Has anyone had experience of fitting a turbo timer (e.g.HKS) with a Cat 1 alarm/ Cat 2 immobiliser.

 

From what I understand part of the Thatcham certification states that the immobiliser must kick in within so many seconds. If you have a timer leaving the engine running for xyz seconds will it prevent the immobiliser working or invalidate the certification?

 

When I had mine installed they said that one of the ways around it was to get a Clifford Concept 400 installed which has a turbo timer in the unit, this then means that the car can run the down timer, lock the car, immobilise the engine and all, very impressive bit of kit I must say. When I got mine it had a Jap timer installed and they pulled it out and gave it to me. The insurance thing is that although you have a Cat 1 system installed, the car will not immobilise until the engine turns off, (unless it is one of these Cliffords). Only down side, the price, mine cost £390 inluding fitting which took them two days but they had done quite a few Z's before. Hope this helps you out.

 

Dan

 

I have had a go with a couple of different alarms/ turbo timers without alot of success. The problem being that if the alarm system sees an ignition feed, i.e. when the engine is running it can`t be armed. One way around it is to have your alarm programmed for passive arming (it arms itself), when you leave the car you lock the doors with the key and leave it running with the turbo timer, when the timer has run out the alarm will set itself.

As far as the insurance companys are concerned the car must be immobilised 30 secs after the ignition has been turned off, it doesnt say anywhere that you have to be in the car. However, and don`t quote me on this, but i have been told that turbo timers are illegal in this country as leaving the car running with nobody in it is classed as abandonment.

As far as Clifford alarms are concerned they do have built in turbo timers that can be set from 1 second to 4 minutes. (the Concept 300, 500 and 600 are the insurance approved ones)

 

This is all true, but if your turbo timer has kicked in, then you MUST have taken the keys out!!! I'm still waiting for some theiving scum to try nicking my Z with the turbo timer running. Quite funny to watch - just as he sets off, count-down finishes, engine cuts - then he dies!!!

On the serious side though - the Thatcham certificate should still be valid because the immobiliser will still kick in a certain time after the engine has stopped. All the turbo timer does is effectively keep the ignition on for a short period of time - its like not taking the key out.

 

Now I am confused, which one do I have ?? I guess it must be the 300. anyway, I couldnt believe it, my insurance company insisted I got a Cat 1 Approved Alarm and suggested the Clifford, I got it all done, arranged alternative lifts for two days, phoned the insurance company to tell them it had been done and guess what !! They said, oh keep the certificates and we will get them off you if we need to, great eh !! We wont isnure you unless you get one, I get one, oh dont worry about that rather expnsive certificate !!! gits

 

I had a similar problem when inquiring about Cliffords. I wanted the AvantGarde but I was told that if the alarm has IntelliStart you're not CAT 1?

 

I don't want to piss on everybodies bonfire here but I do think that Turbo Timers are a bit of a gimmick! Can't you just hang around your car for 4 minutes and then switch it off yourself???

 

If you read the handbook it states that depending on what type of driving you have been doing depends on how long you need to leave the engine running for the Turbos' to coold down. After hard driving it's about 2-4 minutes, so if you take it easy a couple of minutes b4 you get to where you're going you're looking at about 2 mins max. So where's the justification in spending 100's of well earned dollars on a Turbo Timer? It's like everything in Jap land, like TV's on your wrist watch etc. An excuse to make something else with ground breaking techno. but absolutely useless in the real world!

 

;-)

 

Hang around in the car for 4 minutes.

 

I'm not being funny - let's assume that you use your Z at least every day. You go to work, and you pop to the shop (around the corner, via any long straight road) for a bottle of milk. Thats two journeys a day on average:

 

1 Day - 8 minutes

 

1 week - 56 minutes

 

A year - 2912 minutes

 

2912 minutes = 48 hours!!

 

You got two days a year to hang around in your car with the engine idling!!! Come on!

 

YES!

