Moving a kkk14 away from intake - AAZ 1.9 . . ?

[Gizmoman]

May be a silly question but I was wondering if there would be an advantage to moving my kkk14 turbo away from my intake manifold.
I have an AAZ 1.9 (currently in re-build stage) in an 82 Vanagon. It's common knowledge that cool intake air is a plus and the stock set-up has the sizzling turbo right next to the aluminum intake. My guess is that the intake gets nearly as hot as the turbo so I'm pumping hot air into the engine.

If I made a 2-3" steel extension with flanges (matching the ID profile of the turbo), I would have some room to put in something to insulate the intake and keep it cooler.
There must be some disadvantage or someone would have already done it.

Any thoughts?

[theman53]

I put a piece of sheet metal in between the stock orientation. You would think it wouldn't do anything but it did. The sheet metal is thin and cools quickly. It also keeps the heat from soaking in. I would think whatever benefits could be gained heat wise from your setup would be made null from the extra volume to spool the turbo.

[Gizmoman]

Yeah, I 'spoze that's what those studs are for on the exhaust manifold.

[RabbitJockey]

Doesn't it have a heat shield from the factory?  All of mine have had the heat shield, I think you would get better results by intercooling

[libbydiesel]

There should be a heat shield between the turbo hot side and the intake manifold and a second heat shield on the manifold shielding the cold side of the turbo.  I've considered going more nuts in that regard and doing a more thorough shield job between the hot and cold side components, but have always had better things to do. 

[Gizmoman]

Thanks for the feedback,
I figured there were heat shields at one time due to the studs and tapped holes on the manifolds.
However, I'm having a tough enough time just getting all the parts needed to rebuild the basic motor, much less parts like heat shields. I suppose making heat shields would be easy, and I could always use the elbow-drain trick to fix the drain pipe clocking.

My thoughts were that if I fabbed up a very short extension and off-set the turbo, I could also twist the two flanges enough to take care of the turbo drain-pipe clocking which is not at 6:00 when everything is stock.
The added benefit would be more room for shields and air between the two. I don't know how much of an effect it would have on air flow though as Theman53 pointed out.
As for additional cooling, I am thinking about water injection (no flames please) as opposed to an IC. If I were to go to the trouble and expense of an IC, it would be water (not air) to keep the pressure drop low. The K14 is tiny already and I don't need less air - even if it is cooler. But with the Vanagon, I can envision lots of water hose zip-tied under the frame and aluminum pipes and blue elbows filling up the engine bay. The benefits of the water injection look quite interesting if you are "open" to reading about it.

I may get real fancy and build a new intake that has water flowing through the core (like a built in W/AIC) but I get crazy ideas sometimes . Sure, I'd still have the zip-ties and water hose (going to a front mounted radiator) but the intake piping could remain stock which is one elbow off the turbo.

Anybody heard of this or am I truly nuts?

[gldgti]

Theres a couple of things to consider:

If you are using an intercooler, then sure, its better than nothing to try and insulate the intake after the IC, to keep the air cool on its way to the cylinder.

If, however, you aren't intercooled, then its wont really make any difference. The reason the turbocharger compressor housing is hot, is 99% due to the fact that its compressing air and the air gets hot, which then heats up the compressor housing. Likewise, the hot air is going to heat up the intake manifold, so isolating it from the compressor is pretty pointless.

At the same time, yes, the exhaust side is right there aswell, and it is much hotter. Anything you can do there will be a benefit. On my old AAZ, I made up a  stainless steel sheetmetal heat sheild, and just bolted it to the turbocharger exhaust side (using one of the downpipe studs to mount it) which seemed to help stop heat soak into the manifold (like in traffic).

But, the main over-riding principle here is that because the mass flow rate of the intake air is so large - all these things only make a very small difference - because, the most significant factor attributing to the temperature of any of the intake parts, is the temperature of the air flowing through it.