Posted by Chris Lube Lublin on Monday, March 14, 2005 at 1:08AM :
In Reply to: Re: diesel i.d. help posted by jim in n.y. on Sunday, March 13, 2005 at 12:36PM :
Hey Jim!
Yes, you can just bolt the turbo on. If you lower the compression in a Diesel, it probably wont run. See, a Diesel uses the heat built up from the high compression to ignite the fuel oil. gas engines used spark to ignight gasoline. Gas ignites at a lower temprature than diesel does. Try running Diesel in a gas engine. It wont run, or will run super poorly if at all. Now, if you put gas in a Diesel engine, it will 'grenade' and scatter all over the place! It burns too hot, too quick for a Diesel. Most non-turbo diesels can handle a turbo just fine. But, a turbo does force in more air, which will somewhat be harder on the enigne,, but unless you 'over turbo' it, I would not worry about it. See, since Diesel engines run much higher compression, their bottom ends are built much more rigid (in MOST cases) than gassers. But if you were to put a resonably sized turbo on your Diesel, and use some common sense, it will have more power and be more efficent. The key to keeping a turbo going a long time is to keep it cool as you can! A turbo turns at about 25,000 RPM! They get hot, quick! So if you have a turbo Diesel engine and you take it for a drive, let it idle and cool down a few min before you shut it down. that cools the oil, which inturn keeps the turbo cool and keep its from getting into a 'heat sink' condition when you shut the engine off. As for being hard, you may have to adapt a turbo to your particular engine if it was never availble for it. Good luck!
Chris "Lube" Lublin
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