Turbo lag?
 

Last weekend I had a problem with turbo lag for the first time since I got my car over a year ago. I was in a driving course taught by Michael Ferguson on the grounds of the East Texas Police Academy (highly recommended, BTW). One of the exercises was a course with very tight turns--the more cones you dropped, the more "babies" you had killed. At two points you had a chance to go straight--midway and at the end. I didn't notice anything unusual at the mid-straight, but I sure did at the last corner. Please understand that even the mid-straight was short (1/4-1/2 block?). The problem came when rounding the final corner--you had just enough time to stand on it before you crossed the timing pylons. Except that standing on it didn't produce anything.

Some people (including Ferg, as I recall) said it was the heat from the frequent runs. Could that be? I mean, I really had NO power with foot floored. Everything's been fine ever since, so I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the turbocharger, but I'm really puzzled about this. I had an instructor riding with me for part of the time, and she kept telling me to "go, go, go," but Zippeee! wasn't having any of it.

Thoughts?

yes, its called heat soak. the intercooler on the R56 is pitifully small

So, what can I do about it? Is raising the hood between runs the answer? I autocross the car, with hubby as a second driver, so it's really a concern.

Replace the intercooler, as Creeve understated the stock unit is a placeholder until you get a real one isntalled

That will help a little, but not to much unfortunately. The cure for heatsoak is generally a larger, front mount intercooler so that it cools more efficiently while driving the car. And to try and cool even more than that would be to put an intercooler sprayer on the new front mount intercooler so it sprays water or CO2 on the intercooler to help it cool down the gasses flowing through it even more.

this reminds me of 1 of the Top Gear episode, when Hammon drove a F1 and complaining he needs to go faster in order to cool the brake otherwise there will be no brake..... maybe you can try that too.... just keep going faster so more air flow to the intercooler... :razz:

The stock R56 MCS intercooler is fine if you're on a big open roadcourse racetrack or on the interstate, however as others have stated, in tight & slow city driving or autocrossing, it gets heat soaked quickly, killing power. I also noticed the intercooler getting reasonably warm [as indicated with IAT's through OBDII] during a chassis dyno session.

Bottom line, it sounds like a better intercooler is in the cards for you!

And if your class rules don't allow an intercooler swap, there's always the "garden sprayer full of water" solution for the downtime between runs.

Thanks for all the advice. Looks like this was sort of a one-time abuse of the turbo. Just out of curiosity, about how much would a new intercooler cost, and what would the warranty situation be? Anyone know?