If you’re ever feeling a little dumb, take solace in the fact that at least you didn’t cook up the masterpiece you see pictured above.
Unless of course you DID concoct this home-fabricated abomination, in which case you should probably just go ahead and book a vasectomy right now.
Here’s why muffler-mounting your turbos is a shithouse idea: turbochargers work by converting the heat energy in exhaust gasses into mechanical energy, which in turn is used to spin an air compressor that feeds into the engine.
Put the turbo way down at the end of the exhaust plumbing and you’ve lost a tonne of exhaust heat and gas velocity, which makes the turbocharger much less efficient at boosting power. Shooting yourself in the foot, is the scientific term.
Besides, it looks completely stupid. Even more stupid than the rear-seat-mounted turbos below.
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Epic fail. How does someone have the technical skill to do the welding and cutting, and yet not have any basic idea on how a turbo actually works. He might as well mount it on the outside of the car so that the wind going past spins the turbine. I get doing something ‘because you can’ but basic physics/common sense tells you it won’t work, so why bother?
Maybe the dude just wanted some fully sick turbos, but already had some full sick turbos under the bonnet, so had no more room for some fully wicked sick turbos so attached the wicked sick fully ass turbos to the massiv’ awesome fully rad muffler system bro?
Imagine the turbo lag you will be waiting 10 mins for boost to come on lol
good to see that those blow off valves are nicely plumbed back…. Don’t want a fully sick BOF venting to the atmosphere stuffing up the MAF sensor….
You are fulli sik with the fulli comments, brah.
Are you referring to the wastegates? Because I don’t see any BOVs
Now in regards to the original picture. Think of it this way. Mr Vehicle inspector looks under the bonnet.. does he see any turbos? nope, sure doesnt. What about under the car? nope, all he can see is mufflers. The turbos are completely hidden.
Infact, remote mount turbos arent a new thing.
http://khturbo.net/rmtz24/RMTZ24.html
http://www.ststurbo.com/
Do not start this conversation with the Yanks, because they get really defensive about it.
Rear mounted turbochargers are actually reasonably popular in the USA (especially on larger displacement engines, by our standards).
The position of the blowers violates pretty fundamental turbocharger physics, but criticise the STS Turbo design (who basically replace the rear muffler on a normally aspirated car with the turbocharger, instead of tacking it into a muffler) and you’ll get a bunch of Seppos crying “Don’t knock it if you have no experience with it”.
They claim its good packaging, which I can understand if you’re not trying to fit more stuff into the engine bay. What I am less sure about, from a physics perspective, is how this setup can be as responsive as a traditional mounting position and not require an intercooler.
The reason the vehicle inspector doesn’t look there is because its a stupid idea. There is simply not enough energy in the exhaust flow left at the muffler to drive a turbo to any sort of boost, and the increase in exhaust back pressure will do more harm than whatever benefit you might get from the tiny amount of boost you can generate. But as Doug said, you would have a fully hectic sik twin-turbo setup to complement your 4in canon exhaust tip on your 1/2 inch exhaust system and your three rear spoilers, even if it did nothing.
Re responsiveness - What you may find is that these turbos are boosting all the time, since the exhaust gases are cooler at the end of the exhaust system, there should be less stress and therefore similar life to a close-coupled turbo. No intercooler because the charge air would have cooled sufficiently by convection.
Hmmm. Indeed.
Note to self. Check the facts before posting smart arse remarks
this has got to be something a beaner did on his shoguned out accord…on a good note though, it is low key an cops wont thing to look under a seat for a turbo…it could work
At first glance it looks bad, th pumping losses over that distance can be large but assuming you compensated for them by putting in bigger pipes it would be ok. (they would have to be big though)
The extra lag created by larger tubing is almost a non issue due to the massive volumes of air engines use.
Ever thought someone might have done it as a massive piss-take? neither of those turbos on the mufflers will flow any gas at all look at the way they are plumbed up! not to mention the massive pressure drop over the length of piping back to the engine inlet, let alone with the addition of an intercooler.
