When turbochargers are designed, they are designed to work at a specific boost range within a given RPM range of an engine. For the OEM workings, this is pretty straight forward. They know the power levels they want, RPM range of the engine they are designing, the amount of fuel, etc. So, they can easily work with a turbocharger manufacturer to design a turbocharger for that application.

Photos courtesy of NHRDA and Turbosmart USA

In the aftermarket, we look for some of the largest turbochargers that will fit on our engine and pray that they will work. Now there is a bunch of science behind this and while this is true to a certain degree, it isn’t like someone is just grabbing random stuff and bolting it up. Most people have a good idea what they need and they are trying to find something close that will work.

One man who has been on the leading edge in the competition world and knows about pushing turbochargers as far as they can, would be Ryan Milliken of Hardway Performance Solutions. When he got out of the military, he went straight into the performance diesel business. After a short period of time, H&S Performance realized Milliken’s talents and hired him to become their Cummins Calibration Specialist.

As emissions regulations started to be enforced, Milliken opted to go out on his own and started Hardway Performance Solutions in 2013.  “We have 6000′ facility in Northern Florida with a small crew of mechanics & sales/service staff, an in ground Dynojet 224xlc chassis dyno which gets used regularly and our specialty is tuning, both ECM and forced induction systems, on primarily performance Cummins but… we’ll work on whatever comes through as long as the goal is usable horsepower,” says Milliken.

Do you see the rings in the exhaust? They are generally a sign of something very bad. In this case, Milliken destroyed another charger. When he hit the nitrous, the additional volume over spun the turbo; causing catastrophic failure.

This year, Milliken is running double duty as he is driving the MBRP drag truck as well as his own truck named Buckwheat. He is undefeated thus far in the MBRP drag truck. Buckwheat unfortunately, blow a radiator hose and hit the wall at the last race.

Milliken is, also, the driver of the MBRP Pro Stock truck (owned by G&J Diesel), as well as he runs his own rig; a 2007 Dodge that he races in the Super Street class, nicknamed “Buckwheat”. Over the years, Milliken saw a number of turbocharger failures both on his rig as well as customer’s vehicles.

In 2012, Milliken was Turbosmart USA’s largest diesel distributor.

In 2011, he started looking for a solution and turned to Turbosmart. “I told them that we were wiping out the thrust bearing and blowing up turbochargers way too often and I wanted to know what his products could do for us,” explained Milliken. “They were extremely surprised that we were running 60-70lbs of boost out of the large frame turbochargers. At that level, they didn’t have much of a life expectancy,” continued Milliken.

When Turbosmart started investigating the problem, they came to the realization that an entirely new wastegate was needed. Most available wastegates that were out on the market really weren’t designed for this type of environment and people had to make them work. “I worked closely with the guys in the US as well as Turbosmart Australia on the new wastegate. We were trying to design a high pressure series of gates that were specifically for our diesel application that required much higher pressures to achieve our power goal. The gates are designed to just barely allow enough boost, so it doesn’t blow up,” chuckled Milliken.

What came out of this effort was the new line of wastegates. Specifically, the Turbosmart 45mm Hyper Gate HP nicknamed “Abe Lincoln.” These new gates are designed with an internal spring that won’t even open until the drive pressure hits 35 psi, if no reference sources are supplied. By the time a reference pressure is supplied, the tuner has complete control over when and how the gate opens. “It came out of the box ready. It is able to run our chargers to the near brink of explosion…but not quite!” said Milliken.

According to Milliken, “Problems are fixed immediately although R&D never stops.” Milliken continues to find new ways to make more power, he is constantly testing the newest products and trying to figure out how to not only make his rides go faster, but, also, his customer’s. To see some of his latest testing, check out this link – http://hardwayperformance.com/racing/

Milliken, also, recommends thinking about adding a blow off valve (BOV) to any truck with a manual. “In my opinion, when you have a manual transmission and a large single turbo; or if you are in an application where you are on and off the throttle a lot, adding a BOV may be a good idea, especially if you are constantly barking the turbo(s). We install them on some trucks and some trucks we don’t. It all just depends on what the customers doing with it,” said Milliken.

Really either way you go, if you are pushing a turbocharger, seeking some external relief can make a huge difference. For information check out our tech section or hit Milliken up at Hardway Performance Solutions.