Warming up, and cooling down.......... how long??

[Ethan_R33]

Just wondering how long everyone warms up and cools down their car.
On a dead cold start i'd probly warm it up for around 30seconds, holding it around 2000rpm some of the time.

Then daily driving to work and back probly only 1 minute on the turbo timer, and after a night or cruising and dragging 3 minutes on the turbo timer.

[skyr31]

I usually leave mine on for about 2 mins if I have been driving around like a 60 y/o and about 3 mins if I have been driving around like a 19 y/o with a turbo car!

[RazorGTR]

with a turbo car it is wise to warm it up a bit before you begin to boost it. You will kill a turbo or motor boosting hard while not at operating temperatures. I wait until my temp guage hits normal driving temps before i give it anything more than 1/4 throttle.

Cooling down depends on how hard you were driving. If you thrash it then just turn the motor off you can cook your turbo bearing and destroy the turbo. Usually 2 min is long enough unless you just gave your car a hiding.

[-Joel-]

Hrmmm I usually dont cool mine down if i've just been driving around normally.. I figure that if i'm only cruising on 60 kays then maybe making 2 psi boost when accelerating cooling down shouldn't be a problem as cruising on 60kays is basically cooling it down. Am I wrong? And if this was the case why didn't they fit turbo timers as std. if this was going to be a problem when driving normally. I usually let it sit for about 1-2 mins if i've been driving a little harder than normal or i just take it easy a few kays before I get home.

[GTS-4 Ben]

Yep joel you are right.

Warming up is important of course, but by the time you have been out screwing it and then drive home like a grandma, the turbo would have cooled enough. Unless you are on the track for an hour and come straight off and stop the car, then I would leave it for a few minutes.
I always turn mine straight off when I am driving normally, and it REALLY pisses me off when I see people stop their car and leave the turbo timer going for 5 min even though they have been driving like a grandma. Why don't you get a big sign that says, "I HAVE A TURBO CAR" because basically it is just like that..

I personally like the turbo timers that count up or down on how much you screw it. Mine will go up to a max of 3 min with continued full throttle, if I drive for 10 min without boost it goes down to 20sec, I think that is pretty good.

Ben (Never had any turbo trouble :finger: )

[NT_VlaD]

I was under the impression ,generally speaking the timer was to let the turbo slow down so that when the engine stopped pumping oil to it , it didnt sieze ...rather than cooling the thing down .....
Oil stavation being the biggest cause of turbo failure and all .........

[GTS-4 Ben]

yes but if you are driving slowly without boost, then it won't matter. You need the oil to cool it when it is spooling fast enough to heat the whole turbo, like when you can see through the thing..

[Nemesis]

The turbo spins at a hugely high number of revs at idle, regardless of how long it stays at idle, it'll never get any slower. The timer is to let it cool down. I think from memory that a turbo spins at about 20,000revs, not exactly sure, but it is a huge number, obviously, speed goes up as boost does.

Ant

[-Joel-]

oh yer I forgot to mention .. I turn her off after I have taken off my seat belt, grabbed the face from the stereo and opened the car door. That would probably be around the 20sec mark..

[RazorGTR]

Most turbos are no only oil fed and cooled but utilize engine coolant to cool them down. You will never get it cool per-say as exhaust gases are hot anyhow, But if you can get the exhaust housing glowing under long full boost. If you are poking around town then you should not even need to use a turbo timer. Only after you have given the car a good fang then want to shut it off.

[-Joel-]

Saying that would it be a good idea to have an oil cooler after the turbo if you use the car for a lot of track work? or would before the turbo be better?

[Simon K]

I would be wary of thrashing a car til at least a few minutes after the water temp has reached "normal".

Been out in an R34 and had the console display set to show oil and water temps. Once the water had reached it's normal level, the oil was still way low, in fact not even showing up yet.

I have been in a rebuilt RX2 which was started first thing in the morning and thrashed out the gate of a motor camp without a proper warmup. POP!.
We drove home(Hawkes bay to Wgtn) on 1 rotor due to the other one packing up.

Normally have my timer set to one minute, unless it's been thrashed in which case it's up to 3 mins.

[Velocity]

Warming up - idle for at least 30 seconds then 5 minutes of easy driving (3500 max rpm est). Then gradually over next few minutes increase revs. From what I've seen from my oil temp gauge it takes about that long for the engine to get warm.

Warm down - easy driving, turn off straight away so long as idling. If you drive very hard and tend to turn your car off straight away you probably need a turbo timer.

However, the manufactures do not provide turbo timers and give no recommendations for cooling down as the modern turbos are both water and oil feed. Considering my car has a 3 year warrenty I am confident that normal driving will not cause any problem if you don't warm down for normal driving.

[Ethan_R33]

so its fairly safe to say that i should warm it up for around 30 sec, then drive slowly only up to 3500rpm to heat up the oil before i go thrashing it?
I actually have a long drive into town (around 20kms) so i never hit it hard until town.

Then warming down, only idle for a little while after normal driving. And if after a really hard burn use turbo timer for either 1 or 3 mins depending how long ive driven slowly after thrashing it.

[Anguss R33]

I don't know much about Turbo's so it's awesome to have threads like this!
In my mind it's better to let her warm up and stuff, then the more you thrash it the longer you leave her to warm down! kinda like a g/f! LOL
Jokes guys, hope I didn't offend anyone...