With no money in my pocket, and the itch for speed in my pants, I'm always looking for ways to help out performance the free way. Here's an easy one that I did this weekend. It took about 1 hour and its kinda cool. I took the windshield water spray system and turned it into an IC sprayer. It was very simple. I took the hose that went to the windshield jets and ran it to the front of the intercooler. I installed a cheap $2 home depot water mist jet on the end and wallah! instant water sprayer for the ic. I wired the window wash fluid pump to a switch on the gas pedal so it turns on under wot. I dont know how much it helped, but it definately couldn't hurt, especially in this hot weather.

man i also do not know how much it would actually help... but that is just awesome

What if you need to spray your windshield? The new STi WRX has a sprayer system like this, let us know if you gain anything from it

Innovation like that gives me confidence in the future of automotive improvement. Keep it up.

yeah keep us updated, hows that ass-dyno lookin?

You are definitely going places. Nice work!

Its cool people do stuff like this...but as the gains in power will be very minimal..cuz the water is going to the same or even hotter then the weather outside..so when you are going you are spraying hot water on your IC.....but you are moving the water will be alittle cooler...but IMO its not worth it for the time to do it....

I am not trying to steal your thunder or anything but...this mod has been done alot and its been posted to on tuners...but like I said it cool you did it... its always nice to mod your car for free or for a very minimal cost..

Originally posted by KRAZYKOREAN
Its cool people do stuff like this...but as the gains in power will be very minimal..cuz the water is going to the same or even hotter then the weather outside..so when you are going you are spraying hot water on your IC.....but you are moving the water will be alittle cooler...but IMO its not worth it for the time to do it....

I am not trying to steal your thunder or anything but...this mod has been done alot and its been posted to on tuners...but like I said it cool you did it... its always nice to mod your car for free or for a very minimal cost..

Click to expand...

Yea, as cool as it is. My friend and I did that to his gst about 3 years ago. We never really noticed anything. Now take that a step farther and find a way to ice down the water.

yeah somehow use the a/c to cool a water tank? Or maybe just run a duct from the a/c to the i/c and shoot cool air at it....but then you'd lose power by having the a/c running, i thought i had a good idea

I used to have that IC sprayer that I made from Home Depot get and windshield pump.

There are hardly any gains, and here's why:

1) In order for water to efficiently cool down IC fins, it has to be finely misted, HD jets can't do that.

2) Windshield washer pump isn't powerful enough to provide enough pressure and flow for any significant cooling.


Here's how to make it better :

Use 50% alcohol solution instead of water.

Anyone seen any real numbers on this? Such as before and after IAT?

I'd not think the water being ambient would be much of a loss, the cooling's in turning it to vapor, not hosing down the IC. And even at that, isn't the turbine air over 200°F at full-push? Seems like 70° water would help that a fair bit.

I am in the works of fabricating a "cooler" that goes around the upper intercooler pipe, basically it will be a cylinder that can be filled with cold waterand/or ice.

Originally posted by tbehling
I am in the works of fabricating a "cooler" that goes around the upper intercooler pipe, basically it will be a cylinder that can be filled with cold waterand/or ice.

Click to expand...

You know i had a simaler idea but it would be air & water cooled...

it would be kinda like a air cooled water filled heat sink (been done on computers why not a pipe?)
:laugh:



it would defently be deferent, but i would need a place to take air in and duct to the pipe... so i duno i may just use heat sinks.. just put alot of small ionized heat sinks on the pipe with thermal epoxy..

Originally posted by RipperXX


You know i had a simaler idea but it would be air & water cooled...

it would be kinda like a air cooled water filled heat sink (been done on computers why not a pipe?)
:laugh:



it would defently be deferent, but i would need a place to take air in and duct to the pipe... so i duno i may just use heat sinks.. just put alot of small ionized heat sinks on the pipe with thermal epoxy..

Click to expand...

Ehhh, being a computer dude myself, I don't think putting water around the pipe would help it in the long run. Eventually you'd end up with hot water that wouldn't do anything substatial to the air. Why? Because computer water coolers have radiators that cools the water as it travels through the cpu die (and sometimes other dies for the northbridge, the gpu, etc.) So unless you have a way to cool down the water as it heats up, it's useless.

Putting a bunch of heatsinks would be quite expensive. For example, good ram heatsinks for video cards cost about $12 for 4, and they're about as big as the fingernail on your thumb. Also, the problem you'd get with those is as the air keeps coming through the pipe and they keep receiving heat, how are they supposed to dispel it? They'd get heatsoaked eventually and again be worthless. That's why processor heatsinks have fans, because if they didn't the heatsink would become too hot and useless.

I can't think of a good way to do it, myself. Maybe something using peltiers would work if it could be integrated properly.

