Turbo blankets?

[gavinwibrow]

I have planned to fit a turbo blanket to my TD5s along with lagging the first part of the exhaust pipe.
A person whose opinions I respect has queried whether the "chinese" versions on the turbo could catch fire from the heat?
Any comments from the wise and/or experienced before I go any further?
Cheers

[rick130]

I like a good 3' of dump pipe insulated, it reduces heat into the cab enormously, reduces noise and will give a small increase in exhaust scavenging, but I'd be wary of using a turbo blanket as it might retain too much heat and crack the housing ?
This is why I've always been warned not to header wrap cast iron manifolds, apparently it ends in tears whereas ceramic coating doesn't retain as much heat and so works fine with cast iron.

[steveG]

I fitted one of these ebay blankets to the county about 6 months ago, just before a return trip to Canberra.
T3 TURBO HEAT SHIELD TITANIUM UNDER & OUT T3 GT32/GT35/GT37/ CT26 BLANKET NEW | eBay (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/T3-TURBO-HEAT-SHIELD-TITANIUM-UNDER-OUT-T3-GT32-GT35-GT37-CT26-BLANKET-NEW-/152464640102?hash=item237f99c866:g:5OkAAOSwZVlXu-Oc)

Definitely had a hot synthetic/plastic sort of smell for the first 20 mins on the highway, but disappeared after that.
EGT sat at around 700degC for a lot of the way home towing a tandem trailer - hasn't caught fire yet!!

Steve

[Vern]

I used some of this and folded it around the turbo, think its called varishield, works a treat.https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/05/34.jpg

[incisor]

i had one on my 300tdi and i was impressed how much it cooled the engine bay down..

also had the exhaust wrapped to past the back of the transfer case.

made big difference to passwenger comfort levels...

[Mercguy]

A friend once had an XF Fairmont ghia, with a supra 5 speed conversion, Pacemaker headers, wrapped in Thermo-tec.

the headers rotted out from the INSIDE. The thermotec wrap completely concealed this, until one day when it was all too late and the engine bay caught fire, writing the vehicle off.

When the blaze was extinguished, the headers were shown to have rusted through at the weld on the manifold flange, they were ok everywhere else. The wrap was still there, and although charred looking was still doing it's job for the most part.

The real conjecture came as to whether or not the fire started on the exhaust or if there was simply too much heat and somethign else melted, sparks, fuel etc.

I had the same wrap on several of my cars, none of which exhibited the same issues. However, I did paint all of my headers with hi-heat spray and coated the thermotec with the appropriate recommended heat paint also.

Never had an issue. Obviously checked for the 'rot' symptoms regularly after mate's car went up in smoke.

Would I use a blanket? Yes, but only in addition to having the turbine housing ceramic coated inside and out and the dump pipe coated, Then I would wrap in a well-recognized brand of turbine housing blanket / downpipe.

Most factory setups I have seen use an aluminium shield as a baffle / heatsink and they do not seem to have any adverse effect.

Of course, if you are putting more fuel through then you cannot expect the EGT's and radiant heat to remain the same as a standard vehicle.

[rick130]

i had one on my 300tdi and i was impressed how much it cooled the engine bay down..

also had the exhaust wrapped to past the back of the transfer case.

made big difference to passwenger comfort levels...

That's interesting, I've always been wary of doing the housing. The exhaust definitely works well, although my exhaust has started to corrode out as it was plain black steel on the bends merely painted.