I would guess that you would want to try to distribute the incoming air as much as possible to the entire IC core, and give some good bend/curves and no 90 degree angles (box end tanks).
but any other tips?
I see a lot of crappy intercooler endtanks and it hurts me to see a nice core and a **** endtank.
I saw a WRX intercooler, advertised as biggest stock mount made, had about 1" between endtank and core on the one side, and was a giant box with a tube in the middle. i bet it could perform at least 25% better with a nice endtank.

So, anyone with good knowledge of fluid dynamics and whatnot or just homemade endtanks have anything to say?

 

makes sense to me

you see boxy custom made intakes because air is just forced into the engine, so it may be the same. but i really dunno

 

Gamby, Gammmmmmmmmmby Crocket
Buttpirate of the wild frontier!

 

see you dont have to do drugs to look like that

 

baffle inside the end tanks...
spearco has a book "all about intercooling" and Corkey Bell's book talks about it too.

 

I had a front mounted I/C made up for my Impreza from a SKyline core and custom endtanks and pipework.

The endtanks themselves were box section which I didnt fancy too much, but it worked really well.

As the posts above have said its a pressure thing, just make sure that the bends arent square or tight in places.

Dan

 

It is a pressure thing, but its also a flow distribution thing. Who cares if your IC is huge, if 90% of the flow goes through 30% of the IC. That just means your IC could be 1/3 the size and have the same effectiveness. Baffling to direct airflow would definately help.

 

hmmm, internal baffling...
I get the drift, but anyone have a picture of it?

 

Been wondering where you went Node... you actually buy an RX?

 

erm, not another yet. but soon, hopefully the next few months, depends on a few things.
hoepfully this time itll be a t2

 

if no one has pictures of baffling can somebody describe it that has actually seen it inside the endtanks of a production IC.

Very interested as I am building my own IC at this very moment

 

The first rule of aftermarket intercoolers: It needs to fit in the car.

You can make it as ugly as you like. I spent a month trying to design the "perfect" intercooler, but eventually realized that anything that was highly efficient would never fit in the engine bay. (Other people would have figured this out in a few minutes, but I'm slow and stubborn, lol). Anyway, you can try and design it as best you can, but just don't get upset about every little thing that creates pressure drop or reduces throttle response. I think it is best to concentrate on getting a good core based on statistics rather than how shiny it is. BTW, when you are reading all of the sales propaganda, in general "high flow" = low efficiency.

I recommend spending the whole $3 on the Spearco catalog (even Node should be able to afford this, lol). The Spearco "All About Intercooling" pamphlet is rather brief, and is not as good a bang for the buck as their catalog, but you may still want the extra information. Both of Corky Bell's books (the turbo book and supercharger book) cover intercoolers. If anybody ever gets Corky's intercooler math to relate to reality, please let me know, lol. Otherwise, his take on intercoolers is pretty good IMO.

It's really more of a splitter than a baffle. You weld a piece of curved sheet metal in the middle of the end tank to guide the air so it travels through the whole core, not just the part of the core closest to the inlet/outlet. Basically, it's simply a splitter that divides the air into the upper and lower halves of the core. It is very similar to a divided turbo manifold.

A similar option is to divide the manifold along the other axis, which divides the air between the front and rear half of the core rather than the top and bottom as previously mentioned. This doesn't do anything for the flow as far as I know, but the divider forms an I-beam that keeps the end tank from sucking in and blowing out under boost, which is a major contributor to cracking on high-boosted applications.

 

mmmm, baffles. me have ideas

 

I had considered the baffles/dividers but had not heard of them until now.
So a good way to see how they are going to flow/divide air would probably be to take and build a endtank with a plexiglas window with such a baffle design and run a negative pressure and some visible smoke through it to see if it really is dividing the intake properly, and adjust acordingly.

Any ideas on how many dividers it would take to effectively distribute the flow evenly?