 

;-)

 

Look, ask yourselves a simple question, if all Turbo sports cars required a turbo timer, why weren't they fitted at the factory???

 

I rest my case!

 

¦-)

 

'cos they didn't expect nutters like us to drive them?!!! ;)

Another point about them is that if you're doing any mods, most will give 0-60 and 1/4 mile times etc so you can compare 'before and after'. OK they're not that acurate in terms of the figures they give but they are consistent so you'll know if you've made an improvement or not! (have I explained that badly or what???)

Also, the manufacturers don't expect you to modify the damn thing.....

 

Andy

 

Look, ask yourselves a simple question, if all Turbo sports cars required a turbo timer, why weren't they fitted at the factory???

 

Counter point....If in all turbo cars BOV or surge valves are required, why were they missing in most of the early turbo cars.

 

ANSWER

Because cars manufacturers are making HUGE profits on REPLACEMENT parts, have you seen the price of a TURBO lately ?

 

Zee you

 

Henri

 

 

Henri, I couldn't agree more. I've just had my turbo's changed after only 63k miles. I don't thrash my z and I've done the majority of it's miles. My turbo's couldn't be re-conditioned because the build up was so bad. The guy at the turbo place could tell me exactly what mods my car has and exactly how I drive. I've learnt a very expensive lesson. It's just not that easy to sit around every time you park up.

 

Vijay

 

Hi mateys,

I've got a Razo turbo timer with a clifford virtual Key (cant remember if its cat 1 or 2, Bob?). No probs here, works fine.

 

300ZX.CO.UK

 

Henri,

 

That's funny, coz I read a tech post on twinturbo.net explaining why it was pointless fitting boost valves or recirculation valves on any 300zx old or new because they all had recirc. valves fitted at the factory?

 

Or have I been misinformed?

 

?

 

In reply to the BOV/Re-Circ. issue...Read on...

 

The Great Blow Off Valve Debate:

 

First of all to understand the functionality and benefits of a blow off valve you have to have a complete understanding of how a turbocharger works. If you don't understand the basic mechanics of a turbocharger you can forget about trying to understand the benefits of a blow off valve. If you do understand the mechanics of a turbocharger, read on...

 

An Explanation of Compressor Surge:

 

The turbine in a turbocharger in its ideal mode is spinning at a very high rate and therefore generating lots of pressurized air that is fed into the OPEN (wide open throttle) intake manifold which translates into more power, but what happens when you take your foot off the gas when shifting between gears? The turbine in the turbo is still spinning at a high rate but now you've taken your foot off the gas and the intake manifold is CLOSED. Now the turbine spinning at a high rate and is trying to push out all this compressed air but since the manifold is closed, that compressed air has nowhere to go. What happens next is that the turbine slows down because of this pressure build-up between the compressor and the intake manifold. Since the pressurized air can't go forward into the engine it heads the wrong way back towards the turbo where it slows the turbine down (compressor surge). After you shift gears and you step on the gas again you want to have the turbine spinning fast so that its producing boost but since you took your foot off the gas and caused compressor surge, it slowed down, so you have to wait for the turbine to "spool up" (spin fast) again. This delay waiting for turbines to spool up is what causes some of the performance degradation that were trying to avoid.

 

The Blow off Valve:

 

What if we could figure out a way of eliminating compressor surge? Then the turbine in our turbo would have a much easier time keeping its speed up and we wouldn't get the lag in power waiting for the turbine to spool up between shifts. Enter the Blow off valve. At that moment in time between shifts when compressor surge is slowing the turbine down we'll just poke a hole in the tube running between the turbo and the intake manifold and let all that air leak out somewhere. The turbine can keep spinning fast & we'll have lots of boost when we step on the gas again. We'll also want to plug up that hole we made because we have a purpose for that pressurized air now, where as when we let off the gas we did not. The blow off valve is a gizmo that's constantly opening and closing giving you that cool sneeze sound when it "pokes" that hole in the intake manifold tube to keep the turbine spinning fast. We've eliminated compressor surge but we did confuse the engine just a bit since the ECU already told the injectors to issue fuel to be used for the air that we've now thrown out. Other than that sounds like a good idea right? so what if were running a bit rich for a moment, no big deal. Before you place your order read on...

