So is there anything special about the Bugatti Veyron intercooler? Or is it just your run of the mill air to water unit? Do you think that this would be a good setup for me living in Houston with the hot summers we have?

I know people have converted stock top mounts to air to water units but would it be good for everyday driving in Houston?

I'm just surprised that a factory car came with one.

B

 

water to air is VERY EFFICIENT however u could do a fogger or water injection into the IC as well

btw Bugatti has ALWAYS been the top of the game.. you cant compare then to any "stock" maker

Dave

 

water to air is more efficient than air to air, however it's not really practical for normal street use... i've seen a few people do it with no problems at all, but air to air is MUCH easier to manufacture

 

The humidity is so high here its practically like driving underwater anyway!

 

true....so is that a form of water injection also? haha1

 

How do you figure its "MUCH" easier to manufacturer? Take an intercooler like our stock one, submerge it in a water tight box and pump water over the core. Anyway, have you ever looked at an air-air core? Those dont look to be very easy to manufacturer either.

I also dont get the idea that its not "practical." Why? Heat soak is only an issue if you dont use a heat exchanger. Weight is a negligable issue. So why is it not practical.

Im not trying to pick on you in particular, but I hear this all the time. For track days it might not be as practical as an air-air due to the possibility of heat soaking the water, but for street driving its a great setup.


BC

 

subaru I/C are water to air

 

Which ones? The ones I've seen are standard air-air. Maybe the STi has a water jet for the intercooler? I know the EVO does, can't remember about the STi.
Anyway, I don't consider the Veyron a "stock" car. It costs 1,000,000 euro, or well over $1,000,000.
I wasn't so sure about the looks until I saw one in the showroom in Berlin. Amazing.

 

maybe in NZ, but as far as I know there are no models in the US that are A-W. All are top mount A-A. The STI has a water sprayer though.


BC

 

Mercedes Benz also uses air to water on supercharged cars.

 

old ones were. none of the newer cars are that i know of.

 

I played with air to water intercoolers a couple years back on my old Turbo set up, but ended up getting frustrated with the complexity and pump failures.

 

most factory supercharged cars are air to water. like the new mustang gt500 and caddy sts-v. it makes packing sense on a super charged car b/c the inter cooler is right below the sc

 

Hmm, I think I have an idea how to approach this just from an engineering mindset.
First, putting a box around your intercooler sounds way too complicatedv with all those joints you'd have to seal. Plus your intercooler fins are very bad at heat transfer. They are there to greatly increase the surface area because air is even worse at heat transfer.
So the best option seems to be an air to water heat exchanger. From there you'd probably use an electric pump to circulate water through a radiator. Use Flow=Q/(c * p * (Tair - Twater)) to figure out your pump flow. Tair is how cool you want the intake air to be, c = specifc heat of water, M = mass flow of water, p = density of water. Twater depends on how good your radiator is. Note that Tair will actually be hotter because of heat exchanger losses.

http://www.mcmaster.com/ (search "heat exchanger", look for "steam to water") might work, but I dunno. Those seem like they might be restrictive unless you pick an oversized one. Not to mention cost, size and other possible issues. You may be better off getting an air to water intercooler from another car.

As for the reason why high powered cars use air to water intercoolers: Water cools far better than air. The other option would be a ginormous air to air intercooler.

 

Plenty of cars had factory W/A intercoolers over the years. Not common but not unusual at all. The Toyota Celica GT-Four (aka All Trac), supercharged Jaguars and 4-cyl Lotus Esprit Turbos come to mind.

The 1st Gen Legacy Turbos had a W/A intercooler, but these were not sold in the US. No Imprezas had them.

In this context stock simply means "not modified". It has nothing to do with a particular type of car or what it costs. Do you know of any modified Veyrons?

I certainly wouldn't call them complex, but they're intolerant of poor design. If you want to do it you have to do it right. The pump and the radiator are the two most common areas where people skimp and later regret it. Also you need a good volume of water.

Some pics...

Subaru Legacy:


Toyota Celica:


Lotus Esprit:


Converted 13BT TMIC:

 

The converted 13BT was something like I was thinking. You could go so far as to literally get a water tight box, put a core into the box and fill the box with water. then pump the water from one side to the other, through a heat exchanger after being through the intercooler. But essentially what you see there is what I was thinking of.


BC

 

saab, renound for their turbocharging (first to introduce it in streetcars) used water-to air intercoolers

the problem you owuld encounter is that the rotary runs hot as it is

 

I am going to try something a bit different. Discharge air will be coming right from my turbo outlet into an air/ water unit, and from there right into the stock TMIC. I may be crazy, but I do know that an air/ water unit will only remove heat to a certain point, greatly depending on the heat exchanger used. If the outlet temps from the a/w unit increase substantially during a quarter mile run etc. then the TMIC may reduce the temps down to a decent level. A/w units don't seem to be as restrictive as air/ air units, and the piping runs will still be shorter than an FMIC. I bought an ATV radiator (from an Arctic Cat 650) and a Bosch factory electric intercooler pump that is oem on F150 Lightning. I plan on monitoring air temps coming out of both intercoolers so I can decide whether to keep the TMIC or stay with the a/w unit. I will keep you guys posted with pics as I get closer to being ready to do all this stuff. I still don't have all the pieces yet to do my engine rebuild, once it's installed I'll post pics with the rest.

 

Rotaries do not "run hot", and even if they did, the turbo and intercooler are before the engine and the air entering them is not affected by it.

 

Masarati BiTurbo's had them in the 80's too...stock, from the factory.


-Ted

 

I guess I didn’t realize how many “stock” cars had A2W intercoolers.
But the more I look into it, the more I think a front mount with water injection would be some what easier and better suited to street driving, Auto-X and even drag racing.

But I’ll still be thinking about it for a while……I tend to obsess about this stuff.

 

Actually street driving, autocross and drag racing are where the A/W works better than A/A due to the relatively shorts bursts of boost used. On the circuit (real racing ) A/A works best because you're on boost for long periods of time and the airflow is greater because of the higher average speed.

Here's how Autospeed summerised the two types:

Air/Air advantages
Efficient
Cheap
Cores readily available

Air/Air disadvantages
Longer induction air path
Packaging of large intercoolers difficult
Large pipes to and from intercooler required

Water/Air advantages
Short induction air path
Easy to package
Excellent for short power bursts (ie typical road use)

Water/Air disadvantages
Heavier
More complex
More expensive
Heat exchangers harder to source

 

zzperformance.com has fantastic a-w cores for $89. Go to their GTP section then serach under products-intercoolers.


As for going from A-W then through A-A thats just silly. If you HAVE to do that go the otherway around. Water is a much better medium for removing heat. The problem is that unless yo0uhave sufficient water in the system it can heat soak even with a heat exchanger (which ZZP has some good heat exchanger too). If you go through the air-water IC you are likely to heat the air back up, or at the least just introduce a restriction (the a-a ic) Further with an a-w you can add ice to the water bringing the IC efficiency up above 100%.


BC

 

So when your turbo is glowing red that doesnt effect the intake temp on the compressor side of the turbo?*edited for flaming*

 

No no no hes not. That would be the TURBO running hot, NOT the engine wouldnt it?


Dont show your ***, you look stupid doing it.


BC