Competition Glowing turbo stories

[2broke2smoke]

had a couple of freinds over and the discussion led to glowing turbos ...

one of my good freinds runs a "pump truck" for halliburton ... he has "two K-Eleven hundred" cummins engines on his truck to run the pumps and told us that on a dark morning frac job you can watch the turbos glow in the dark ... don't notice it in the daylight, but he acted like it was perfectly normal, promised to take a good digital pic for me to post next chance he gets



my brother in law purchased an '89 dodge cummins with 200k cheap because the previous owner had "cranked the pump all the way" and melted a hole in the number six piston ... the previous owner told him that was why he was selling so cheap ... the local truckstop mechanic had replaced the bad piston only and he was afraid of what permanent damage had been done ... sold the truck for 1/2 of what it was worth



the next day my brother in law used the truck to tow his race truck on a equipment hauler fifth wheel trailer to north carolina ... on the return trip he was climbing the big mountain out of nc into virgina and noticed the long trail of black smoke rolling behind him ... pulled over at the next truck stop and popped the hood to see how everything looked and had melted a hole in the underhood insulation ... he showed it to me when he got home



he installed a pyro that weekend and still has the truck with 300k+ on it now ... same turbo, same pistons ... just changes the oil and swapped in an NV4500



the whole point of this rant is that i am amazed to think that a turbo could generate that much heat and live ... .



anyone have any "Glowing turbo" stories they'd like to share ...



these guys are good friends and i believe them but i'd be ready to buy a new turbo if i popped the hood and saw anything like they described

 

[sbentz]

Here is link to one of our dyno pull photos. It is with the old header, not a cast manifold.



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[Jff24Gordn]

Way back in 2000 at SDX, Carl, AKA WWCD2, had his truck on the dyno. I think it had a hy turbo. His pyro was mounted post turbo and was at like 1400*. The guy watching the engine hollered to shut it down becasue he could see through the exhaust manafold it was that hot.

 

[JasonCzerak]

With my old Audi TT would you see a glow from the back of the firewall from the turbo/header. it's tucked in there so it's only a reflective glow. This was easly caused once you run 140+ on the e-way for a few miles and pull off... You could feel the heat on the inside of the car start to radiate in.



My buddy had a Grand Prix GTP. The headers would be a BRIGHT red after a 120+ run too ...



What ever you do. . if you see things glowing. . don't just kill the motor. . let things idle down for a very long time, or drive very easy for a few miles.

 

[RoadGoesOnForever]

I see glowing manifolds and turbos almost daily at work. The best glow that I have seen is a C15 genset engine that we were developing. The whole turbo and manifold was a yellowish orange when running at rated. When I run stuff like this I always like to turn the lights off in my test cell for the added effect. Some people think it is a little strange, but I think it is one of the fun parts of my job.