I am in the middle of change over to a water intercooler.
the intercooler is placed as close to the stock location as I could , the battery is relocated to the back to make room for a resisvior. I used 2 radiators off a rm250 motocross bike one is in the pass side of the car where the 2nd oil cooler goes and the 2nd is the front of the car where the stock ic and air box gets freash air. the cirulation pump is not here yet so I don't know where that is going to go. I will be using about 2 gallons of water in the cooling system. I had to make new ic piping I am going to powercoat the new pipes black rinkel

 

sounds interesting .....got any pics?

 

This is for a drag set up I assume.

 

I should have some pictures up today.
This is not a drag setup, I want to try something differant because I don't like the way FMIC look and my old smic would get so heat soaked

 

Water coolers are fairly worthless for non-drag setups. That's why noone here has one for non-drag purposes. Once the water is hot, it will stay hot. It won't do crap for cooling the air. You will have worse heat soak.

 

It can work probably for autocross, since its usually only a 1 minute run, and 3 to 5 minutes staging. Using dry ice or ice it may help.

 

So what are you going to do? Ice the IC before driving there, stay off the boost on the way there, top of the ice and do your runs, etc? Or trailer the car?

 

not true. lotus used a/w decades ago, also toyota, subaru, and most recently the tycoon suv. all street applications. It's all about proper design.

I'd suggest a replacement neon rad core for starts, only about 1/2" thk. Nice to use stock fans for continuous cooling in traffic. Design tanks for about 3 or 4 passes. Insulate the main exchanger, and if custom, be sure to include water distribution plate.

search a/l for other comments.

 

here is a picture of the ic and the piping tacked in place

 

bell is in the business of selling both air to air and air to water intercoolers:


How can an air-to-air intercooler be more efficient than a water based intercooler?
There is an overwhelming quantity of ambient air available to cool an air-to-air core relative to the charge air thru the inside of the intercooler (The iced down water intercooler is the only exception to this argument.). At just 60 mph, with a 300 bhp engine at full tilt, the ambient air available to cool the intercooler is about ten times the amount of charge air needed to make the 300 hp. Whereas the water intercooler largely stores the heat in the water until off throttle allows a reverse exchange. Some heat is expelled from a front water cooler, but the temperature difference between the water and ambient air is not large enough to drive out much heat. Another way to view the situation is that ultimately the heat removed from the air charge must go into the atmosphere regardless of whether it's from an air intercooler or a water based intercooler. The problem with the water intercooler is that the heat has more barriers to cross to reach the atmosphere than the air intercooler. Like it or not, each barrier represents a resistance to the transfer of heat. The net result; more barriers, less heat transfer.


<Return to Top


What are the relative merits of an air or water-cooled intercooler and which would suit my purposes best?
This depends on the circumstances. These circumstances are; street use, drag racing, or endurance racing (more than two minutes).

Street use: The air-to-air intercooler will prove superior in efficiency when sized properly.

Drag racing: The short spurt of power allows the iced water to cool the charge air to below ambient temperature.

Endurance racing: The air-to-air intercooler is clearly superior due to the shorter route of getting the heat out of the air charge and into the atmosphere. Endurance racing would preclude the use of ice water, thus negating the singular advantage of the water intercooler. Further, the air-to-air intercooler is (virtually, see comments below) maintenance free.

 

What is your car going to be used for? Sounds like an interesting project, but your time might be better used. Perhaps you will prove us wrong.

 

What about spraying some water onto the IC like with a water nozzle.

 

Hello-

I agree that in endurance/street applications, air-water intercoolers *usually* make no sense.

There are a couple exceptions, though. For example, on some race cars back in the 1970s/1980s, Porsche used air-water intercoolers. Their reasoning, however, was different. For them, it was about packaging. They could keep really short intake pipe lengths (low turbo lag) and keep the intercooler near the engine, then put the intercooler's radiator located remotely in a more desirable location for cooling airflow.

That said, the RX7 is a front-engined car... it's a cool idea (no pun intended :-), but you're adding a lot of weight and complexity when the gains are, perhaps, questionable. Just my opinion...

Take care,
Shad

 

my car is for weekend driving and If it doesn't work I will try something different but, I like doing things that most people don't do. Over the winter I did a 240sx skyline motor swap I was told that the skyline motor was to heavy and will make the car push going into corners. my 240 is the best daily driver good gas mileage and faster than a 5.0 and 5.7 camaro

 

How does this compare to the new water-air intercooler with their own pump ?

Mercedes and Audi use them in their turbo and supercharged engine today (2004).

Thanks,
:-) neil

 

After reading this thread it is quite apparent that Air to Liquid IC's are completely misunderstood. And from what I read, there is an abundance of misinformation being propogated about this application. Many of the comments made, while intended to be helpful are nothing but conjecture.

From a thermodynamic engineering standpoint, a properly implemented air-liquid system offers substantial advantage over air to air. Period. This is especially true if space is limited or condensing airflow is not constant vs. load. The downside to air-liquid is that it is more complex and not as sexy. (And as a result, not as many of these are sold and hence the perception that they are not appropriate or inferior.)

Air to air's only advantage is that it's simple and easy to do. 1) In many applications air to air is adequate. 2) From a manufacturer's point of view it is inexpense to build, install and maintain. 3) From an enthusiasts standpoint all of the plumbing and the large core make it look impressive and intimidating. IMO, it is that later factor that sells the most IC kits.... It may not be the best solution, but it does make a statement.

jet7--I applaud your effort and willingness to do something different. Use your ingenuity and your system will outperform those air to air behemoths.

 

Thx for your opinion. You made alot of really good points. It's too bad that people comment negatively about things they don't properly understand. Air to water set-up will also allow your engine to run cooler because of not having a front mount IC blocking it.

 

Maybe from a purely "thermodynamic engineering standpoint", but that's not the only engineering standpoint that must be considered when considering which type of IC to use for an intended application.

Maybe for the actual primary IC, but then you will need additional space for the secondary heat exchanger, which must properly designed and positioned for adequate ability to get rid of the heat that the liquid has absorbed from the primary IC. (in other words, it will need space for direct airflow just like any other IC)

That absorbed intake heat still has to go somewhere, and if the "condensing airflow is not constant", that heat continues to be stored in the liquid until the secondary heat exchanger can get rid of it. Which leads to...

That's not the only one. Air/liquid also has the disadvantage of additional weight (additional water pump, piping for the liquid, the liquid itself, secondary heat exchanger, etc.), as well as providing another barrier that the heat energy has to cross before it's dissipated. This takes additional time and work to accomplish, and just as in an air/air IC, if the components aren't properly designed and applied, there are problems with heat soak.

I'm not saying that air/liquid ICs are worthless; I'm only saying that there's a lot of engineering hurdles that need to be addressed before one can be properly applied to the FD's unique requirements, and the usage for which the car is intended.

The application of air/liquid ICs on modern autos like the AMG Mercs and others also includes the fact that their ECUs are far more advanced than the FD's comparatively simple unit, and can dial back boost and ignition when necessary to avoid detonation. Fact: the main reason that air/liquid ICs are used with the Mercs and Typhoon is due to space limitations-- a supercharger's design (they need to be located as close to the intake ports as possible, which usually means on top of the engine on "V" cylinder configurations) often negates the ability to reroute the intake charge to a remote location to cool it.

Again, if you can properly design and produce an air/liquid IC that really works on an FD that will see more than just the occasional dip into boost, more power to you (and I'd be interested in doing the same to mine).