 

The Re-circulating Valve... a better idea:

 

How about instead of poking a hole in the turbo to intake manifold tube and just letting the air leak out wherever it wants to, we could direct that pressurized air somewhere else where we could hold on to it until we need it again? The intake side of the compressor housing (between the intercooler and the turbo) would be a good place wouldn't it? that way we wouldn't slow the turbine down and we would have that pressurized air that would have otherwise been thrown out, ready in a really good place when we need it. On top of that eve got still got the correct air/fuel ratio going since we're not throwing and air out, just moving it from one place to another within the intake system. Instead of having to suck in air for the turbo to pressurize, we've got

some pressurized air with the correct fuel amount already waiting. Now we've got all the benefits of a blow off valve and then some. That's a re-circulating valve. Let's all order re-circulating valves then and skip the blow off valves completely. They're probably gonna cost a bit more than the blow off valves since they work a little better right? Now the big surprise... Re-circulating valves were engineered into the design of your 90+ twin turbo z on the drawing board... you've already got them...

 

In conclusion: You could always disconnect your stock re-circulating valves (which you have to do to install blow off valves) and spend 500-600 bucks for blow off valves and what will you get? better performance? No, basically you do get the cool sneeze sound though you aren't going to be any faster than

you were before (but you might sound like you are). If by chance you are running boost levels that exceed the airflow capacity of the re-circulating valves (~600+ hp?) then you've probably spent enough money and have enough experience and knowledge to know where the benefit reverses. For the rest of you who weren't in the know, I hope I've helped you save some time and money...

 

zxttsteve

 

I've had a Saab C reg Saab Aero Turbo which when I got rid had done 185,000 miles on the same turbo, Supra which had done 90,000 miles when I got rid and neither of these cars ever had problems with turbo's. So all I'm trying to say is don't always believe what you're told about Turbo chargers packing up at 70,000 miles or so...coz I say...absolute bollocks!

 

;-)

 

 

All the above is of course correct,

 

I believe Henri was refering to other cars, not the Z, personally i have driven about 4 other turbo'd cars before the Z, none of which had any form of automatic pressure realease system on them. The simple fact is the system is very advatagous to the perofrmance of a turbocharged car.

 

As for turbo timers, Get one dont get one, 1500 quid for a new set of turbos seems good to me. Personally i dont give a shit what the insurance tell me to do, My top 2 priorities are

A) noone steals it

B) it doesn't cost me a arm and a leg all the time.

 

If you think you can be disiplined enuff to spend 4 mins in a car, and remmember every time you stop at a service station on the motorway, starving hungery, bostin for a piss and with your bitch chewing your ear off, after red lining it for 100 miles, i invite you to try.

 

A turbo timer is a gimmick yes, and it is not needed most of the time, but for those who want to take the best care of there Z i would reccomend one and would also recommend people integrate it with there alarm in a safe and stable fashion.

 

thats my 0.2p

 

Z ya

 

Nico91TT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be very careful with things like TTimers, my mate had an MR2 Turbo and wrote it off when some prat in a Nova ploughed straight into the side of him doing about 40 MPH.

 

Car was recovered to nearby holding pen at the recovery garage, insurance assessor came out to assess the heap of twisted metal, spotted TTimer and devaulued the car by 2000 squid for having an illegal fitting on the vehicle.

 

So before you start rattling on about the cost of your precious Turbo's, think about losing 2K large off the value of yer valued Z in the event of a total!

 

[-)

 

 

Why not try the Turbo Guard System. A company called Agriemech do a system for £169.00 that feeds the turbo with oil for a set amount of time after shut down, i've seen it fitted to another Turbo motor and the owner is well happy with it, only thing is i've not heard of one been fitted to twin turbos as of yet.

Smithy, I.O.M