intercooling..whats wrong with air to air?

[zen]

well i was not going to bother, not at 8psi, but read the theory books abit and since a will no dought want more boost once i have uprated my rods an going ahead with ic..

now have looked at many on here,and all seem to be using air to water, ok i see that will be good at slow speeds, but most (not all) seem to be using really small units cramed in manifold..

that seems to me to be not how to do it..looking at them i cant see how they will cool the charge by any significent amount, for a start the outlet of the sc only blows across half of it, and then alot seem to be using oil coolers or even heater matrix's..it ain't gonna work, even ones using "proper" charge coolers i cant see working at all well due to the limited size..then there is the distibution evenly to each cylinder...no not for me..

so i am going for now use air to air..i spent 7 hours today just looking at my manifold and trying to work out how to do it..(its only got 40mm internal height)..i got it in the end..

internal box covering outlet of sc flowing it to rear of top manifold cover and out just behind sc though top plate, thus keeping the manifold gas tight..the return will go in at the front of manifold (on the side)..the charge then forced around the internal box over the lower manifold outlets..
yes this does require some neat welding and alittle baffling, but no real dramers there i hope..

this way i can also if i wish make a large proper air to water charge cooler if i wish..

why no one charge cool sc externally to manifold??is there a problem with this?

also..whats min dia of piping to use to connect to intercooler..2inch would be good (read very handy and make things easy), but i expect may be too small...what do you turbo boys use in intercoler piping dia?

thanks

 

[JustenGT8]

They do, it's just a bit difficult. Zuffen is doing exactly that and will no doubt be a nice setup.

Neil Rush also has an air/air option in the works.

 

[Zuffen]

My new engine is running but not tuned yet.

The air out of the supercharger heats the intercooler pipe to the extent I can't keep my hand on it for more than a second.

The outlet of the intercooler is close enough to ambient temp to say it's doing it's job very nicely. I guess it's knocking 60+ degreees C out of the air temp if not more.

I use a good sized heat exchanger in fron of the radiator and the intercooler iteslf is designed to flow 1,500cfm which is a bit more than my engine will flow but it sure works.

I've just replaced my camera so once I figure how to get my new camera to take "net friendly" photos I'll post up a shot or two of my engine bay. It's pretty crowded now.

 

[ruishy1]

if you get the manifold right, i would use both systems.
and air to air to cool the temp down to ambient, then a water to air to cool it further using iced water.

 

[zen]

iced water..its my daily runneraround!

 

[SuperRunner]

on a positive displacement supercharger, the more air there is to keep above atmospheric pressure the harder the charger has to work and the hotter your charge will be.

I am not 100% on this theory, but it seems likely.

water/air allows for less volume since there is minimal if any piping.

 

[Cobber]

Heat transfer 101

Calculate the air flow at given rpm

Work out the desired temperature drop required

Calculate the energy required (BTU's) to cool that volume of air to desired temperature.

For higher boost engines I think you will find the desired core size cooled by ambient air (including water to air) will be similar to the size of you current engine radiator. To put a small core in a manifold you will need a super cooled medium flowing through the core to transfer the same heat.

I went through this calculation when I was looking at inter cooling and have an xl sheet I put together on my work PC I will post up when I'm back at work.

I found it a better option for me to stay at a lower boost level and not bother with inter cooling.

Supercharger efficiency makes a huge difference to discharge air temperatures.

I have found that my supercharger on normal driving only heats the air by 6c, Under boost of around 11 psi it heats the air by 25 - 30 c. It's just impossible to hold boost for anything more than a few seconds before having to change gear

 

[ruishy1]

i would rather cool the charge air, even a few degrees drop in temp is better than nothing.
Il be using an intercooler from a mini inside my manifold as a chargecooler. there will be a 10 ltr tank and a pretty substantial rad.

Im tempted to use a similar system to the Lightning and use the ac to cool the fluid medium for short bursts of boost

 

[Zuffen]

My intercooler runs around 1.2mteres of pipework so it isn't short by any stretch.

The intercooler core is around 250 x 300 x 100mm and has 70mm id pipes.

The heat exchanger is 600 x 350 with a Bosch circulating pump.

After a drive today you could rest your hand on the intercooler outlet and it was a couple of degrees above ambient whilst the inlet to the cooler would near take the skin off your hand.

A mini intercooler is designed for a 2litre engine so it can be no more than 50% as effective on the 1UZ.

If you're going to bother with intercooling do it right or don't bother.

 

[ruishy1]

how the hell do i get something larger INSIDE my manifold ?

 

[zen]

exactly...thats why i am using air to air for now and running it external..even though the metal work is a nightmare to do .

zuffen, what dia ic pipe you using? i hope 2.5 inch will be enough,thats the dia of ic inlets i have..2 inch would have been easier though to fab up on manifold..

 

[ruishy1]

2.5 inch will be plenty mate, thats what i used to run in my RB25det powered s13, and never had any problem.

I will be going external cooler with the next gen manifold, but for my first draft, a small cooler is better than none

 

[Cobber]

how the hell do i get something larger INSIDE my manifold ?

What you need is a Time lord and a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) environment.

Alternatively you could simply hook up a flux capacitor but that's a whole new thread.

 

[ruishy1]

well the last Doctor was from Scotland, maybe he can help me put a 10 square mile cooler inside, that should be sufficient !

 

[Zuffen]

My pipes are 3.5"od but they are a little over the top and the engine should make 600 or so HP.

2.5" is plenty.

I'll try and post a pic of my set up tonight.

 

[zen]

thanks......

 

[uza80]

anyone thought about adapting this to fit? http://www.v6performance.com.au/FIT-A2A-INTERCOOLER-p/a2a intercooler adaptor.htm

 

[Zuffen]

I think that would make fitting a breeze.

That is essentially what I have on my car but made by Richwood and the air exits out the driver's side and re-enters in the passenger's side. Right hand drive car.

I know mine was far from cheap as it was milled out of a solid block of alloy so prepare your wallet.

 

[Cobber]

This is a good option for those people running a GM M90.
A W2A core in the manifold just can't extract enough heat energy. I am yet to see any good numbers from such a set up. Yes it will help but it certainly won't drop the temperatures anywhere near as much as a FMIC.

I have gone water meth which has given me good results dropping the post charger temps back to within 10 degrees of inlet temps.