In a turbo FI applicaiton: Is it the power output of the car that causes damage to the motor, or the pressure (psi) of the turbo?
When people talk about PSI and HP in their particular setup, people always refer to how much PSI a motor can handle, but never the HP it can before damaging something. “My Civic can take 7psi on the stock block” but never “Yeah she’ll last 300whp til I blow a rod.”
So, if it was PSI, I could run a really large turbo at like 5psi and make a large amount of power, as opposed to a smaller turbo at 20psi making the same, causing damage.
It would appear to me motors would die from the power output, and not pressure, but I am never getting a straight answer, so I’d like to try here since it seems like a simple enough question, although difficult for me to easily describe.
Detonation is the primary cause of engine failure in a turbo application.
Obviously if your engine does not have forged internals it can only hold so much power before it explodes with any amount of good tuning.
Typically on a small turbo on high boost, the turbo itself is not designed to be run at that boost and it will be putting out hot air. Hot compressed air is subject to detonation as you probably know and so on and so forth… You get the idea.
IMHO, i would think it is a matter of how the motor “blows up”. If you are talking about boost pressure versus airflow, i believe that too much pressure can cause engine internals to fail. Now if you are looking at it from an airflow (cu. ft./min) standpoint, usually pushing too much boost with improper fueling will cause a very lean and overly explosive mixture and then pre ignition is the problem. Hot engine + tons of air - enough fuel = a big “knock” which can lead to numerous problems involving pistons, rings, rods, cranks, valves …etc. Just my $0.02.
i’ve never refered to what an engine can take as far as psi, it is not a deciding factor, its always the HP level that causes rods to go, otherwise its engine temps…
faggots who say “10 PSI on a stock block” are just boi racers