Hi everyone.

I have my eye on this turbo ek being sold and was wondering if I need to retune it for winter driving? Will driving in - 30°c cause any issue? If you know anything regarding my concern or know of an article that would be good read please send it my way.

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question. I've never own add on turbo car before.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Absolutely this will cause a problem. Going turbo at that low of a temperature is tothe point in which a retrofited turbo EK should not even be driven.

Having said that, however, it can done if you make it an imperative to properly retune the car for your particular climate variance.

In all honesty, I suggest that you find some sort of winter car to drive in the meantime.

Not only will you have driveability issues based upon your climate from the engine and turbo build with most tunes that were made in more moderate temperatures, ( I presume that you weren't involved in the original tune of the car) but we don't even have to mention anything about traction control issues, Tire Choice, etc, etc.

Where you live in which you have -30C must be closer to the arctic

 

-22 Fahrenheit? The turbo EK I built will do that no problem, but I have cast pistons with stock sleeves.

But you don't want a retrofitted turbo if you've never had one/are not capable of building a setup from scratch. Because if you can't therorize building it from scratch, you will have no fun repairing something that has no manual. You need to bring out the inner macgyver.

To answer the question direct, the only thing I retune between summer and winter is my startup idle speed. I have it higher for longer in the winter, and much lower in the summer. If you even want to call that a retune. lol

If it's been tuned for low temps, it will be fine.

Edit: If it has forged internals, probably a bad idea to daily that in weather that cold, even if you baby the startup and let it warm up

 

Thank you both for the helpful tips. As far as I'm aware, the engine is relatively stock aside from a basic rebuild with Apr studs and better rings. All the basic maintaine(belt and pump) was all done at the same time just before the turbo was put in. It was tuned properly by a local ttuner. The car runs really well with a lot of nice custom features on it. Everything was done properly too, it just too bad it won't handle the Alberta winter.

I'll try googling some more. ​Thanks again for all the helpful info.

Edit: if I were to keep the throttle light, would that help? As you can till, I'm trying to justify getting the car.

 

No.. Driving "light" won't really help. You can get the car, but it won't be the daily driver you're going for like a factory turbo cat, which was designed very differently from parts pavement in the engine bay to the tune.

Get a second car for your winter commutes if you decide to do this.