I talked to someone last week who recommended coating the turbine/compressor wheels (I'm not sure if he meant turbine, compressor, or both) of the turbo with teflon. He said something about the air flowing over the blades of the wheels better.

Has anyone else heard about this, or had this done to their turbos?
Do any of the turbo kits for the Z/G already have this feature on their turbos?

 

I seem to remember someone doing this on the compressor section. I believe it was Apexi and I think they called it AIRCK or something like that. I don't think the teflon would hold up so well on the turbine side of things...

 

One thing is for sure; your eggs won't stick.

 

Teflon on compressor blades will not improve air flowing over the blades.

JET

 

But being able to say that your turbo has non-stick capabilities should be good for at least 20whp. If you get a sticker that says that it could be even more!

 

Most teflon will become gelatinous at about 600-620F, so use on anything but the compressor side of the turbine would be pointless because it would all melt and spin off the turbine blades the first time you drove it. Teflon is great for frictions in liquidous fluids (PTFE hydraulic hose for example), but I don't think that its benefits would be seen nearly as profoundly with air. Sure it might work, but I doubt it would be worth the effort.

 

No..... it wouldn't even "might" work. Actually it would likely be detrimental to performance as the boundary layer would likely move even slower. A rough surface on the compressor blades would be better than a smooth one as the turbulence at the surface of the balde would energize the boundary layer.

JET

 

Indeed, I did not consider this. I guess I was more thinking of flow through an actual channel (say the compressor housing itself) rather than across the blades of the compressor wheel.

 

That was my thought too. That the coating would be applied to the housing...
Heres the information on Apexi AIRICK stuff:

 

Thanks for the input guys.

I had never heard about using teflon before, so I was curious. I also had my doubts about how teflon would hold up in high temperatures involved with turbos.

The advice I got was from an old racer (raced 15+ years ago) and I thought it was worth asking about here. He only discussed it in passing, so I don't have any further background info or details about it. But after I talked to him and thought about it, I was intrigued, especially if it was viable to give a slight performance edge over competition with stock turbos.