Well I finally getting around to starting my winter project. It seems everytime I get ready to do it, some other problem creeps up, i.e. crazy AFC-1, two toasted ecu's, rebuilt turbo, bad electric OMP So my car is finally back up and running smooth again, albeit pig rich without the afc! So I have the pieces I need here, or in transit. The intercooler core is a 18x12x3 with 3" inlets. The piping is all 2.5" steel exhaust tubing from Summit, I have a 36" stick of blue silicon hose, and a Greddy T body elbow on the way from RX7 store.

My first project was to lower the elevation of my afm to make room for the future charge pipe that will be running overhead. Then I had to remote the cone filter further out, as there still was not enough room. So I had decided to use one of my U bend exhaust piping to run the filter well out in front of the rad. This setup should net me plenty of wet and cold air.

Anyways it is not all that exciting, but there hasn't been much on the forum of late.
I am figuring on all my parts arriving this coming week, and then I can really start up on it. Here is the pics.

 

Right on, looking good. I am doing the exact same thing as well. Good luck!

 

Z what did you deicde to do for a core? Are you sticking with plan A ? Also what about the Greddy elbow with flange, Is it going to work for you?
Thanks

 

lemme see some pics of the car=)

 

haha wet and cold air. Maybe get one of the nylon weather bags that (I believe) K&N makes. That way you wont have to worry about getting water or moisture sucked in... Unless that is your plan for "water injection"... LOL!

 

Looks awesome, best of luck to you.

 

You may actually want to use a larger diameter pipe if you're going to be making it that long. I'd honestly go with 3.5" - 4".

 

4" pipe on the stock turbo?!? no way?

 

i've never really been able to understand why people put "CAI's" on a turbo...isnt the turbo really hot at that point, and it doesnt matter if it sucks in cold air or not? once it touches the fins of the turbo it'll just heat up.....?? :smiley_12

 

Yeah, I am going with the ebay intercooler. 24"x12"x3" It is temporarily mocked up right now. However the IC sticks quite a bit past the rad supports so I have to modify them. Once I get the intercooler mocked up and installed I will post a thread on my car. I am just a slow mover so I want to make sure I am well ahead of the questions.

No and yes, the greddy elbow will work but the BOV will not work. It was made for a 3rd gen and there are severe issues with the BOV location. Sadly I did not know this until now. I plan to block off the BOV location and re-route the BOV further down the pipe. My elbow is different than the one that you will be running though.

RMRiggin the part that you are thinking is called an outerwear. You see them all the time on quads etc. Especially with dune vehilces. I do not want to throw on on mine though because I feel that flow will slightly be decreased. I know that this is very small, but I have held one in my hand and had a chance to test it. I blew on my hand and then blew on my hand with the cover. There was quite a bit of difference with the outerwear. I also did the same but sucked on it( similar to the intakes properties) Still the same. That is just my 2 cents. The K&N will do sufficiently. But then my car is not nearly a daily driver.

Z

 

Well you want as cold as air as you can going into the turbo. It heats it up yes, but if you have colder air going into it... it wont get as hot as if hot air was being heated more, though its pretty negligable thats why ya want the best kind of intercooler ya can get :p It dosn't do much, and plus alot of people mix the terms CAI and high-flow intakes... like people that just slap on a cone filter to a stock fc... the intake is now actually hotter than it was with the stock setup... unless you have an airbox or something.

With my car I have a high-flow intake and eliminated the dumb bends and plastic that likes to break easy... and now i spool almost the instant I am on the gas its nice :p

 

the stock turbo inlet duct is VERY restictive and also has two 90 degree bends.... after making a home depot CAI, 3" piping with a 45 degree bend, to the AFM i noticed considerable gains, at least 15 hp, boost raised 2 psi also, from the removal of the stock intakes restriction....

also if you have colder air entering the turbo it wont heat up as much either....

 

The stock comp housing i.d. is roughly 1.75 inches.
CFM is equal to surface area x velocity.
Surface area of 1.75 inches is 2.40 inches squared x velocity of 1000fpm is 2400 cfm

Surface area of 2.5 i.d tubing is 4.90 inches squared x velocity of 1000fpm is 4900 cfm.

