I'm new to turbos and diesels but have been wrenching for years on gasoline motors. Wow is there a lot of stuff to monitor now. I've got a 2005 6.0 SuperDuty with no mods and a manual transmission. While researching gauges I ran across all sorts of different Turbo Minders and Turbo Timers. I had planned to install a pyro gauge in the exhaust after the turbo but now am all sorts of confused.

WHAT I DO NOW
I know that I need to let the turbo cool before shutting down. Since I have no way of knowing when it's cool I let it idle for 10 minutes after I've been towing a while. Having used my truck now for almost a year I've come to the conclusion that 10 minutes is a long time to sit in a rest stop waiting to get out to go ****. For short trips without a trailer (10 miles or less) I just shut the truck down when I get to my destination.

THE DILEMMA
* I could install a pyro gauge, monitor the temp myself and shut down when it's cool. Pretty straightforward there, except there are all sorts of variables that can affect the temperature reading.

* I could get a Turbo Timer; again seems straightforward but I have no idea of knowing how many minutes to set it for. And I'd still have to install a pyro gauge of some sort.

* Or I could get a Turbo Minder-type thing that shuts the truck down for me based on a temperature reading it takes; the only negative with this choice seems to be that I'd not be able to shut the truck off myself if need be.

Y'all were newbies trying to sort through this at one time too. What do you wish you would have done the first time?

 

I think the turbo timers/minders are unnecessary, they cool down a lot faster than you'd think. I just let it idle for 30 seconds if I've been driving it hard, but usually the last few blocks are driving slow so I don't worry about it.

 

i have my Turbo Timer set for 3 mins. i can just drive to my destination get out and go with out worrying about EGT's and cool down.

 

Get yourself a EGT gauge so you can see what your temp is doing. From my experience the time it takes to pull into your rest stop will be enough for the temps to drop and you to turn it off.

 

Just pulling into a rest stop is enough to cool everything down? Even after pulling a 13,000 pound trailer over two mountain passes in 90-degree weather during a nonstop trip that is almost 200 miles long?

I'm not trying to be a *****. That's the most frequent run I make in the summer so I'm using that as a basis for measurement.

 

No offense taken. Like I said, get yourself a gauge and then you can be your own judge. 10 minutes of cool down time is a waste of fuel. Most often so is 3 minutes. EGT's rise and fall very quickly in these trucks.
For every person that lets their truck cool down, there are probably 20 that stop and turn them off. You don't see very many (if any) turbo failures resulting from doing that.
Just my opinion.

 

Better option is to get a pyrometer with an alarm function built in. The alarm circuit can be setup to work like a timer. Keeping the engine running until the temp drops below a preset temp. Much smarter than just a timer.

Something like these:-
DIGITAL EGT THERMOMETER PYROMETER W/ Probe - eBay Thermometers, Test Equipment, Electrical Test Equipment, Business Industrial. (end time 21-May-08 13:22:58 AEST)
UNIVERSAL PID TEMPERATURE CONTROL CONTROLLER - eBay Temperature Controllers, Industrial Automation, Control, Electrical Test Equipment, Business Industrial. (end time 14-May-08 01:17:54 AEST)

 

rolling slow into a parking lot and 30 seconds or so. When i'm not towing, just the ride on back streets to my house is about all I do.

 

Just my 2c - being from Australia I’ve been around turbo cars (although gas - ie GTR's GTiR etc etc) for a long long time - and most of the time it was in a racing environment. From my experience EGTs are not as important as the bearing housing temperature / turbo housing temperature (the two are VERY different temperatures, although directly proportional to each other) - remember what you're trying to avoid is heat soaking after shutdown - The Ford turbo is't water cooled or anything so it relies on the oil from the engine to cool the bearing housing. After shutting it down even though the EGTs may be low the housing / bearing temperature could still be unacceptable.

30seconds in my opinion is not enough - 3 mins sounds like a good time and 10 sounds slightly excessive - My bros R32 GTR is set to around 5 mins and he is very cluded in on those sorts of things. His turbo CA20 in his race car is set to 10 mins...

As for me I let my F350 diesel sit for 3 mins after a simple drive down the hwy - after a hard workout I let it sit for about 10mins.

Jeff T

 

What you typed - about monitoring turbo temp instead of exhaust gas temp - makes a lot of sense. It's actually something I've long wondered about: why does it matter how hot air coming out of the engine is?

Perhaps monitoring oil temperature is ultimately what we should be doing instead, since that is what cools the turbo?

 

It would be interesting to put a thermocouple in the turbo's oil drain tube...