Turbo blanket/Wrap recommendations

[Chamberpains]

I believe that a bad tune, hard driving habits, and the blanket caused my glorious failure. The bad tune caused EGT's to rise rapidly and to very high temps because unchecked and unknown burn process of the fuel.
The bad driving habits caused these very high temps to accumulate for too long and the blanket never allowed the excess heat to escape any where. Which caused the melted steel. Which is pretty damn impressive being that steel melts in the 2000F degree range.

Why it didn't melt the head or the manifold or the valves I'm not totally sure. But I'm guessing it didn't because those components where able to radiate heat away, on top of the heat being carried away by the oil and coolant which kept them just below maximum temps. The turbo on the other hand couldn't because of the blanket.

Now I drove this truck 8 months (roughly 70,000 miles) with the blanket on before the complete failure occurred. In fact I used to enjoy how quiet the exhaust was with the blanket. So the melting didn't happen over night or in 1 big blast. The turbo actually gave out completely while being empty for 200 easy miles before it just seized up. There was finally enough built up metal pushed in the turbine to just stop it from turning and a piece or 2 probably let loose and helped in the final stoppage.

After I replaced the turbo I threw the blanket away. Knowing it wasn't helping the cause of keeping engine parts for the long haul. With my new turbo I could still hear the pitch of the turbo flutter and change erratically (much like when you let the air out of a balloon by pulling the lips apart and make it squeal) when temps would rise. This told me I was still getting metal contortion in the turbo even without the blanket. So I drove the truck for another 300,000 miles while watching oil and coolant temps, not letting them get too high. Basically not racing up hills and driving it a lot lighter footed. That kept the turbo cooler and it didn't change pitch. That told me that my tune wasn't an awful 1, it was in what I'd classify now as the manageable turd tune category. Then my last engine gave up a rod at 1.1 million and I put a new long block in it. I wanted to protect my new engine. Which lead me down the path of acquiring the knowledge and equipment to figure out what tune I had in the ECM and then ultimately landing me at the doorstep of this glorious Forum begging to get in again (My username and password were lost in the big purge a couple years back right after I had signed up) for a breather from the absolute current shi#t world of truck repair out on the road and the idiot advise all over the internet.

I told this whole long embarrassing story so anyone reading can understand where I come from on this recommendation. All the abuse I put my current turbo through with a bad tune, not knowing what the ISX parts can handle and just running it through it's day to day abuse to get the job done while currently having 400,000 miles on it and still sounding strong tells me these turbo's are pretty tough. From what I'm reading about all the failures of the cm871 turbo, I know I've put mine through far worse and it's holding up. This tells me they are probably a more stout turbo and can take a little more abuse.

But it still is a much more complex turbo than the fixed vein. So it just won't take the heat like a fixed vein. There are too many extra and thin metal parts inside it. Which will contort under extreme temp changes. So having a blanket on it will just lead to holding heat in longer, which leads to high accumulated temps when not watched CONSTANTLY. So I believe what ever benefits you get from blanketing it, will probably come around and bite you at $3,000+ when you get lazy, forgetful or just take your eye off of it for too long for what ever reason. A driver has too many other things to pay attention to, to have to worry about babysitting an already highly efficient turbo.

But just in case you think I'm being 1 of those "don't do that cause I said so" douche's. I'll tell you I did like the quietness of the blanket, having less underhood and cab heat in the summer and the thought of faster hotter exhaust gas flow does still intrigue me. So the exhaust wrap on the S pipe its good for a little of all of that. So I wouldn't be afraid to put that on. I had it on for a long time but it rotted and I just didn't care to put it back on.
Also the blanket is a double edge sword. While it sucks to have it hold too much heat in and will destroy the turbo over time. It will also have a good side of slowly releasing the heat it stored instead of rapidly dumping it off while being exposed. Rapid heat changes destroy a lot of things so having it cool very slow should have some benefits.

I don't know if there is a fine balance somewhere but I won't do it again and I have strongly suggested anyone that doesn't want another tedious thing to watch constantly shouldn't either.

If you do decide to go the wrap it way. Let us know how it turns out. I believe we're all learning here together. No person is an absolute authority on anything only the rules of math, science and physics are and even they are subject to change. Maybe you'll find something I definitely missed.