I went on a drive with my friends last week through the mountains. We stop occasionally on the drive to cool down the motor and the brakes. My friend, who has a turbo car, told me to pop the hood to see if the turbo was glowing. Sure enough when we stopped and looked under the hood, the turbo was glowing. Tonight I drove home (30 min freeway drive) only going about 70mph, and when I got home wanted to see if the turbo was glowing. And again it was. I was just wondering if this is normal?

 

well my buddys evo glows when he dyno's but thats a lot different casue theres not really forced air being ramed in.take a pic i wanan see it hehe

 

Thats why it has oil lines, and is made out of cast iron.

 

i want to see a picture too

 

I will post pics asap!

 

It takes a lot of heat to get metal to glow. I know, my father owns a steel construction company. All of that heat has to be some what damaging to the turbo and shorten its life span. I know that the Pre Cat causes a lot heat, I wonder if I was to get an Up pipe, if that would help with heat reduction?

 

I think it's normal on a turbo car, i think it even happens to N/A cars with headers. It's made of cast iron which reacts well to the heat and cold. Should be ok though. Thought: Your ehaust manifold is also made of cast iron. It probably glows when relly hot too. That is why when you are drilling your manifold foor an EGT probe you need to go slow as not to crack the cast iron because all of the hot and cold can make it brittle.

 

Yes it does take alot of heat and the fact the turbo cuasing a lil back pressure only adds to how fast it heats up. Its probably getting somewhere around 600-700 degrees F as a rough guesstimate.

the up pipe without a cat should reduce the heat only marginally.

As for your turbo life i wouldn't worry about it. The fans i believe are coated to pervent damage by the extreme heat. Which makes me wonder, if we coated the inside of a turbo with jet hot i wonder if it would be more effecient.

 

oh oh i want to see pics toooooooo.

 

pics? just go do it yourselves. when I had a td04, after a night of mountain driving this would happen all the time. now i just wonder if my vf34 does this

jason

 

cast iron is brittle as it is regardless of how many heat cycles its gone through. that is a natural property of cast iron

 

I don't think it should be anything to be scared of. I mean, the brake rotors glow after awhile too ya know!

 

But when the brake rotors glow, it usually warps them. My friends car has coolant lines running through the turbo. There is got to be a way to keep the turbo cooler. Maybe with the combined effort of I-Club we can figure out something

 

Your car also has coolant lines running through it

 

i've seen my turbo glow on several occasions, and the plastic under the exhaust manifold melted.