Intercooler question
 

Okay, here goes,

what's the main difference between air cooled and water cooled intercoolers?

Is a water cooled intercooler more efficent than an air?

Is the water cool using regular water with ice or another liquid?

Is it possible to just submerge your air cool intercooler in a 2 1/2 gallon fish tank and mount it in the engine bay? If so, will the condesation of the air inside the intercooler be a problem for the engine (when not running)? Or would the air flow be sufficent to evaporate the condesation?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Am thinking of water cooling vs air cooling.

:confused:

A water-to-air IC has no place in a street car, period.



-Ted

Y?

the water-air works really great for the first few mins. then the water gets too hot and it's worse then an air-air. great for drag racing. sucks for street.

unless you are brian cain :D

Water to Air are perfect for Drag racing due to the volitle temps when the ice is placed inside the tanks. You can use it for the street but you will need to stop off at your local 7-11 for a refill....

Air to Air are basicly the best for street. The temps are pretty much static, dependant on the outside temps. You can use the water spray method used by Subaru on their WRX. It shears with the air to lower the temps. That should be more ideal.

well, actually, i was thinking of dual intercooling, air to air then water cooled before going into the intake.

Think about it...
If you're thinking about heat exchanger for the A2W, then eventually the water will have gathered enough heat to become the same temps as the hot intake temps - remember, most A2W IC's have very small cores compared to an A2A one.&nbsp If you're thinking about running an A2W IC through a pump then into another radiator outside, all this ends up being is a fancy A2A IC with more things to break - thus the reason I said A2W IC's have no place on a street vehicle.

Drag racing, yes - this is basically the only way to get below-ambient intake temps over an A2A IC.&nbsp You can even apply this to some very limited "sprint" racing, where you can calculate the water/ice mixture is enough to cool the A2W IC for the very limited race periods.



-Ted

there would be no point. the water would just heat the air back up after it got cooled by the air one.

Then why does Jaguar use it in their 370-hp supercharged XKR coupe?

because its a steaming heap of shit. The frugging tranny is going out and even the sunroof is broken on my friends 99 XJR. If you saw how INSANELY complex and confusing the jaguar's engine is, youd understand why they had to use engine coolant through the IC.

Jag-u-war
 

Another example of British motor car engineering at its best. Can you say "Lucas" without getting a bad taste in your mouth? ;)
Ron A

Former owner of TR-4, TR-6, MG Midget, AH 3000.
Yes, I used to put my hand in a vice, cause it felt so good when I stopped.

Yes, i do own a Lucas refrigerator. And yes, I do enjoy drinking warm beer. :D

I have seen the engine. My boss owns 2 of them, his wife drives a 99 and he drives an 01. He loves both of them and has not had any problems with either. It must be nice to have money.

Come on, the engine is interesting, and it has a lot of "pretty" plastic housings, but not that complicated. A 3rd gen's engine is more complicated than that.

Sorry to hear your friend got a lemon though.

actually, its his second XJR lemon. The first one would stall randomly when the car was at normal operating temperature. Actually, 3rd gen motors are cake. I would work on a 3rd gen in a heartbeat. The XJR has those lame ass electronic throttles that seem to go bad.

Re: Intercooler question
 

Here's two articles that will answer your quesations, and dispell some of the myths being throw around here...

Water-to-air intercoolers
Intercooler theory

Good question - I was not aware they did.
Maybe you should go ask the Jaguar engineers why they did that?


-Ted

Simple. It's because of packaging. A water/air intercooler is much smaller than an air/air intercooler with the same cooling capacity, and doesn't require long, large diameter piping to the front of the car. In a cramped engine bay like the Jag's, that's a huge bonus.

Yes, and the extra weight and expense don't deter the Jag owners as much as the import sportscar crowd. IMO the ALIC works just fine on the street as long as you have a good water pump and a heat exchanger. However, I think that the AAIC is a better choice.

well most SC cars don't even have an IC at all. the intake doesn't get nearly as hot as a turbo.

Yeah, the SC defies all laws of physics and compresses the air without heating it. :ret:

Sorta like building a 20B FC for $5,000? :ret:


-Ted

Hmm, if that's the case, then all anybody has to do is buy the SC, and then ask RETed how to do a PNP installation to compress the air without heating it, and then get all upset when he says it's impossible.
:hah:

http://www.jokecompany.com/cgi-scrip.../joke.htm?2809

Oh my... anyways...
The Vortech system for Civics and the like utilize an air-to-water "aftercooler"......
Unsure on how that works, but it's obvoiusly not designed for quick drag races, since it is a street setup.

apparently (i havent driven it that long) the jags cooler does heat soak and the only thing you can do is park the car for an housr or so. in normal driving you dont notice the heat soak because the 370hp car will intermittantly have about 50hp, or randomly go into neutral. its a sorry state that the flagship car in the jaguar (ford) lineup, has been to the shop 4 times in 6 months and it needs to go in again. the intercooler heat soak is the last of this cars problems


mike <--- not impressed with the jag

I think in theory a water to air intercooler is more efficient than an air to air because water has a greater ability to absorb heat than air does, but in reality I don't know. It does have advantages, like not restricting airflow to the radiator and to be able to get air temps below ambient (in theory). I tried a converted Rx7 intercooler on my Rx2 (due mainly to space restrictions) for a while. Considering it wasn't specifically built for this application, it worked ok on the street, but I could've made a cup of tea with the water after 4 laps of the track :) Plus i had trouble keeping pumps up to it.