Intergrated Top Mount Water To Air Intercooler

[Lextreme II]

I am just playing around with this idea of intergrated top mount water to air intercooler (ITMWTAIC). The ITMWTAICwill be replace the upper intake and it will be part of the intake/intercooling system. Its slightly complex, but great for quick spool and save pipping length. What do u think? Here are two designs of this ITMWTAIC.

 

[lowboost]

Nice design!!!

 

[TundraEddie]

Question is,will there be enough space to install a proper sized intercooler? And how much plenum volume would be lost.

 

[Lextreme II]

I was thinking of the IC be mounted on top of the valve cover. I dont mind about hood clearance. I can get a different hood or modify the hood like those muscle cars.

 

[sleeperz]

i-cooler manifold

what do you guys think about putting a custom made evaporator inside manifold under blower. tap into pressure and suction line in a/c system.you have the makings of a super cooled i/cooler that would increase the density of your intake charge. i've been drawing this up for a while. screens must be used for ice particles breaking of if they develop.i also have been trying to figure if condensation will be a big prob.or will it act like like water injection.what do you think????

 

[Zuffen]

Sleeperz,

You're heading down the same route the Ford Lightning guys have followed with thier vehicles.

 

[krayn]

Remeber that the air cond compressor comes on and off and cannot remain on at all times, as it will overheat. This means that the condensor cooling the intake air will have a constantly varying temperature. There is another thread kicking arround with ideas on how this could work.

 

[Lextreme II]

I guess you can always bypass the AC temp sensor to make it always come on. However, I have read somewhere its also counter productive due to the energy lost via the A/C.

 

[Zuffen]

One option is to run a second evaporator on your air and house it in an insulated tank of water.

The air cools the water to below ambient temp so you end up with the water flowing through the cooler matrix being at almost freezing.

If you did this you wouldn't need the front mounted heat exchanger as the insulated tank does that for you.

All up it shouldn't weigh any more than a normal W2A system.

 

[cjsupra90]

Jaguar tried the hole AC type setup IC several years ago and found that it was not worth it on several different levels. I dont remember all of them, but I know that a major issue was cost. another problem that the found was the the condensation from the Evap was far to great for the motor to handle and the temp drop was not nearly as much as expected to make it worth further R&D.

I do infact like prototype #2 as it gives a plenum.... and would allow for a nice lower section with velocity stacks.

 

[autronic]

A couple of things with a water/air top mount intercooler.

1. Where will the throttlebody be, before or after the intercooler ?

If you mount the throttlebody before the intercooler you better be 102 % certain the
core is leak free. The suction from the engine will draw water into it fast.

2. What about heat soak from the engine ?

I think heat soak will be a problem as the intercooler is made from aluminium.
If the intake is isolated from the rest of the engine ( phenolic spacers anyone ? )
that will help, but the intercooler will still have to deal with radiated heat from the
engine.

 

[Lextreme II]

Couple of things i have been looking at:

1. TB will be mounted before the IC. It will be twin TB on both side of the inlets. Matter of fact this intergrated IC also has intergrated TB.

2. I guess a head blanket might help. I am just throwing out ideas.

 

[JBrady]

One option is to run a second evaporator on your air and house it in an insulated tank of water.

The air cools the water to below ambient temp so you end up with the water flowing through the cooler matrix being at almost freezing.

If you did this you wouldn't need the front mounted heat exchanger as the insulated tank does that for you.

All up it shouldn't weigh any more than a normal W2A system.

This is the correct way to take advantage of the super cooled refrigerant in an IC system. I would suggest keeping the front mount air/water radiator as that would reduce the load on the A/C system and be emergency cooling should the compressor fail.

In fact a dual stage air/air then air/water system would be best. Remember we are talking about a substantial amount of air mass. Drag racing air/water systems that start with a tank of ice water can melt a good deal if not all the ice on a pass. Compressor outlet to air/air drops the charge temp to close to ambient then air/water as described above drops the temp considerably more and could give impressive results of substantially less than ambient.

The new Cadillac air/water intercooler cores mount inside the manifold plenum for a very nice compact design.

http://popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/cadillac/0504em_cady/

 

[cribbj]

Why not chemically intercool it with methanol or methanol/water injection:

http://www.lextreme.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2380&highlight=LPG

The HYSIS model shows a 100 degrees C reduction in charge air temperature, after injecting pure methanol into an airstream of 25kg/min at 2.0 bar (basically a WOT 1UZ with 15 psig of boost).

Doing this, I believe the charge air could even be cooled to below ambient temperature fairly easily.

John

 

[Zuffen]

Methanol/water is acceptable for guys like us but it just won't work with the general public. Heck they don't even check the washer fluid let alone the methanol tank!

I wouldn't like to drive across the country with chemical cooling. It may be hard to top up in the middle of nowhere.

The largest restriction we have with mounting W2A intercoolers/supercharging is the location of our starter motor. Figure out a new place for that and you're laughing.

 

[Lextreme II]

The W2A i was thinking for the twin turbo....

 

[Cobolt]

These are the Laminova cores I´ve been saying good things about in other threads. absolutley choice no 1 for a plenum mounted intercooler but also superb for a top mount.

 

[JBrady]

These are the Laminova cores I´ve been saying good things about in other threads. absolutley choice no 1 for a plenum mounted intercooler but also superb for a top mount.

Great minds think alike...

Seriously, people should check out the link.

http://popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/cadillac/0504em_cady/


More pics

The intercooler cores themselves are innovative, relying upon a dense fin construction for maximum heat transfer. Heat removed from the induction charge equals more power at the crank, and a cooler mixture tolerates more pressure without detonation.

With the upper plenum removed, the integral intercooler can be seen as the four liquid to air cooling cores which slip directly in the air path.

 

[JBrady]

Looks like the Cadillac cores are removable serviceable items. Wonder what they will cost?

Heck, the entire SC and plenum assembly may well bolt on to the Lexus Toyota 1998+ xUZ-FE engines.

 

[Cobolt]

Looks like the Cadillac cores are removable serviceable items. Wonder what they will cost?

Heck, the entire SC and plenum assembly may well bolt on to the Lexus Toyota 1998+ xUZ-FE engines.

The cores are intended as removable and serviceable!

On occasion, just unscrew and slide it out.. some cleaning later and the core is back to 100% efficiency - or safe to re-use if it´s an oil cooler that has been contaminated with debries from a failure.