As the title says, what are some ways you can increase power without a bigger turbo or turning up the boost? Porting excluded you could get a more efficient intercooler but that's about it as far as I can tell. I'm just trying to make the most out of my current v trim turbo before I upgrade. Also is there a threshold at which an intercooler can be too big for your application, where there start to be some drawbacks other than fitment issues?

 

Better intercooler
Cooler intake charge
Water injection
Less backpressure
more RPMs
more capacity
better tune
better fuel
more efficient gearbox

Sure there is more...

 

Cooler air in the intake lowers pressure ratio of turbo and might put you in a more efficient range of the turbo, less cooling from intercooler is needed as well. cooler IAT = more power, more dense air.

velocity stack helps with spool up, might help a little with power.

Large intake filter creates lower pressure drop across filter and lowers pressure ratio of turbo.

Low pressure drop intercooler.

More direct piping, use 45 degree bends rather than 90 degree bends, straight being optimal.

short direct piping, less drag.

short direct manifold into turbo with IWG, increases spool and lowers frictional losses.

IWG and built in BOV, decreases flow losses from a BOV on the pipe, Reduces any loses from having holes in intercooler. short direct straight, no holes or ridges, mandrel bent is optimal.

 

Every little improvement in every engine subsystem you can make will help.

On my old 60-1 stock hybrid I got it to where it was making 340rwhp at just 10psi creeping to 11psi in high rpm.

Turbo maxed out at 380rwhp at 18psi and only made 5hp less at 16psi. No peak power gains over 18psi, just midrange power gains.

That was a mild streetport of my design
ported S5 lower intake
ported FD upper intake
ported, halfshafted pri/contoured sec shaft throttle body
~2ft of IC pipe to IC
3.5" intake pipe to 6" velocity stack to 6"x 12" truck filter
3.5" turbo back exhaust 1 muffler
60mm open wastegate

I dynoed it with the filter off the velocity stack and it made the same power, but at 2psi less boost. 340rwhp at 8psi creeping to 9psi...

 

Well ducted intercooler also will lower IAT. think about ducting after the intercooler as well to a low pressure area. This will increase cooling efficiency.

Low weight moment of inertia wheels increase WHP, so does lightly weight flywheel although marginal, lighter brake rotor components.

Anything in the drivetrain you can lower moment of inertia will increase WHP with less "drag".

 

Another thing I have been looking at.

When designing the system to the intercooler it seems to be popular to have a HARSH 90 degree entrance. Most of the SMIC go straight into the face of the intercooler, no smooth cast entrance or anything. the exit of the intercooler is just as bad. I don't know the rammifications of this but I bet its great.

A better approach would be a sweeping light radius bend into the side of the intercooler where the entrance is parallel to the intercooler and exit is also parallel and uses a slight radius bend back to the intake elbow. You could do this but you would want a funky duct so the intercooler could sit **** eyed.

 

simplistically, air + fuel = power.

 

lOOkatme

Another thing I have been looking at.

When designing the system to the intercooler it seems to be popular to have a HARSH 90 degree entrance. Most of the SMIC go straight into the face of the intercooler, no smooth cast entrance or anything. the exit of the intercooler is just as bad. I don't know the rammifications of this but I bet its great.

A better approach would be a sweeping light radius bend into the side of the intercooler where the entrance is parallel to the intercooler and exit is also parallel and uses a slight radius bend back to the intake elbow. You could do this but you would want a funky duct so the intercooler could sit **** eyed.

Well... not really.

I thought as you did in 2001 and ported out the end tanks of the NPR medium IC I used for my HMIC as it had these cast in walls and then I placed my inlet/outlet inline with the end tanks- all for lowest possible pressure drop.

But then I learned that the cast in walls and angled entry into the IC end tanks are to introduce turbulence on purpose so that the flow is evenly distributed among the many tubes to boost efficiency.

