Thread: Turbo and Manifold heat wrap/coating

Ok so I have a sidewinder manifold and 6265 vet(stock bottom end while I build my spare ve) setup. I have all the supporting mods and I'm not new to turbo sr20s or turbo cars in general. My question is has anyone seen turbo spool improvement with heat wrapping and or coating the turbo and manifold? My last det setup I ceramic coated every hot part but never ran it prior to the coating so I have nothing to compare. I would like to hear from ppl that have run or are running large turbo setups with long runner manifolds and have used heat wrap/coating. Please don't post Boyle's Law as I understand the dynamics of heat and gas...... I have been reading up on the Honda guys getting 200-300rpms of spool improvement. So info on this and personal experience would be great. I searched our forum but did not find what I was looking for.

Here is what I would be running: (this is Ashton's old turbo manifold so the parts are solid) I built a copy of it for a friend running a det with 6266 and his is seeing full boost 18psi at 6k rpms.

SS sidewinder 6265 vet 3in SS down pipe and exhaust non coated,painted or wrapped
Vs
Same as above with VHT highs temp paint on hot parts with 2in heat wrap on manifold and down pipe. Turbo will have a custom heat shield.

Ok thanks and I look forward to getting some good info.

I recently did a short report on a tech paper on this, there are several reasons that you want to keep as much heat energy going through the turbine. Don't have time now, but I'll dig it up and post later.

Cool thanks, I know why you want to keep heat in the system but has anyone done this and noticed a improvement in turbo spool?

I coated and wrapped the manifold today so I won't be able to compare wrapped vs unwrapped. I'll put some pics up in a bit. Thanks again.

nice! Here is a link to the research paper that I used. They went pretty in-depth and did testing by simulating exhaust gases with a pump. Adiabatic refers to a system assumed to have no heat transfer, so non-adiabatic is a double negative way to say with heat transfer, which is the only way any system actually works. (just to clarify)

IIRC, they got significant but not huge improvement in spool.

Impact of Turbocharger Non-Adiabatic Operation on Engine Volumetric Efficiency and Turbo Lag

Good read, thanks man. By far the most in depth data on heat transfer in the turbocharger during operation.

i was hardcore 100% gonna do all swain coating and a turbo blanket...... but after further thought and reading with how much 304 expands I decided not to coat anything and with pte turbos being a little temperamental I decided not to bag it.. for the most part im gonna take a hint from car manufacturers and construct various heat shields for the turbo and manifold but ill probably still wrap the dp with 2 inch lava wrap

I cant post the link because it was a while ago but I read that binding up all that heat is great for turbo spool and all but too much will back into the head and affect the engine possible negative ways.

kinda curious to see what other people post aswell

I'm not to worried about holding heat in the head due to heat wrap. This turbo setup is very free flowing compared to most. Now I have read that keeping more heat in the system can cause the turbo to fail or need rebuild sooner. This car is a toy and is driven maybe 1000 miles a year so the turbo should last. I'm about two days of work away from driving it so I'll post pics and results when it's on the road. My plan is to push the stock ve to its limit.

Turbo parts installed and car running with no leaks. Now I need to find time to tune it.

car is gonna be full on drag. cant wait to see it completed.