Turbos

[Louk]

That patent shows the turbine and exhaust housing cast with the cylinder head. The abstract states it right out the gate. The compressor housing and guts can be removed but turbine housing and manifold are integral.

How often would you need to replace the outer cast portion as opposed to the inner that is not the one piece design? Failure rate of the housing vs guts?
Per the original question if a customer has an issue with his turbo could they not just replace parts inside? understand the outside is a one piece, but your still able to replace parts inside right?
If the housing wasn’t cracked you could rebuild the whole turbo?
Asking seriously just by looking at “sheet 2” of the patent. It looks like everything but the manifold can be replaced. So in theory they wouldn’t order you a new manifold for a turbo issue, just rebuild the one on the car currently.

 

[AZDinoPwr]

How often would you need to replace the outer cast portion as opposed to the inner that is not the one piece design? Failure rate of the housing vs guts?
Per the original question if a customer has an issue with his turbo could they not just replace parts inside? understand the outside is a one piece, but your still able to replace parts inside right?
If the housing wasn’t cracked you could rebuild the whole turbo?
Asking seriously just by looking at “sheet 2” of the patent. It looks like everything but the manifold can be replaced. So in theory they wouldn’t order you a new manifold for a turbo issue, just rebuild the one on the car currently.

If it is designed correctly with enough design margin, uses the correct materials and is manufactured (cast) properly then it shouldn’t ever crack. And yes the only “wear” component would be the internals assuming you caught a bearing failure earlier enough that the turbine didn’t damage the inside of the housing. My biggest concern here would be the manufacturing quality from the casting house…only because MOPAR has demonstrated to me with the TRX that QC is a low priority. I never had this concern on my TT German V8s.

The second part of your question is more intriguing to me. As labor rates go up, more and more assemblies on vehicles are replaced as entire units rather than rebuilding. Manufacturers and dealers don’t want their techs spending hours rebuilding complicated or semi-complex assemblies. If a normal turbo on a vehicle burns up a bearing, the dealership doesn’t do a turbo rebuild with a new $50 bearing. They put on a new turbo. It takes them less time while making the same or higher margins. Sometimes the math makes sense given the labor rate for the consumer to opt to replace the entire assembly. Sometimes it doesn’t but most dealers or mechanics aren’t going to tell you that. And the more complex you make the disassembly and reassembly (like trying to rebuild a turbo bolted on the car rather than on a bench) the easier it is for the manufacturer to justify replacing the entire assembly.

My guess is that this design is intentional to boost manufacturer repair margins.

 

[Jimmy07]

Here’s the cylinder head for the hurricane:

Here’s the turbos and their part numbers:

Here’s an HO pulled from a wagoneer: