are HUGE intercoolers needed?

[MNGSX]

On a 1g the larger cores also have the added bonus of not blocking flow to the radiator with the end tanks. I've seen people report that their cars run cooler switching from the standard 1g style "street core" to the "race core".

I'm not sure how the fit is on a 2g.

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The new IC is wider but not taller... Proof that it does'nt take a 2 foot by 4 foot IC.

 

[nickrule99]

Wouldnt shep heat soak if he took it driving through the city though?

He doesnt need that huge of an intercooler mainly because hes throwing air at it for 8 seconds, and usually at a speed none of us seen on a daily basis. Put that same IC on a daily driven car, with half the HP and it wont preform nearly as well on the streets.

Granted, some of the cores out there are way to big for their applications, but the larger cores do serve a purpose. It all depends on the type of driving/racing done with it.

Personally, Id rather the largest IC I could squeeze in there, for the simple fact that If I need the addtional cooling, its there. If you wouldnt buy a 190lph fuel pump becasue you *might* need the 255lph pump, or you dont get the 2.5" exhaust becasue you might need the 3" some day, even though you dont RIGHT now, whats the difference? Most users have to get an IC before a turbo upgrade anyways, so why not keep all your options open?

Just my .02
-Nick

 

[MNGSX]

You could have a giant IC... You'll just run the engine hotter and not be able to flow air thru half of it or have a front bumper that looks like the one on page 1.

Ever go WOT for more than 10 seconds or so at a time?

Even so a short wide high efficiency core will not heatsoak.

Get the biggest core you can make use of not the biggest core that will fit and only use 75% of it like I have seen....

I have had good results with mine. Its thick, short and long.. Fills the 95-96 bumper perfect.

Sheps new IC (Old old pic above) fills the opening with tanks barely visible.

 

[BoostInsideTSi]

well I have been posting on this for the past week or so but havent heard any real good info. yet. I got this star FMIC core with custom piping, and can still return it, because the guy on paypal listed the sizes incorrectly. :thumbdown But I've got a 16g and have been thinking about getting a new turbo down the road maybe a 20g or 50 trim, and wanna know if this bad boy will be able to efficiently support them.
core dimensions 22 x 6 1/4 x 2 1/4, 2" inlet/outlet. Heres a pic of it installed ona 95-96. I really want this to fill the bumper of the 97 bumper I am getting.. cant sport a weak looking intercooler out on the road.
Mike

 

[miteclgst]

What I believe the major problem people have is that many of them don't even vaguely understand the engineering behind a intercooler.

Wouldnt shep heat soak if he took it driving through the city though?
THe only way a intercooler can heat soak is if the air leaving the turbo is soo hot that it manages to quickly heat up the entire intercooler to the point where it has lost it's ability to pass the heat to the air flowing through it. That post is talking about an intercooler as though it is a radiator. In the case of a radiator the engine will constantly need to be cooled because it is constantly building up heat. This isn't the case in a turbo system, the turbo will only build up significant heat when it is compressing air. So would he heatsoak? No, if he was consistant WOT runs from light to light then yes.

The thermodynamics behind intercooler design is simple. Heat will transfer from an area of greater density to one of less density. The heat in the air charge will dissipate into the aluminum because the aluminum (in a properly sized intercooler) will be at ambient air temperature. Since the aluminum now has a greater heat density then that of the air flowing through it the heat will transfer out of the aluminum. When the heat of the air is so hot that the aluminum cannot dissipate it, the intercooler becomes a heat sink.
No formula is needed to understand that the greater the surface area of the material making up the intercooler, the greater the heat dissipation.
But here is one anyway: Q=hA(Ti-Ta)
Q= heat transfer
A= Area
h= heat transfer coefficient
Ti-Ta= Difference between inlet and ambient temperature

It can clearly be seen that if - heat transfer coefficient - and the difference between the inlet and ambient temperature remain constant then the Area will be directly proportional to the heat tranfer. Aluminum is the most common material that intercoolers are made from so that won't change.

The Area
Thus the more surface area an intercooler has the higher the inlet temp can be and the outlet temp will remain ambient. Cooling the air charge to ambient air temp is the BEST situation you can have. You will not get an intercooler any cooler than that unless it is by other means (Nitrous, CO2).
Think of your exhaust, at idle your car might be running around 700*-800* EGT. If you put your hand behind your muffler your skin won't blister and peal off. THis is because the surface area of the exhaust piping is dissipating the heat of the exhaust gas into the surrounding air.

Ti-Ta
What effects outlet air charge temp? An intercooler can only be so efficient, what other way is there to make the outlet temp lower? A lower inlet temp. How do we achieve a lower inlet temp? By running our turbos in their best efficiency range. Not enough people take this into consideration, they feel that they need to have an intercooler that is soo big that it can cool an inlet temp of 1000*F to -30*F.

