Was looking at cars with water to air intercooler setups on the street and didn't find much. It has the potential to be better but I understand most wouldn't want to do it as you need a pump, water tank, properly sized heat exchanger for the street and it ends up being relatively complex. But, one big benefit I find is a much shorter intercooler piping path, which is better in ways like increasing engine response, less weight (which would be gained back by the other stuff like the heat exchanger, lines etc). Just wanted to ask if this benefit of a shorter path could make water to air ic's on the street viable per se, or is it just not worth the hassle for an improvement in throttle response due to complexity, weight, and cost. The water to air intercooler shown below looks like it could make piping real easy and much shorter.

 

The "benefits" are negligible. For a STREET car it would be an exercise in spending and if that's your lifestyle then I have some muffler bearings to sell you........ in bulk

 

Unnecessary complexity, unless you're not able to find a room for a decent sized intercooler in the engine bay. Simplicity is more important than a small (if any) gain in responsiveness, I think.

 

Unless it's an application where you want a heat exchanger at the other end of the car or are running a refrigerant circuit on a secondary exhanger in a header tank for drag racing you are introducing an additional heat transfer step, mass and load.

Minimising exhaust manifold volume, running full split pulse, large exhaust and large intake filter area with cold air feed, 70 degree thermostat and fan switxhing to suit will have a far greater impact on boost response than intake volume. Unless you are jamming a very small exchanger between a headlight out forward mount turbo and a holley or IDA style intake manifold with clocked plenum pointing at the turbo any difference in intake volume compared to a U type or V mount will be absolutely meaningless.

 

For the owner that just needs something different…even if it’s a dumb idea.

 

A friend of mine is finishing up a build using the "Killer Chiller" which is supposed to be the best option for heat soak. Uses A/C essentially to keep air temps down. I have yet to see how it works as the car is not complete.

I have however installed air to water intercoolers on a few other cars, one in particular was a Civic Si 20 years ago with the Vortec supercharger kit and Air to Water Intercooler and those temps always stayed cold. Even in stop and go traffic in the summer. A properly setup Air to Water setup is actually very effective.

 

i'm thinking about it for a car i should be working on, its an FC vert REW swap, and we want to keep AC/PS/Emissions so space is an issue, and the water to air is flexible that way.

lots of newer OEM cars use water to air now, the 6.7 Ford Diesels, Jaguars. the turbo Skyactive engines have a version that is air to air and then there is one that is water to air. the 3/cx30 and something else is water to air. Cx9 and Cx5 is air to air
the OEM systems are complex, its another whole cooling system, so radiator, electric water pump , overflow bottle, etc

so there is a tradeoff for sure. its more flexible to package, but heavier more complex and its just not as cool looking

 

Yes a lot of factory cars use this type, I remember being shocked to see this in the 03-04 Cobras when they first came out. They work well on those cars.