So basically I have the flow of 4900 cfm trying to squeeze through a comp housing rated at 2400 cfm

I am sure somebody, i.e. a mechanical engineer student will come on here and tell me how completely retard I am, and they will be half right I suppose. But after I put it on it felt like I was still hiting boost just as quick, and honestly i dont have room to run a larger pipe.

I appreciate you looking out for me though.

 

Personally I would not run larger pipe. And I am a 4th year mechanical engineer student.

 

My car has 2.5inch intake, not cold air, it has a huge u bend kink so that a air pump can be run, i still make like 250whp with the stock turbo. I wouldnt go any bigger, it would make essentialy no difference at your level and it would just be a pain in the *** to fit.

CJG

 

I don't have any math behind my idea, but I was just thinking about the length you had and used a straw with extreme lengths as a similar scenario.

lets say you have a 2mm diameter straw thats 1 ft. long. Suck through it. There is a certain amout of air that will flow in.

Make it 100ft now. Now you have to accelerate 100ft worth of air through 2mm of straw... that takes energy.

Take that 2mm straw and make it 4mm. The same amount of energy can now draw more air through that orifice (using the same lengths of course).

My basic concern is loss due to length of the inlet. But if you know the math behind it and know that the stock turbo's air flow limitation is greater than that of the piping you're using, never mind.

I hope what I'm saying makes sense. I'm not just trying to raise un-necessary concerns.

 

LOL, cai on turbo = useless

You wont gain a dam thing with it. That is the EXACT purpose of the intercooler.
It really dosent matter the temps of air netering the inliet side of the turbo, it will not significantly change the temps leaving the turbo.
This has been tested on many cars that i have done such work on (including my own 400whp BMW 320i turbo). Put a temp sensor on the piping to the ic to check air temps, regardless of the air temps entering the turbo you are not going to make any more power.

Other than that little thing, looks good

 

So I could of left the airfilter right next to the radiating piece of cast iron aka as the skin burner, aka turbine housing, and that would of been just as good as plumbing in cold outside air? 150-200 degree air. as opposed to 40 -75 degree air.? I never said I going to pick up 10 more horsepower by doing a cai. I had to move it out of it previous location to make room for the charge pipes.

I somewhat interested in your turbo 320. Whats the scoop, I have an article in bimmer about Dave Hobbs McLaren BMW he raced in the late 70's Post some pics.

Thanks

 

Yea my intercooler arrived today. Along with some silicon reducers earlier this week. I bought the intercooler off of e bay and the store described it as 18 x12 x3 which i thought was the core size. It was actually the total size, inlet to inlet. So the core actually measured 10.5 wide x 12 tall x 3 thick. I spent an hour or so after work today to start fabing up my supports. Using 1x1 tube steel on the bottom to carry the weight. The bottom of the fmic will basically be at the same height as the core of the rad. The tubing will be sitting in line with the bottom tank of the rad and be above the top of the oil cooler.

Question for the experts! Where should I mount my bov? Between the t.b and fmic or between the turbo and fmic, and why?

 

Someone always says this, I never understand why.

Think about it, colder air going in colder air coming out, period. Even if the turbo is going to heat it up a bit, it will still be colder than if the filter was in the bay. Even if you have a front mount to cool the charge, it will still be colder than it would have otherwise. If the intake charge is colder from the beginning, it will be colder at the end.

Colder air = more power. You want the coldest air you can safely get while still keeping the length of the intake piping somewhat reasonable.

 

You know I have always been confused with this one as well. The BOV is soppose to protect you turbo so you would think that you would want it on the turbo side. But most people put it on the TB side.

I think that I am going to put it on the TB side.

 

The thing is that when the Throttle body paltes or better yet when the carb plates close that's when the pressure wave starts from the closed plate and heads back to the turbo, so you want it as close the the begining of the closed plate as possible. I hope you under stand what I'm saying here, if not I'll quote another source later.

 

Uh I was following along until you threw in the carb reference. LoL
Thanks

 

So pretty much as close to the TB as you can get...

 

Last night I got my intercooler 100% mounted in place. I went to pull a part today to replace the radiator supports with new ones, as my old ones had multipile holes left over from previous projects. So installed the new supports located the holes and cut them out. Finally I painted the supports with a fresh coat of black. I also started to run/fab the charge pipe from the turbo to the fmic. I should have both of the pipes finished tomorrow. Here are my most recent pics.