Turbo cooling

[Cornerbuddy28]

What would happen if I were to build a water jet cooling system for a turbo on a wrx motor. What I mean is have a tank of icewater in my trunk and pressurize it beforehand and then when the turbo gets hot I could have a manual spray control and it would spray the turbo and cool it down, hopefully reducing the gas temps at high boost. Would this work? and also would it be safe? I am worried that it would be too sudden a change for the housing and it would crack. If anybody knows anything about this let me know. Thanks

[freakray]

Spray the intercooler rather....

[nismo_power]

that wouldnt do anything to cool it. it would go into thermal shock. what you need is a turbo timer to let the engine idle for a set ammount of time after you turn off the ignition.

and if you want to do this to get more power, what you need to do is convert to an FMIC to get the real power.

[Cornerbuddy28]

yeah that's what I thought. I know that it is good to keep the car running after you have been driving for a while to let the turbo cool down properly but I was pondering the idea of the spray to keep intake gas temps down while driving, not as a method of cooling afterwards. I was also thinking of doing this spray system to the intercooler, but my friends said that water would do virtually nothing. I know doing it with nitrous significatly improves cooling, but I don't really want to spend all that money on it.

Thanks for the advice

[nismo_power]

water will do pretty good, but youd need to keep it cold. meaning regrigeration. you can get nitrous express n-tercooler kits for around $400 bones. but as per cooling the turbine itself, it should be left to the turbo timer. its tried and true. i mean...if you just cooked some bacon in a pan, and you pour water on it...it causes steam. steam can cause more damage than the initial heat itself. thats why when i took my EMS classes and EMS certification, we were told never to pour cold water on a burn, it could cause steam and steam would burn even worse and can cause the burn to spread from the steam. warm or hot water is what we were told .

[kfoote]

To confirm what has been said above, spray the water into the intercooler (as in the STi). Spraying the Turbocharger with cold water can cause the metal to crack due to thermal shock.

[Cornerbuddy28]

yup, I figured that was the case. Infact I was helping my buddy with a turbo kit for his 99 Audi a4 which he got used from somebody else and we were looking at the stock turbo and there was a crack in the housing just from the previous owner turning off their car immediatly after driving it hard and not letting it cool properly.

Now here's another question... If water hitting the turbo could cause thermal shock and potentially crack it, would it be safe to spray the HMIC with the turbo being right underneath it? would it be practical to sheild it? or would this just be better off on a FMIC?

[nismo_power]

the turbo is not directly under it in the WRX or STi, its a bit off to the side. the kits are designed so that it sprays water onto the IC and not everything else, thats why the ring that whatever you are using (Nitrous, water) is placed almost touching the IC.

i dont know about you, and im sure this is perfectly fine on TMIC's, but i would feel more comfortable using this set up on an FMIC. and besides, if you are debating spraying your IC, you should go with an FMIC anyways because they can get more power out of the turbo.