 

[MNGSX]

well I have been posting on this for the past week or so but havent heard any real good info. yet. I got this star FMIC core with custom piping, and can still return it, because the guy on paypal listed the sizes incorrectly. :thumbdown But I've got a 16g and have been thinking about getting a new turbo down the road maybe a 20g or 50 trim, and wanna know if this bad boy will be able to efficiently support them.
core dimensions 22 x 6 1/4 x 2 1/4, 2" inlet/outlet. Heres a pic of it installed ona 95-96. I really want this to fill the bumper of the 97 bumper I am getting.. cant sport a weak looking intercooler out on the road.
Mike

Probably be ok on a 97 bumper. My tanks end where the fog lights outer edge is or so...

 

[myblack98gst]

here is mine.. I got it free from a isuzu semi.. it is the NPR intercooler you maye have heard about. I love it, it works good, fills the hole good, and costs great $FREE$

 

[Spoolin98]

Anyone out there using the Dejon Tool Street front mount kit? Requires no trimming of the bumper and the ic pipes are ran the same way as stock. Its made out of two 2g sidemount intercoolers. Just wondering if anyone has pics of this ic on there car? Or any information about this ic. Its a affordable ic with double the surface area as stock, i was planning on using this with the evo16g. Any advice or info is welcome.

 

[RedTurboEclipse]

i dont think mine is too big.. a lot of peeps are running a lot bigger these days..

 

[danielbui]

its all about flow vs. efficiency like others have stated. huge intercoolers will bring a massive chill but you will not have the correct flow for the current turbo setup your are using, so horsepower gains will be weaker than if the intercooler and turbo matched to a certain extent. but also if its not big enough it heat soak ect. will also hurt horsepower and engine performance. its finding that happy medium we are all looking for. this can also be extended to the BAR AND PLATE vs. TUBE AND FIN debate.

 

[Victory]

For those who believe they need a 30 x 14 x 3.5 inch intercooler they are obviously running 1700HP and need that size to match their system. Obviously. As for the majority of people....bigger is normally a compensation thing.

If I recall correctly, Sheps IC is 24 x 14 x 3.5 inch. I've asked Shep to use my intercooler on his car before. Before he did this though he checked backpressure across his system which he found to be less than 1psi. I personally was surprised but if it would help him go faster I'm sure he would change the set up.

Our Super Street kit measures 24 x 10 x 3.5 inch. I designed it this way for two reasons. One was for performance. Two for looks. Quit frankly it's larger than most people will ever need, especially those with anthing less than a 50 trim turbo. Check out GRNDSM (Reitman Racing) on this site under the 1/4 mile times page. He runs the VPE Super Street kit with my 2.5" O2 housing. Quarter mile time 10.3 sec. He's stated too that the car could probably go 9's with a few more passes on it. Point is, my real world testing has shown that you don't need as large an intercooler as one would think. For the record Curt Brown and Turbo Trix used our race core on thier cars and have run into the 9's. Turbo Trix stated on the dyno they made more power with our IC end tank design than anything else they've used. I could have sent them something larger but there was no point. Data logging statistics showed us this. AEM is a wonderful thing.

One last thing to consider. Huge intercoolers will create slower spool times. There is more volume to fill. Bigger IC and a bigger turbo doesn't transfer to better 1/4 mile times because of the transient response. It's only a quarter mile and if its taking time to spool your not getting down the track as fast. Like some other people have stated, you don't just buy parts you build a turbo system.

For those of you who "need proof". Measure two things on your own IC system. One, pressure in and pressure out to see if its causing excessive back pressure. Secondly, check the temps across the IC starting from the hot side and work your way across. I'll bet you find the IC is done cooling after the first 18 inches. The next 6 inches, assuming its 24 inches long, is just causing back pressure. Remember every car is different and your ability to tune plays a large roll in that.

Keep in mind to purchase your kit from a reputable manufacturer. You may be paying a little more for the product but what your actually paying for is knowledge.

Good luck.

Scott R Belcastro
Victory Performance Equipment

 

[coltboostin]

yeah, thats fine. thats all you need. even better if you want the sleeper effect

It will heatsoak, just not as quickly as the stocker.

do some reasearch and see the reviews for yourself.

 

[Defiant]

More intercooler = more intake tract area.
More intake area = more volume for the turbo to fill.
Smaller intercooler = less cooling area.

Everything's compromise.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

i started this thread to learn more about intercooling. I was very disappointed in always hearing, "get the biggest one out there, bla bla." Hopefully some more people who have actually tested cores or maybe another vendor or two can chime in.

 

[93AWDTalon1]

Do the smaller IC's cool enough for high boost pump gas street cars?
by hig boost I mean 21-25 psi

 

[leland77]

i run 20psi+ into a spearco core that measures 18" by 6" by 3" and have no knock. granted it's only getting pushed by a e316g. I have no way of logging intake temps but i've had the cooler on for a summer always tuned for no knock. That said if I were to go larger turbo wise I probably would go with a larger cooler also.

 

[leland77]

oh yea a forgot to say thats on cruddy 91/92 octane we have here in Wa.

 

[The Foos]

Here is a summary for you from an engineering/practical standpoint...Here are the things to consider...

Flow rate
Pressure Drop
Temperature Drop (the point of it in the first place)
Heat Soak

Flow Rate is something you don't really have much control over when selecting your intercooler, so I will skip that.

