Glowing red. [Merged 1-7] Exhaust, turbo, glow, hot

[Goblin]

I know that if you drive a TSI hard and pull over and look at the turbo at night it will be glowing red and that is normal.

but...

If you are driving a TSI grandma style and pull over and look under the hood DURING THE DAY and the turbo is glowing red is that a bad thing?

If so what possibly could be wrong with it?

 

[Quasimondo]

If your oil pressure light was going on and off intermittently, you should check to see if you have enough oil in the crankcase for the pump to push through. Running an engine with no oil pressure can kill it very quickly.

Sometimes boost spike can be confused with boost creep. A spike is when your boost jumps very high before settling down to whatever you have your boost controller set to. Boost creep is when your boost starts at it's set level and then climbs beyond that as your engine revs higher. Both conditions occur only under WOT, and both require different steps to fix them.

Glowing exhaust manifolds after heavy driving are not unusual, like goalieman said. Exhaust temperatures can reach as high as 1500*F during extended periods of boost.

Your car seems to have a lot of problems, but I doubt a bad turbo is one of them. Focus on your oil problem first, and let us know if you're experiencing boost spikes or boost creep, and we can help you from there.

 

[Samzer]

Alright, i just checked the oil level again, topped it off, drove my car around and it appeared that i had both boost creep and spike, depending on how i drove. When i just floor in in a lower gear it just spikes. When i slowly get the rpms up, the car either pulls and stops at like 7 psi, or creeps up to 9, then back to 7. In some instances it will stay at 9. This is extremely confusing because in first gear my car almost always pulls and the turbo will normally spool correctly unless it spikes. Any help is appreciated.

 

[my98GST]

I think you'd glow too if you were at 2000º some times....

 

[sawnuoff]

if you manifold is glowing then your oil in the turbo is fryin, better let it run for a few minutes after beating on it to let everything cool down somewhat.

 

[Samzer]

I do let the turbo cool. I usually wait 2 minutes or so.

 

[gsxeclipse97]

If its glowing red I'd give it more than 2 min. Mine has never done that and i give it 4 to cool off when its just normal driving.

 

[Quasimondo]

If you have boost creep, it's either a case of a faulty wastegate actuator thats' opening too slowly, vacum lines being ran too long (an extreme case), or a faulty boost controller.

Take a piece of rubber line and run it directly between the compressor outlet nipple and the nipple on the wastegate actuator. Keep that line as short as possible. If this eliminates the boost spike, your boost controller may be the culprit. If it still spikes, you should look int getting a replacement wastegate actuator.

Boost creep is a different problem altogether. Basically, the exhaust that goes through the wastegate is being outflowed by the exhaust going through the turbine and exhaust housing. This is bad. This prevents the turbo from slowing down when the wastegate opens up. There are two ways to fix this:

1. Porting. There are plenty of threads on how to port the exhaust housing. What you want to do is enlarge the opening around the flapper and reshape the inside of the housing to encourage more exhaust flow through the wastegate opening. This will help exhaust gases bypass the turbine more freely when the wastegate opens.

2. Switch to an external wastegate. If your porting efforts are ineffective, changing your setup to an external wastegate to control boost is your only other option. There are plenty of threads around here on the different wastegate manufacturers, etc.

Hope this helps.

 

[exile]

I'm not sure if this is correct but.. 1) Low oil should cause more friction, and more friction is more heat. 2) If you were driving normally (not a lot of WOT), and it was spiking, then it may have caused you to run lean. That would have made you run hotter than normal, and maybe why it got so hot.

Other than that, if you were flooring it and going crazy for a long time, it'll get red hot like that. It scared me the first time too, you can almost see right through it.

 

[Talesin]

Glowing red manifolds/exhaust housings are normal on our engines; the turbo is located so close, things get damn hot really quick. Try doing a hillclimb sometime.. you can see it glowing cherry red even in full sunlight, much less at night. Used to use mine to light cigarettes back when I still smoked... it'd torch about half the cig, but was worth the look on the Civic kids' faces. Usually would take 7-15 minutes after a full-on hard run to stop glowing, then I'd give it an extra five just to be sure.

When was your oil pump last replaced, by the way? It might be on its way out if you're still getting low oil pressure; you might also have had a check valve fail somewhere, like the oil squirters.

Do you mean '7' on the stock boost gauge, or a proper aftermarket? NEVER trust the stock gauge. It lies like crazy, as it's a calculated estimate of your current boost based upon what the ECU is seeing. If you're getting 7-9psi on an aftermarket (actual) boost gauge, you have another problem entirely, as 1Gs should boost at 10-12psi stock... if you're getting an ACTUAL 7-9psi maximum, sounds like your wastegate actuator is on its way out... weak spring, possibly a cracked exhaust housing wastegate bypass, or even a funky WG flapper. If it was a problem with the vacuum lines, you'd be over-boosting, not underboosting.

 

[greddyturbo19]

Okie So When I Drive Back And Forth From Work To My Place About 20 Minutes At 80 Mph. I Get Home And I Look In The Engine And My Exaust Manifold And Part Of The Turbo Is Glowing Orange. Is That Normal?? I Drive With No Hood On My Car And The Fans R Working They Are Hooked Up To Accessory. And My Temp Gauge Stays In The Middle. So Yea Any Help Or Ideas?

