| Message |
I actually don't know the material on the Skyline turbos, but have read that they are ceramic as well. I assume they are silicon nitride (the same as the ball bearings). That material has great strength, lubricity, and wear resistance, along with being incredibly light. The ceramic is about 2.5x lower density then the iron, which, assuming the volume of material is the same, would offer SUPERIOR boost response; however, at 100,000RPM +, it is prone to basically blowing itself apart from the tensile stresses it undergoes. That's most likely why a) the skyline can't take big boost and b) it was thicker. There is a technique called "rapid prototyping" that makes dense ceramics near-net shape (a big problem with ceramics is part consitency and shrinkage during sintering). A budde of mine designed this process to make ceramic parts for the Navy, and runs a side business. We've (slowly) been working on trying to make a turbine, but don't have any product yet. A ceramic turbine would be ideal (and easy) for a big diesel truck or bus turbo, for low(er) RPM applications. I'm hoping to adapt that system for 100kRPM+ high boost applications.... again... "one day"... :) SS
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ "If you have no lag, you have no turbo."
Corky Bell
|
 |