Pressure Drop vs Temperature Drop. You have to find a balance here for your application. The more bends and internal surface area, the better the heat transfer will be. Better temperature drop. But, the less surface area and bends it has, you have less pressure drop. so, you can get excellent temperature drop with a small intercooler, but you will probably have pressure drop/flow issues.

Finally, heat soak. If heat soak is an issue for you, you need a intercooler with more material. This typically mean bigger is better.

What is your application? If you are drag racing, heat soak isn't a big deal. If you are road racing, heat soak is a big deal. So, that is why shep can get away with a small intercooler.

Scott

 

[Black95TSIawd]

i guess i can agree that if you're drag racing which only runs for a couple seconds, then the intercooler doesnt have enough time to heatsoak. But, someone like shep who runs 40psi (have seen him reply to a thread with that) needs A LOT of intercooler to withstand 40psi of heat.

 

[MNGSX]

Not really... If the turbo has a compressor wheel that is still in a high efficiency area at 40psi its no worse than mere mortals at 25psi..

 

[JiveMasterT]

It will heatsoak, just not as quickly as the stocker.

do some reasearch and see the reviews for yourself.

yeah? all intercoolers will heat soak, just not as quickly as the stock one. whats your point? supras can make 400 hp on the stock ic, i think thats plenty of cooling for a 16g setup. ive heard mixed reviews from people.... "my supra side mount sucks, im running a t99 on it at 32psi while driving around in the desert, in a city." and ive also heard "my supra sidemount is awesome. same place as stock, plenty of flow, not too big, and it does the job perfectly for my 16g or similar turbo."

 

[coltboostin]

i guess i can agree that if you're drag racing which only runs for a couple seconds, then the intercooler doesnt have enough time to heatsoak. But, someone like shep who runs 40psi (have seen him reply to a thread with that) needs A LOT of intercooler to withstand 40psi of heat.

The heffer wheel he is running is efficient @ 40psi, just liek a 16g is efficient @16psi. I bet his outlet temp rolling down the track are cooler than most of these goofs who try and squeeze 24+psi out of an 16g.

 

[mavisky]

Look on the water spray topic there are two ways to look at it. It won't add horsepower, if the outside temp dropped 5 degrees you'd see a bigger change while the car is sitting still getting the piss beat out of it on the dyno. Where this option will come into play is in prolonged hard driving as others have mentioned. The water spray will do more to help keep your intercooler from heatsoaking by spraying it down with water while you're driving. You see this alot on factory cars such as the evo and sti (especially the sti) since the stock IC's are a little on the smaller side. Something like the top mount ic on the subarus are sitting mere inches away from the turbo so a little added water will help carry away some of the heat when it evaporates.

I have no problem believing that AMS didn't find any negligible gains on the dyno, short of setting the ic in an ice water bath there's no way a small spray of water or even a frosting of co2 would make the ic run that much cooler that you'd see a large gain in power. I would be willing to bet though that if they held that same car on the dyno for 5 minutes straight, wot in 4th gear at about 100mph that they would eventually see power start to drop due to heatsoaking the intercooler. With a water/alchohol spray onto the ic it's plausible that they may even see the hp climb back up temporarily as the ic gets a bit cooler, especially if that cool mist comes just as the motor starts to pull timing. It wouldn't be very hard to setup, whenever the ecu sees 7 counts of knock ( i think that's where it pulls timing) it could give a short 10 second spray of water to the IC to brink the knock back under control temporarily. Most of these systems are counting on the fact that even if you cross that line where the ecu pulls knock, that you'll eventually have to slow down for a corner on the track and that the ic can recover a bit during your braking.

sorry so long - me rambles sometimes

 

[mavisky]

This is one of the best comments/observations made in this entire thread. For about the same price (maybe even less) and just as simple of an install (maybe even easier), a WI kit would likely yield much better results.

I agree, if horsepower gains are your goal then water injection is far better than an intercooler sprayer. But water injection will use up the water faster, so for someone looking to do racing on something like a road course (which I realize is a small number in the dsm crowd) the ic spray would give them less hp, but more laps possibly. Of course then you could just add a larger tank, but then you're dealing with a large mass in the vehicle which will change over time altering the way the vehicle handles.

sorry ran off on a tangent, at least I stopped myself this time

 

[thegreatms]

The heffer wheel he is running is efficient @ 40psi, just liek a 16g is efficient @16psi. I bet his outlet temp rolling down the track are cooler than most of these goofs who try and squeeze 24+psi out of an 16g.

I'm not so sure about that. Using the turbo outlet temp calculator at:
http://www.stealth316.com/2-turbotemp.htm

lets say intake temp is 70 F and intake pressure is 14.5 psi on both cars.
With 16g guy at 24 psi and a very bad efficiency of 60% (a guess), and shep is at 40psi and good efficiency of 75% (another guess).

16g guy turbo outlet temp = 351 F
shep turbo outlet temp = 391 F

So even with my exaggerated efficiency estimates shep has 40 F hotter air to cool. (not to mention way more cfm.)