Turbo cooling: water lines

[radnulb]

I know this may be a dumb question, but I feel better asking it than guessing.

I have a B18B in my CRX with a Saab T3, water and oil cooled. Currently I am only using oil cooling (and I'm not driving it more than 1-2 miles at a time right now, so I'm not that worried about cooling, yet) but I want to get the water cooling portion hooked up before I start using this car as my daily driver.

I have a nice water feed line tapped already, and it gets good water pressure. (tapped right behind thermostat housing)

What I'm wondering is where to return the water to. I don't have an overflow resevoir, so I was thinking of returning it directly to the radiator by way of the nipple for the overflow tank.

Any comments/suggestions/experiences?

 

[B18aCRX]

According to Homemadeturbo.com and several other places

Most turbos are Water & Oil cooled, on a Honda I tap into the coolant passage off the throttle body and make a loop through the turbo and back to the t-body. This cools down the turbo. (any rubber fuel line should do the trick 5/16 3/8 about 7 feet)


I am not sure though if you are set on using the line that you tapped in by the thermostat.

 

[posol]

IMO, its not worth the hassel. when/if it dies in 20-30k miles form now, just buy another one for 150 bucks.

only small oem turbos tend to ome water cooled.

 

[radnulb]

thanks for the opinions.

I don't run water to my throttle body.
I don't have a Fast Idle Thermo Valve.
it honestly isn't going to be that big of a pain, so I figure I might as well do it.

 

[Loco Honkey]

Running a turbo without coolant to it (if it has a water jacket) is like running an engine without coolant. Without coolant, the turbo might only last 3K miles.

It's your choice.