18g Greddy Turbo
Stock Exaust Manifold
Stock Fuel System
12 Psi Of Boost Until I Get My Fuel System Done.
Gm Maf

 

[Simpleman1]

Mine glows a little, but I know it is okay according to some people I asked. It was glowing red when I retard the timing, lower the fuel pressure to pass the emission and advanced it after. Check your timing, maybe it is retard a little or you are running lean.

 

[MrBoxx]

Glowing turbo after 20 minute drive at 80mph? Okay.

Typing The First Letter Of Each Word In A Sentance In Caps? Not okay. Hard to read. Stop it.

EGT's run from 800 to 1600F* depending on throttle position and AFR. For twenty minutes of that, expect a little glow from the turbine housing. If the center section or the compressor housing are glowing, THEN you have a problem.

 

[Rob10_99]

You should let it run for a few minutes(turbo timer) so the heat has somewhere else to go besides your oil.
Running with no hood doesnt mean you will run cooler on the freeway, you might even overheat from it.

 

[tsi1991awd]

Last night I was coming home from work...I was going 65 mainly but for about 4 or 5 minutes I was doing between 70 and 80mph. I noticed my hood flapping a bit and saw that it was popped (it doesn't close good sometimes) so I pulled over on the highway and opened the hood and saw that the exhaust manifold was glowing red in the middle (where #2 and #3 cylinders are) and I had never seen it do that before.

I was not boosting at all, didn't do a pull. The car was running at over 3,000rpm though since I was doing 75 for a few minutes. I've never seen the manifold glow before. But most of the time I don't look at it until I get home, at which time I am only doing 45 tops until I get home...then let it sit for a minute before turning the car off. The manifold is always normal color when I look....even after a pull.

So my question is, is that normal or is it something to be concerned with?

 

[rush2252]

The 2gs run a little rich on the factory tune. As long as the entire manifold isnt glowing I wouldnt be concerned. Sometimes porting the o2 housing and going to a larger exhaust will help evacuate some of the heat. Depdending on your mods and logging capabilities you might check and see if your not running a little rich or if you have an exhaust leak.

My factory manifold on a bone stock car got glowing red one night it was due to a few of the turbo mounting bolts being loose.


Kolby

 

[JFZERO ECLIPSE]

I had my manifold on my old 1g glowing a nice cherry red....The turbine housing was also glowing...I had a fairly nice boost leak causing me to run really lean roughly...13:1 if not worse....

Running lean contributed to my glowing conditions....So I would say check for any boost leaks...make sure all gaskets are intact i.e. no exhaust leaks....

Just wondering are you running your stock heatsheilds? They keep quite a bit of heat from killing alternators

 

[TofastForU_99]

same prob with my car but i have not fixed it the whole turbo and manifoild was beat red and i am pulling timing like no other.. hmmm what could it be.. and yes check for boost leaks i fixed all mine but it did not fix my prob

 

[knochgoon24]

I had my manifold on my old 1g glowing a nice cherry red....The turbine housing was also glowing...I had a fairly nice boost leak causing me to run really lean roughly...13:1 if not worse....

Running lean contributed to my glowing conditions....So I would say check for any boost leaks...make sure all gaskets are intact i.e. no exhaust leaks....

Just wondering are you running your stock heatsheilds? They keep quite a bit of heat from killing alternators

A boost leak post-MAF will cause you to run rich, not lean. The air leaking out would have already been metered, so the appropriate amount of fuel would have been injected, more fuel than what was needed.

Now, if that boost leak was also a vacuum leak, and you were sucking in unmetered air under vacuum, then yes you would run lean.

Is your 13:1 a measured AFR or just a shot in the wind?

 

[JFZERO ECLIPSE]

It was metered via wb02 of coarse now that I think about it 1 of my injector pintle caps was missing and 2 others were cracked...I'm sure that probably had something to do with it....Plus on the stock rubber intake pipe the ports for the charcoal canister, vc breather, and stock bcs I pulled them right out of the rubber...I'm pretty sure they were pulling in some air there as well....

That was on my old 1g

Now I have a 2g
And once again the 3 ports on the stock intake pipe are as loose as can be....guess I need a hardpipe now with no port

 

[tsi1991awd]

I actually have a 1g. 16g ported 7cm plus 34mm wastegate, 3" open downpipe, PR O2 dump. No heatshields....car never had it when I bought it. Maybe I will pick one up at the JY. Also I haven't checked for any BL's yet.

 

[viperbenz1]

i had the same problem with my car, and i found out that my maf sensor wasnt pluged, so i was runing too rich

 

[918dsm]

just got my dp fixed and a new alternator on my car and i took it out and my manifold is glowing red car ran ok but still having wastegate issues not getting much boost at all

 

[Mitsu RacerX]

You are going to need to fix the wastegate problem before you drive it around and mess it up or even blow the engine up. What type of waste gate problems are you having. Describe it to us..

 

[91 TSi GP]

It is never good when something glows red...

 

[jholmes]

It is never good when something glows red...

No, but it does make for some cool pictures haha