ON my 90awd i was planning on getting rid of the rear winshield wiper and wiper motor, and just putty up the hole. But i was planing on using the pump from the rear and use the factory rear wiper sprayer relocated as a IC sprayer, but done this way you would only have it spray when you hit the rear wiper button and it wouldn't be throttle activated. But i actualy thought of that on my own but the car still doesn't run .
Gooberlog

how much power can be gained with the 50% alcohol? if its 3-7hp range then id do this mod. thats fo sho!

no matter what anyone says, this does help.

As stated above if turbine temperatures are over 200* and the water is at 70* anyone can do the math... it's cooler. Even if not a whole lot of water is being put onto the IC it is still helping a little. Also, think of where the water goes... It evaporates. To evaporate the water must gain energy (heat), so it takes the heat from the intercooler and the intake air and turns it into the energy of evaporation thus cooling the intercooler and the intake charge. Even if it only helps a tiny bit, it still is helping.

Good work

Originally posted by tsi_turboawd
how much power can be gained with the 50% alcohol? if its 3-7hp range then id do this mod. thats fo sho!

Click to expand...

Unfortunately I mooved up to FMIC before I had a chance to try out alcohol. Either way, it would be much more effective then water. It evaporates MUCH faster.

To see exactly what i'm talking about, first put a water on your hand and blow on it, it'll feel colder. Now rub alcohol over your hand blow on that, you will see just how much colder it would feel.

The only reason I can think of for not running pure alcohol is safety. You don't what it to ignite and throw flames at your IC . Also pure alcohol is hard to contain. It will leak and evaporate from everywhere, also damagin the pump which isn't designed for alcohol.

well after many days of driving, I noticed my ic is muuuuch cooler after I spray it. Usually on my 30 min. commute home from work in 80-90 degree weather my intercooler is pretty hot to the touch by the time I get home. Yesterday, I put the sprayer to the test, I sprayed for about 2 sec. every 5 min. or so during my commute. By the time i got home my ic was as cool a swimming pool in the winter time. So it really does cool and keep the ic cool. As far as power increase goes, I dont know because I'm not really big on butt dynos, and especially in dsms. One day my dsm will fly like a bat out of hell, and the next day it'll feel sluggish. But I think the most benefit would be on those long top speed runs when your ic really gets heat soaked. But overall, I would say it was DEFINATELY well worth the time to do it. I would estimate my ic is at least 50 degrees cooler when I spray it, so there has to be an increase in power somewhere.

what kind of sprayers do the sti and the evo have? and do they use normal water? or are they cooled to

has anyone made a thing for RACING only? its sorta a long idea but hree goes


basically you make a metal wrap that latches around the UICP, but its not just one metal plate, its 2 pieces welded togther about 1/4 inch apart and seemed together, and in between the metal is water which you freeze, and then when its frozen you can wrap it around your UICP (the metal thing has to be formed to fit completely and tightly around the UICP, maybe screw it onto the UICP and then fill the hole when you arent using the freezer thing)

i really dont know how to explain it but maybe when my car is running i will make it, what you do is put it in a cooler filled with ice til you get to the track, put it on, run, put it back in the cooler

could be a cheap mod that could do some good


ill try to explain it better later

the sprayer thing shoudl work and maybe one way to make it better would be to try fitting a old fuel pump into it maybe the added pressure would do some good. and if your going to the track.. have a large insulated container full of ice water that you can pour in before you run.


I have been thinking about getting the cryo2 intercooler sprayer. it sprays CO2 onto the intercooler and actually freezes the metal.. this would definatly get the job done.

Originally posted by greathuskie
has anyone made a thing for RACING only? its sorta a long idea but hree goes


basically you make a metal wrap that latches around the UICP, but its not just one metal plate, its 2 pieces welded togther about 1/4 inch apart and seemed together, and in between the metal is water which you freeze, and then when its frozen you can wrap it around your UICP (the metal thing has to be formed to fit completely and tightly around the UICP, maybe screw it onto the UICP and then fill the hole when you arent using the freezer thing)

i really dont know how to explain it but maybe when my car is running i will make it, what you do is put it in a cooler filled with ice til you get to the track, put it on, run, put it back in the cooler

could be a cheap mod that could do some good


ill try to explain it better later

Click to expand...

I know what you're describing here.
You have to keep in mind, however, that water will expand when frozen and either pop those plates apart or badly bloat them.

just make a container to go around either the
a: uicp
b: ic if for racing only.

fill with dry ice.

have fun.

The IC sprayer is a good idea, and it has been done many times before. However, like several people stated, there are a couple crucial things that need to be done before this can be effective.

First off, the water needs to be in a find mist.

Second, it needs to be sprayed at a high enough pressure for that mist to be formed.

If you you can setisfy these two requirements (not too hard) then you have a viable water sprayer.

Just because the water is at ambient does not mean this won't be effective. The air entering the intercooler can be over 200 degrees farenheight, so water at ambient is still good, and much better then air at ambient.

It would be very difficult to design a system that cooled the air in the UICP. Creating heat transfer there is hard.



..Kyle T.