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Understand Turbo Corrosion Mechanics

1:48
11:01
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At 1:48 in

This is Why You ALWAYS Need to Let Your Turbo Car Warm Up! (Even If You're Not Driving it Anywhere)

What happens here

Gain an in-depth understanding of how moisture and combustion byproducts cause corrosion in turbochargers. Learn that engines, especially those with iron bearing housings, chrome steel shafts, and tool steel rings, are susceptible. The expert explains that if a vehicle is frequently started and shut off before reaching operating temperature, acidic moisture (containing byproducts of combustion like acids and race gas remnants) condenses and sits on these components. This leads to rust and corrosion, which can cause piston rings to fuse to the turbine shaft, tearing out the bearing housing's seal bore and resulting in oil leaks. The visible example of a damaged turbine shaft illustrates the severity of this issue.

Goal: Comprehend the chemical and mechanical processes leading to turbocharger damage from moisture.

Tools and materials

  • Damaged Turbine Shaft Unspecified — Visual aid to demonstrate corrosion effects

What they say

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you really gotta let your stuff warm up enough so that you don't just let it run just like that and then shut it off and park it because then that lets rust build up it can mess up your turbos you gotta let it run long enough so that like if you spit on the header it would sizzle off because if your spit sizzle's off then it will also get out the moisture gets in that stuff in the form of this steam here i'm gonna let it run more because i'm not gonna let it sit like this and crud up my turbos so now we're gonna pass it over to robert and he's gonna explain to this in a more legitimate capacity as to why you need to do it what happens if you don't and we'll even show you what a turbine shaft looks like from one that's been messed up a lot of people were looked at uh especially if you're in a hurry to get this car out of this trailer or back these two race cars out of the way so that we can get these this customer job in here and get started on this this morning sometimes there's a tendency to if it's got if it's kind of a street car you just hop into it fire it up back it out and park it around the side of the building you may only have it running for 20 seconds what you just did was populated a bunch of really acidic moisture all on the inside of all the exhaust parts and then you just left it there all day then at the end of the day you fired it up again and did the same thing when you pulled it in now say you've been moving it in and out of the shot for the last two weeks because you're not messing with it okay you've just done this 10 times you just deposited more moisture on there you know you walk up to a cold window and it's your turbo charger the inside of your turbo is a cold window and you breathe on okay there's moisture that that is on there that's there's no way around it it's just physics and things and that what else is in there combustion byproducts what's in combustion byproducts acids really nasty little leftover parts of race gas you know a little that made a chemical reaction with some other stuff and it's just all this stuff is corrosive it's in there and it's corrosive and it sits in the piston ring grooves and it sits on the outside of the shaft outside of the piston rings and it's just they're wet and it and it's even worse if you have iron bearing house so if you have iron bearing housing in a chrome steel shaft and tool steel rings well all of those things are actually corrodible with enough moisture and enough acidic presence in…

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