Hey guys wondering if anyone has used a turbo blanket before and if so, what your experiences were.

Tenagah loook to be selling ones from Sonic Performance: http://www.sonicperformance.com.au and there are also these ones: http://horsepowerinabox.com/HPIAB2/category60_1.htm

For a set-up like mine (big TMIC), it looks to be a good way of avoiding heat soak, as well as helping the turbo spool quicker due to retained heat.

The downside seems to be a bit of premature ageing of the turbo, given that it's running hotter for longer periods.

For $200-$250 it seems like it might be worthwhile, but thought I'd ask around here first to see if anyone can comment directly on it.

As always, thanks!

Nik

I prefer a good heat shield to a turbo blanket.

Reason being, a heat shield will let the heat radiate out of the turbo and prevent external components from melting, where as a turbo blanket will keep the heat in the turbo.

It takes a lot longer for the turbo to cool down with a blanket than without, so oil coking (especially with plain bearing Mitsubishi turbos) can be an issue with any sort of hot shutdown.

ACL make a great heat shield material, which is good to insulate engine bay components (such as TMIC) from heat radiation.

http://www.aclperformance.com.au/prod_heatshield.htm

Nay imo

plus 1 on heat shield and no to blanket for all the reasons Joe mentioned

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Funny looking German Subaru

+1 for Heat Shield. I don't have anything at the moment :S Lost it when i got my TBE on.

I think the blanket is only necessary when you've got a big twist mount setup ..

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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Should have bought an STI

you'd want a turbo timer if you go for a blanket - probably the only situation where a timer is actually necessary.

it would certainly solve your heat soak.

Still wouldn't work properly. The residual heat when a blanket is installed, takes a lot longer to dissipate. The timer will obviously help cool the turbo down a bit, but not enough to be safe, especially after a really hard run.

When I had a turbo blanket installed, it took around 10 mins for the turbo to stop glowing after a few hard laps at AHG long track. I removed it soon after this, because I realised that it wasnt cooling down quick enough.

I get alot of heat soak with my sti tmic as it hangs over the turbo so i was thinking a turbo blanket aswell but its only really a problem when the car is stationary when driving its scooping all the air down anyways so i think a heat shield is good enough!

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M POWER

ACL Race Series heat shield would sort that out straight away.

$75 for a 750 x 250 sheet, which will be more than enough to cover the area below the TMIC. I'm going to be doing my master/slave cylinders with it this week, and a few other bits in the engine bay.

So, me being a complete mechanical retard, what's the best way of applying the heat shield material?