,
This plot shows the comparison of the engine-dyno transient torque response to a throttle tip-in at 1500 rpm. The extra heat kept in the turbine housing by the turbo blanket gave a time-to-torque advantage of about 1 second which is huge.
The test was repeated with the starting engine speed being 1750 rpm. At this condition, the engine and exhaust parts are a bit toastier, but the insulated turbine housing still gives a time-to-torque advantage of about 0.3 seconds. Keep in mind, if this were two cars starting side-by-side, the car with more torque is accelerating away from the other car. As the car with the turbo blanket installed has more torque over this entire acceleration event shown in the plot, it’s not just pulling away but also accelerating the rate at which it is pulling away from the other car.
This plot shows the engine speed acceleration in response to a throttle tip-in starting at 1000 rpm. Yes, having the turbo blanket installed provides an immediate advantage in acceleration with the engine speed being 250 rpm higher across the acceleration event up to 2400 rpm.
What does that advantage translate to in real life? I made up this hypothetical and eye-balled the values off the graph. Assuming 1000 rpm equals 5 m/s (~11.2 mph), the car with the blanket installed gets to 11 m/s (~24.6 mph) about 0.2 seconds faster. Or, after one second, the car with the turbo blanket installed is 1.4 meters ahead. Call it half a car length. You know, it’s not if you win by an inch or a mile…PTP Turbo Blankets did something you don’t often see in the tuner aftermarket world, they had real legit research performed with their product. Conceptually, all of you knew that keeping heat in the turbine improved performance because I’ve been beating it into your heads that heat equals energy. Mechanical engineering graduate student Steffen Bickle at the University of Texas at Austin put in the work and was able to quantify the performance gains on a diesel engine operating at a relatively low load. On a higher temperature gasoline engine operating at higher loads, I expect the performance gains to be even greater. Of course, there’s the whole aspect of not roasting everything in the vicinity of the turbine housing in the tightly packed engine bays of modern cars. If you’re looking for improved turbocharger performance, have a look into the PTP Turbo Blankets.
Sources
