Modern Toyota Turbos

[nab856]

In the 1980's Toyota was involved in the modernization of turbos. Here is an example of Toyota's ceramic turbine technology.

What is inside a current Toyota turbo?

 

[nab856]

Toyota was kind enough to publish the company's work

Did a modern Toyota turbo search this morning and found "reviews" that were advertisements. Frustrating!

 

[marcfj60]

Toyota was kind enough to publish the company's work
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Did a modern Toyota turbo search this morning and found "reviews" that were advertisements. Frustrating!

Wow! Fundamental research and publishing it in a peer reviewed journal. That's not typical for a for-profit company.

 

[nab856]

Toyota CT26 turbo turbines.

The top turbine is ceramic and has 1/2 the mass of the metal counterpart below it. Toyota showed in their publications a noticeable improvement in turbo spool time using the ceramic turbines. They reduced turbo spool time 40 years ago. What are they doing with their turbos nowadays?

 

[marcfj60]

Did Toyota keep working on the turbo tech from the 80's through the 2020s? I know small displacement engines with turbos have been in use for decades in places like Europe. In the US, we just demanded more cylinders and higher displacement and that was the evolution we got in US-marketed Toyotas for 30+ years. Pickups and the Tacomas got V6s in 3.0, then 3.4, then 4.0 L. V8s started at 4.0, then 4.7, then 5.7. Wasn't until the past couple years that we started seeing turbo 4s and 6s in the US-model Toyotas.

 

[nab856]

Cracked Toyota turbine housings from the 1980s. I have taken apart 3 CT20s used on the 22RTE engine and 3 CT26s from the 7MGTE. All of these turbos are cracked in the same places: Around the waste gate and down the turbine housing inlet.

Finding replacement housings has been a chore. Is this CT26 housing the same as Toyota used on turbo Land Cruisers?

 

[nab856]

Found the answer to my own question. The CT26 turbo turbine housing used on the 1HD turbo engine is not the same as the 7MGTE.

 

[nab856]

Toyota's next generation of turbos. Toyota designed this pair of turbos to work in series. Only one turbo spools between idle and about 3500rpm. Then, butterfly valves open in both the hot and cold side tubing of the second turbo allowing it to spool through the rest of the rpm range. The exhaust valve can be seen in the top middle of the photo, connected to the large actuator at the top right.

Toyota incorporated ceramic turbines into these CT20 turbos.

No cracks found! They redesigned the turbine housing. I have read rumors Toyota changed the casting alloy composition. Destructive or non-destructive elemental analysis anyone?

 

[nab856]

Did Toyota keep working on the turbo tech from the 80's through the 2020s? I know small displacement engines with turbos have been in use for decades in places like Europe. In the US, we just demanded more cylinders and higher displacement and that was the evolution we got in US-marketed Toyotas for 30+ years. Pickups and the Tacomas got V6s in 3.0, then 3.4, then 4.0 L. V8s started at 4.0, then 4.7, then 5.7. Wasn't until the past couple years that we started seeing turbo 4s and 6s in the US-model Toyotas.

The US market Toyota turbo story has reached a large gap. If you are familiar with the overseas or recent US market turbos, please post pictures and your experiences. Don't forget the diesel turbo engines!