What are your thoughts of running a water to air intercooler waste of time and money or do you think it's worth it?

 

Shainiac on here runs one in his FC with a lot of success - he may be able to provide some input. I have one as well, but it's part of an old Cartech kit.

 

Good for drag racing if you are cooling it with an ice bucket, or good if there is absolutely no room for an air-air intercooler. Otherwise, it is not worth it because a properly-designed air-air intercooler is more efficient.

 

A little light reading about the pros and cons of each:
Water to Air Vs Air to Air Intercooler | intercooler air water FMIC

 

Ruf had a nice A2W design on their aircooled Porsche 911twinturbo in the 90's. Coolers where in each rear fender inlets out of the engine bay and very short piping to each turbo... large heat exchanger in the nose....nothing in the engine bay but the short piping.So it didn't suffer from prolonged intercooler heat soak like most street type A2W kits lowering the eff. dramatically that prolonged driving does on the street...I guess the trick on the street is a good flowing pump and large front heat exchanger to help offset the intercooler heat soak.

 

Here's my setup:

Tank:


Heat Exchanger:


Pump:


Intercooler (bolted to the TB):

 

I am running one on my street car, upped the boost, and now need a bigger core (I was running the smallest core from frozenboost). My system consist of the smallest frozen boost core, an AFCO scirocco radiator, and a bosch cobra pump, TO4S turbo at 16psi.

I don't like the extra line/hoses, but love the intercooler placement, and how short the piping is.

 

I went with an air to water intercooler purchased from SiliconIntakes.com for my Cosmo. Primarily because of the modest power levels I am going for, in the interest of keeping the piping short, and as well because the front of the car is already loaded up with A/C condenser, FC oil cooler, big rad. Not too much space to bring piping through without hacking it up.

Looking at my setup (videos below) I'm not happy with placement and angles so I will be revisiting the intercooler placement later.

Note I went with a rather large reservoir but not a massive front heat exchanger. This is not a track car that will be run under boost for minutes at a time. It is a daily driver that will see boost upon acceleration for short periods, and spend much of its time at less than maximum boost. Lots of water mass to absorb heat, then it can be shed over time via the exchanger. There is a temp sensor in the reservoir so the ECU can activate the cooling fans as necessary. Also can be done based on IATs.