How is the exhaust gas being cooler going to help it boost all the time?
The energy used to spin the impeller wheel of a turbocharger is supplied by gas flow rate, and its heat energy.
The gas flow is going to have slowed compared to a close coupled turbo, given that:
1. Its a fair distance from the source
2. The gas would have slowed down flowing through the catalytic converter, centre muffler, and other bends in the exhaust
3. Heat energy would have been lost through the same convection that cools the charge air
There’s less stress and it might prolong turbo life, but the fact that is irrelevant to its responsiveness. Any turbocharger that can spool up quickly with a lesser power supply is going to have to be smaller, and therefore flow less in its compressor side.
As for the convection cooled but heat-exchangerless intake piping, the intake piping runs under the car. It’s not really exposed to the same front-on air flow to provide convective cooling as a traditional intercooler, whose design is also optimised for heat exchange.
Yup remote mounted turbos are nothing new and some credit has to be given at how sneaky this install is.
The amount of exhaust flow is no less, perhaps due to the elastic nature of gas there may be less boost spikes and there will be more lag between the engine and the turbo. Usually the airflow under the car (as opposed to the hot under bonnet air) helps cool turbo and the boosted air into the engine but these turbos look like they’d get pretty hot. Without seeing the final install it’s hard to pass judgement. If the government seeks to ban all P platers from turbo cars we will see more of these under car and boot mounted turbo installs in Australia.
But the extra piping should still cause lag due to the amount of extra distance the compressed air has to travel.
Swapping from the standard small side-mount intercoolers to a grille-filling front mount (with its longer path) increases lag, but at least the piping doesn’t have to run the length of the car.
The exhaust flow is less, because it cools significantly on its way through the exhaust system. Cooler air = denser air = less volume = lower velocity through a fixed diameter pipe. Also equals less energy that can be converted to kinetic energy at the turbine = slower and lower boost. Will you get boost, yes, a little, but it’d be so laggy as to be more effort than its worth.
The exhaust mass flow would be the same, the volume is less, but the gas is denser. The heat energy is definately less of course. The pressure drop is from the pressure after the CAT to the outside atmosphere (the turbo is the muffler) vs. from the engine to the CAT + muffler. So on a system with a restrictive CAT/exhaust the pressure drop for the remote mount may even be better. The lag isn’t a problem is the turbo is tuned for it. The time taken to inflate the intake pipe isn’t too much. If the flow rate early on in acceleration at low rpm is only 30 cubic ft/minute, then a 2.5 inch pipe 8 foot long will take about a half second to fully pressurize. Less for larger initial flow rates. From what I’ve read I’d say that there are equal pros and cons. To compensate for the positioning and temperature drop the turbo has to be sized differently which likely leads to less top end power. But for many cars that isn’t an issue as they do not require ultra high boost levels. The advantages are that there is less heat and clutter in the engine bay, less heat on the turbo (about 270 C less) giving longerlife and a reduced need for cooldown. Any vented wastegate gases are legal too as the whole turbo is placed after the CAT. There is no reason that an intercooler can’t be fitted, but for low boost levels it likely isn’t needed. Lastly the sound is quite good, two thirds truck turbo and one third jet engine. Especially when the screamer pipe opens up! That’s what I like about remote turbo’s.
Guy’s the amount of time difference is neglable. I have a 5.0L V8 and rear mounted a T04E Turbo (0.98 turbine, 0.50 compressor)
It starts spooling at 2300 rpm and is making full boost of 6psi by 2700 rpm
Seeing after riding out a gear to redline and shifting the next gear starts around 3200 rpm.
Theres less than .5 seconds of lag between changes. And its pretty quick off the line. Racing a mates V6 Turbo i hit boost amost at the same time as him
Thats helped with 3.9:1 Diff gears and if auto a 2500 stall converter would see the rear mount boosted from the start line
It bends the laws of physics, remember when pressurised air goes in. Its gotta come out and it looks like some people here forgot that
Your half right, if you could take heat out of the turbo equation & they’d still work.
I made those.
Already had a Vasectomy, Thank You!