For all you FI gurus - one question I have (and have heard from many others) is regarding maintenance. I have heard that Turbos require more maint than SC, but I have never heard what exactly this extra maint involves. Can someone clear this up for us? Thanks!

 

Me too...i'm wanna know 2

 

Not sure on the others but my HKS is pretty much Maint. free. It has its own oil tank with a special syn. "traction oil" only has to be changed every 60K miles, but from what I hear it's about 125 for the bottle of oil! As for the others I couldn't say. I know the Vortech and a lot of the other SC use oil from the engine, so it is changed everytime you change the oil. As far as bearings belts, etc I have no idea.

 

nothing but normal oil change and occasionally having to tighten the power steering belt and replace the small sc belt about once a year with the stillen.

 

Thanks for clearing that up guys. Not so bad afterall.

 

Actually in my opinion superchargers have MORE maintenance as you have to worry about belts, pulleys, shafts, etc. With a turbo you change your motor oil and your maintenance is down.

 

I think with a turbo its recommended to have a turbo timer which lets the turbos cool down. From Stillen, "The basic function of a turbo timer is to allow the vehicle to idle the engine for a timed period, with the ignition key removed. This allows the engine oil and turbo center cartridge to cool down and prevent internal turbo damage.The modes estimate the driving RPM according to the vehicles alternator signal and then recommend a count down time."

 

That all depends on how hard you drive the car and what type of turbo it is. A watercooled turbo needs ZERO cool down time however even non-watercooled turbos need minimal to no cool down time if not driven hard.

 

+1, just make sure you check your oil levels regularly and change your oil. That is pretty much it.

 

Werd. I added a JWT pan spacer to my car so I put in 6 quarts of oil every change. With that on there I don't check my oil as often as I used too.

 

1) I check my oil at 1500 mile increments ... the VQ has a nasty habit of blow-by oil that either ends up burned or in the bottom of a catch can. This issue is exaggerated with FI

2) Check belt tension and belt quality at each oil change (A/C belt + driveline belt + sc cog belt)

3) In cool weather (below 50 F) I usually allow the engine to warm up just to the point of the water temp needle at the bottom line... Being that the blower runs on engine oil I want to make sure the oil is warm enough when I start boosting

 

I would argue this point purely based on tests I did on the 2 OEM turbocharged cars I've owned (1985 Dodge Daytona 2.2L turbo + 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4). I had heard what I thought was an "old wives tale" about how quickly a turbocharger can heat up even under mild driving conditions so I decided to try it out myself...

Middle of the night take your completely cooled down turbocharged car out for a TEN minute drive around the neighborhood. I did this driving around getting into very mild boost and barely into 3rd gear. After 5 minutes I drove the car back home and parked it in the garage, closed the garage door, then turned out the garage light. Open the hood in the pitch black to find, amazingly enough, orange glowing turbo('s). This was the case for both cars. The exhaust temps alone are enough to generate some serious heat, then add in an air compressor (the turbocharger) and you increase heat exponentially.

Gladly I had a turbo timer in my VR4. What is going to potentially happen is the oil that flows through the turbo's for lubrication is going to cook. Of course better oil takes higher heat before breakdown but when you consider the heat generated it's not worth it. Allowing the car to idle for 2-minutes running oil through the turbo's (without boost) will give you peace of mind. Also mind you I had 120k miles on my VR4 when I sold it and those stock turbo's pulled just as hard as the day I bought it (used).

Just my couple pennies!

 

Quick question - I have an 06 6mt sedan. I don't know anything about turbos or sc's. Can I add one to the sedan someday? Or is the engine bay too different from the coupe?

Thanks,
Jason

 

dont' you need to change the filter for the vortech every 3K miles when you change your normal oil....?

 

Good point ... but you don't have "change" the filter as it's a K&N filter from Vortech. If it's dirty then you clean it, if not you can leave until the next oil change. It's not really any different than any other K&N air filter other than the fact that there's a lot more air flowing through it than a N/A car. You also get a little bit of belt shavings that get caught up in the filter. I just bought a second filter ($50) so all I have to do is swap them back and forth and then clean/dry/oil the dirty one in the meantime between oil changes...