Hey there's been some decent footage posted in this thread since I last check it out!
A few more thoughts:
I've been researching turbo's a bit more and I'm still not sure I understand them all to well, but there's a few things I've been reading about. I'm sure some of this will be novice material to some reading this thread, so to bring it down to my level:
First is the efficiency range. A turbo can often put out more boost pressure than is being asked, but this can actually be counter-productive! Adding more pressure is not the answer. For instance, when running my little K24 @ 1.0bar, and then flooring it to 1.5bar, there isn't much increase in power. (Despite the increase in pressure, the turbo is now working at poor efficiency to produce this, therefore heating the air - so, due to the extra heat produced, all it's done is increase pressure and not really increase the airmass!)
Which leads me onto ECU control of the turbocharger - the turbo definitely is limited by the ECU, at least in any newer car. Boost characteristics are quite different for various setups though as they work differently... some are purely mechanical WG's, some entirely ECU controlled WG, others kinda use both. Whilst my turbo settles at 1.5bar, I know of some who've seen the exact same setup settle at 1.8bar. Difference is, that extra 0.3bar is giving very inefficient power (compressor wheel gives optimum efficiency about 1-1.2bar) and spinning the turbo to far higher RPMs than it was designed to - dramatically shortening it's life! It's all down to how the car is mapped, not the natural restrictions of the turbocharger.
The reason the pressure builds to a crescendo that seems quite natural is because the wastegate doesn't suddenly kick in when max boost is achieved, it starts bleeding off right from the start. So even though it's limited, you wouldn't expect it to hit violently.
I think there's so many variables now with different turbo designs, that it'd be more a case of matching which setup could theoretically cause the behaviour seen in a sim, than actually trying to model the behaviour of a specific turbocharger... I think, as long as the model gives an accurate representation of some 'generic features' of any turbocharged engine, it's all good. I haven't raced on LFS:S2 so I probably should to see how it compares...
One point, if the turbo won't spool right up when free-revving the engine (ie in neutral or on your roof!) then that's a good sign; you won't see max boost unless the engine is under load IRL. I guess ideally a sim would model a turbo from a compressor map, a virtual ECU map and real-time exhaust temps + flow etc..
Cheers
Ross