Road Racing: Turbo too hot!

[Slow old poop]

In a previous post, I described how we blew a timing belt at Road America. We pulled the motor and trans yesterday (in three hours!), took off the head, and discovered bent valves and poked pistons. *sigh* $$$!

The problem appears to be that my 20G Frank turbo generates so much heat, it MELTED the edges of the timing belt shield from top to bottom, and the melted shield got into the timing belt. We hadn't seen this all season, but Road America has us under full boost for 30+ seconds at a time down those long, long straights, so I guess the heat just builds up in there.

So, what can I do to prevent this in the future?

We still have the aluminum heat shield on top of the turbo.

Do I need to shield the shield?
Replace the timing belt cover with a fabbed aluminum cover?
Get more air into the area via a hood scoop or louvers?
Wrap the turbo in a thermal blanket?

All advice is welcome. I got all winter to do something about it.

Rich

 

[Greg Collier]

My fix was getting as much air passing the turbo as I could. I created an aluminum air foil that directs the air up through the radiator, past the turbo, then out through a vent in the top of the hood just above the turbo (see photos in my gallery for all of the above) Keep in mind I'm using a body-kit front valence which creates a much larger opening, thus the volume of air is much greater. This also helps with engine temps. In 100 plus weather I'm running bet 180-190 degrees balls out on the track. I also fabricated the aluminum T-belt and cam cover. In addition I built an insulated intake box which helps to keep ambient engine temps out of my intake. All of my mods were a result of trial and error in our first year of racing DNF's.

Greg

 

[Defiant]

Some sheet-steel shields and some brake ducting should do wonders.

 

[mavisky]

Building ducting around the radiator/fmic area will help alot as well as a way to get the heat back out of the engine compartment. I'm going to be building a scoop below my fmic as well as directing vanes around the fmic and radiator openings to help keep air moving through my radiator. Look into one of the large vents from www.carbontrix.com to help get the heat out, I believe this is the same vent that Greg runs on his car.

I'm planning on doing the ducting along with mounting my windshield washer squirters into the bumper to spray onto both the fmic and radiator to help keep the temps down. If you're not really having radiator cooling issues I'd really focus on some sort of venting system to help get the heat back out of the engine bay.

BTW, I agree on getting a separate road/autox section into track talk It'd be cool to have a place to discuss stuff regarding something other than the typical 12-13 second squirt down the drag strip. I know I've got alot of un-answered questions on camber/toe settings and spring rates that I'll be dealing with next season.