Basically, there are always trade-offs on intercoolers between efficiency and pressure drop.

Ebay bar and plate IC cores work well from high aluminum mass for heat sinking and low pressure drop.

My OEM NPR tube and fin IC with internal turbulators work well for high efficiency.

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Regarding turbulent flow in the IC and resultant pressure drop-

I have since dreamed up a low internal volume laminar flow intercooler design to laminova cores that I want to try to keep flow more laminar for super low pressure drop while still having good efficiency.

However, going Air to Water with enough capacity is going to be ~80lbs weight in a class without Min weights. Sure I can put the weight toward the middle of the car, but even a HUGE 10-15lb Air to Air intercooler with a fan will probably be very close to as efficient and 65-70lbs lighter.

I think of the RE Amemiya 400rwhp stock twins "touge monster" that uses a huge V-mounted Air to Air IC quite well to tame the stock twins on hairdryer boost levels and I think, meh- keep it simple.

 

what size exactly was your 60-1? I never understood what that meant. I only know trims and how to calculate them. Also, how was the spool up?

 

I thought that you wanted to duct the intercooler to a high pressure area so as to force as much air through as possible, because the pressure differential between the two sides of the intercooler will be greatest there . And the front of the car is about as high of pressure as you can get.

 

My Hybrid ended up as a full T04B with the 60-1 compressor in Hi-Fi size with P trim exhaust wheel in a bored out and crazy ported S5 TII manifold and turbo housing.

I think Turbonetics came up with the 60-1, 62-1, ect turbo naming.

60-1 is a 59mm inducer, 76mm exducer 56 trim compressor wheel in a 0.60AR compressor cover.

Put that compressor wheel in a 0.70AR compressor cover and its a Garrett T04S

It is a very good compressor design for high flow at low pressure ratio and has kept its popularity because of it.

A billet 60-1 compressor wheel is now known as GTXxx76R compressor wheel with its most current redesign for a higher pressure ratio capability.

 

I thought that you wanted to duct the intercooler to a high pressure area so as to force as much air through as possible, because the pressure differential between the two sides of the intercooler will be greatest there . And the front of the car is about as high of pressure as you can get.

Yeah, he meant high pressure duct inlet and low pressure duct outlet.

Front of car is high pressure duct inlet, but with the oil cooler and radiator behind it, it is actually a fairly high pressure duct outlet...

A horizontal mount or V-mount on the other hand would have the same high pressure inlet (with a duct body for improved "head") and a lower pressure outlet duct.

 

Yes, inlet of the duct is high pressure (should be), the exit of the intercooler duct (opposite side of the inlet and a different duct which most people do not make) should route to a low pressure area.

If you have a high pressure area in front of the duct in front of the intercooler and the exit of the intercooler is unducted and is located in a high pressure area......how does the air flow go through the intercooler?


Not only does this increase the efficiency of the heat exchanger but decreases drag as well.

 

OP do you have pics of your intake and exhaust?

 

quote from Paul Yaw; which explains that a little more, "The first thing to consider is that the horsepower output of any internal combustion engine is determined more than any other factor by the airflow potential of that engine. To describe it simply, all the power comes from the heat energy of the combustion of air and fuel. Getting enough fuel into an engine is not a problem, because fuel is quite compact, but along with that fuel, we need an appropriate amount of air to go with it. Filling the chamber with air at 9000 rpm is quite a task, because we only have 5 thousandths of one second to do so! Even at idle, the intake cycle only lasts 6 hundredths of a second!"

 

Yeah, I never liked V mount intercoolers, sure the exhaust side has a lower pressure ratio but I would think that blowing 5 mph of cool air through an intercooler would be better than 10 mph of hot air that had been ran through the radiator first.

 

a proper v-mount does not put the intercooler behind the radiator in terms of airflow, it takes a smaller percentage of the air from the front of the car and the rest goes through the radiator.

don't mistake shitty v-mounts for proper v-mounts.