Don turbos have to be really hot to work properly?
Putting a torch to your turbo and getting it hot doesn’t produce boost. What produces boost is airflow across the turbine which causes the turbine to spin. If turbochargers required very high temperatures to produce boost, Diesel trucks and Methanol Race cars wouldn’t be able to run turbos. However, each of these “Low Exhaust Temperature” vehicles work very well with turbochargers when, like any turbo application, the turbocharger is sized correctly. In a conventional, exhaust manifold mounted turbocharger system, the extra heat causes the air molecules to separate and the gas becomes “thinner” because of the extra space between the molecules. This extra space increases the volume of air but doesn’t increase the mass of the air. Because the volume is higher, the velocity of the gas has to be higher to get it out in the same amount of time. By mounting the turbo further downstream, the gasses do lose heat energy and velocity, however, there is just as much mass (the amount of air) comin