Well, if heat is the ONLY problem, it should fail sooner than the 1 year warranty. Metal fatigue over time could be another factor.
Doing some research, it seems that they call the turbo a VATN turbo, but that was for an article published via the SAE in 1983. Probably not even be the same turbo design and I don't know what it stands for. VVT, VNT(whatever) turbos are very popular with diesels and less so with petrol powered cars. Perhaps heat was the reason. Regardless it seems to have a clean track record as long as people don't overspool the turbo (possibly due to the heat sensitivity... but I think all turbos can be overspooled). And the advantages of the design are apparent.
There is no main link to this URL on Aerocharger's site that I had been able to locate, so this is new. It is very interesting though, so check it out:
http://www.aerocharger.com/tech2.htm
It has a neat exploded picture of the Aerocharger for example:
NOOOO!!! I just realized I did it again... turned a non-aerocharger topic into one.
For endurance, it notes the design life as 5000 hours and had undergone a 1000 hour endurance test. The 5300 (that we are using) can be used both on petrol AND diesel engines and it shows the respective hp ranges it can be fitted to on each and AFC (136 cfm to 320 cfm). The details are a moot point though, because we know for a fact it works well on Foci (Chris F's dyno).
[This message has been edited by Ducman69 (edited 10-13-2001).]