really should spend some time and pick out some racing safety gear also.
22 comments:
this is not a journal bearing turbo
Thank you for pointing that out Patrick, the post have now been corrected.
So do I have to use the water hookup on the turbo or can I run straight oil
Hi Caleb, you can run the turbocharger without water but because this turbo is a GT25 ball bearing turbocharger it also means there is going to be less oil going to the turbo for cooling vs a journal bearing turbocharger. If you need to only run oil it's very important that you make sure to do the proper turbo cool down period before you shut the engine off.
This means easy driving (no boosting) the last few mils or you might want to idle for around 5min before shutting down but it depends on how hard the turbo and engine have been used.
Garrett however says that "Water-cooling of the turbocharger's center housing has essentially eliminated the need for turbo timers or extended idling periods.".
So even though it's not necessary to run water, if you can get some water to the turbo it would really help with the cool down especially when running a ball bearing turbocharger.
Ways to keep the turbocharger cooler is to try and get some fresh air flow going to it and absolutely not using a turbo blanket because that will trap the heat much longer and you would fry the oil / turbo bearings.
Would this be a good upgrade for the 1.4 multi air turbo dodge dart? The dart has both oil and coolant lines for the stock garrett turbo already. The stock turbo runs higher boost 20psi. Would i be able to run the same with this turbo? Any idea if it would be a direct replacement or would their have to have manifold modifications? Thanks
Hi Brandon, I would say that running 7 psi with the GT2560r would give you more power than you currently have and with 20 psi boost around 300hp. If it's the Garrett GT1446 turbo that's fitted to your engine then they share the same T25 flange and the oil and water lines should also fit. But it could be a problem with enough space for the bigger turbo so you might need a manifold also.
how much GT2560R price right now sir?
Hello Duke, the retail price for a genuine Garrett GT2860R turbocharger is around 1000 dollars, but you can find them for around 800 dollars + shipping. Garrett changed the part number, the old part number was 466541-5001S and the new part number is now 836023-5003S but it is the same GT2560R turbocharger.
However if you want so save some money there are chinese made GT25 turbochargers for around 200 Dollars. The only downside is they are not Dual Ball Bearing like the Garrett GT2560R. But other than that in recent years these cheap turbochargers are usually of good quality, but it is still recommended to do a balancing before use.
Hi am no expert on sizing turbos but wanted to know roughly when the gt2560r would boost on a 2.2 5cyl? I know it is at the high end of the spectrum for engine sizes and worry it will choke up fast. I will be controlling the wg via n75 thanks
Hello, actually with a good setup you should have full boost around 3500rpm with the GT2560R on the 2.2 liter engine, expect the turbo to start around 3000rpm and keep going to around 6000rpm. With a good tune you might be able to extend the powerband a bit more.
But if it's more top end power you are after then you could go with the GT2860RS turbo instead, however that turbo also won't hit full boost until around 4000rpm but it will instead keep going to 7000rpm.
What would be the max hp you could make with a garrett 2560r?
What would be the max hp you could make with a garrett 2560 r
Hello, with a good tune and ecu if you can get the air fuel ratio just right at peak power you could probably push the GT2560R turbo to 340hp. However the 62 Trim GT2860R turbo would be a better and safer option if you want a bit more power and still have similar spool, because you would not be pushing the limits with that setup.
I'm looking for an upgrade from the TB25 on my diesel engine but cannot find any information on its specifications for that turbo so I have nothing to compare it too. Can you direct me to any specs for the TB25 or offer a suggestion of a suitable turbo upgrade. Thanks very much
Hello Stallion442, there's not much info to go on and there seems to be a few different size compressor wheels for the Garrett TB25 turbo. From what I can tell the stock TB25 inducer should be around 38-39mm.
For a non-variable vane upgrade you should probably look at the bigger 60 trim GT2560R with 46.5mm inducer or the 62 trim GT2860R with 47.2mm inducer. Anything smaller would not be much of an upgrade.
A better upgrade turbo for you would be the variable vane type GTB25 turbo. These should spool up a lot better on the Diesel and also comes with a slightly bigger 50mm inducer. However they are also quite expensive to buy new.
Great, that's far more advice than I have gotten anywhere else so I really appreciate your answer. This is for a TD27 2.7 diesel so I could look at something like the variable vane turbo from the ZD30 but my question is how would it be controlled? Do they need to talk to an ECU to determine the correct vane position?
Hello Stallion442, the easiest route would be if you get the ZD30 turbo that use engine vaccum to control the vanes, that way you don't need need to worry about vane position.
In case of bmw GTB25 turbos that use the VNT Actuators or Electric Wastegate Actuators, you would need an ECU or PWM control (under the cover it's really only an electric motor that drive some gears to position the vanes).
There are people making Standalone VNT controllers out there also..
Old video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qEYEmnLvY
Awesome yes I have been doing some research myself and it certainly looks very achievable. I see the turbine inlet flange on the GT2052V is different, it's a 3 bolt triangle style but I want to make a better manifold anyway so that's fine. Is there a compressor map anywhere for the gt2052v? Thanks again for the awesome input.
Hello Stallion442, like with most hybrid and variable vane type turbos there's no official Garrett GT2052V compressor maps around, but you can have a look at the non-variable vane type GT2052 compressor map instead.
Ahh yes that explains the lack of maps. Thankyou.
Would the gt2860r 5 bolt flange bolt to the Flyin Miata upper down pipe? I. urgently have the gt2554r and that 5 bolt pattern works.
Hello, the GT2860r turbo flange 5 bolt pattern is close if you flip the flange. But even then you only might get 3 bolts to go in. So you can only really use it for mockup and testing.
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