intercooler - which is best

[16bit]

just wondering what the best brand/type of air to air intercooler if money is no object.

[sirbob]

I like the jackson racing water-to-air cigar shaped intercooler. Rhysk has this on his supercharged NB, and i reckon its the best of all worlds.

As this intercooler sits in the intake pipe behind the radiator top tank, it would have a much better throttle response than a front mount, and with water to air you will have a much greater ability to absorb large amounts of heat in a short period.

Not sure on the JR kit, but some WTA intercoolers also have a valve that is throttle dependant, such that when you go from part open to wide open throttle, the valve opens and sends a shot of cool water water through the system. (I know that the WTA intercooler on a Celica GT4 Group A works this way)

Again, depends on your apllication, but i personally really like the idea of WTA, yes, there is significantly more plumbing and assorted bits, but for reliability, throttle response and consistant cooling, i dont think you could do better.

[Uncle Arthur]

The one that fits best (size, capacity, location, material) with your turbo setup.

(function over form is probably a pretty good reckoner to go by - why spend top$$$ for something with a cool name that does no more than something that costs you less)

Look here for a start:

http://autospeed.com/cms/A_2469/article.html

[CT]

Cheap is not always better. We have found on the race cars that the cheap ones do not flow air through the cores well enough and lead to overheating issues...PWR are known to be one of the better ones.

[NMX516]

Go and talk to these guys - http://www.are.com.au/ - well, have a good read through their website anyway.

Water to air will lower the intake temps the most, but 'packaging' them into the car can be a bit of a hassle with limited space available.

IMO you're best off getting a custom one made. Get ducting in the end tanks to split the airflow across the core so that you don't get hot areas. It also helps reduce airflow restriction.

If you go air to air, paint the outside of the core in matt black paint - helps transfer heat better than natural al finish, and also looks more stealthy I've done this on my car and thought it was an urban myth, but it dropped the intake temps by a couple of degrees!

[Steampunk]

Core design matters. Not sure which flows better and which is more efficient in heat-reduction, but there are \"bar & plate\" and \"tube & fin\" core designs.

[CapitalF]

This is a question for Danny - forum name ORX626 I think. He works in this area I believe.

Where are you Danny?

Peter

[zoomzoom]

If you can hold out for a while there is going to be a air to water intercooler in the works which will be custom made to fit between the engine and radiator. There are already a few people with their hands up for them when it happens probably after mid year, and the more people who want one the better, as it should make it more viable for the supplyer to produce them.

I'm sure you will hear more when they get closer...

[SuperMazdaKart]

i like the custom to suit the car idea. if the a/c is being kept then airflow obviously has to go through the intercooler, airconditioning condenser & then the radiator.

something like this found on miata.net would be awesome. a joined radiator & intercooler.

[zoomzoom]

I like the idea of having prettymuch a front mount right there, but i'm not sure that halving the size of the radiator to do it is a great solution...

[orx626]

This is a question for Danny - forum name ORX626 I think. He works in this area I believe.

Where are you Danny?

Peter

I'm here Peter!

Well this is third go at writing this post!

Each time I started writing a thesis and tried to answer every potential question relating to intercooling. So I thought I'd try this approach instead; by making some basic generalised statements and fielding questions from there (if any).


Statement 1 - There is no easy way to select an intercooler's physical size that will provide the optimal (better than just better) performance for $ spent without considering your engine set-up and making a decision on the primary application of your vehicle. Say you went and fitted a Skyline GTR A2A IC on your B6T powered NA6, this doesn't mean that you will have achieved optimal performance (I know you can't physically fit it, but that's beside the point). More than likely you'll have increased your lag and substantially reduced the efficiency of your engine cooling system by blocking the ambient airflow to the radiator.

Statement 2 - With regards to your vehicle's application and which IC will provide optimal performance (ignoring the cost aspect) I recommend the A2A for all circuit racers (more than 50% of its life on the track) and A2W for street cars (less than 50% of its life on the track). Drag vehicles or dyno queens on pump gas (not methanol) are another kettle of fish, where one can use combinations of A2A and A2W with fun things like ice and even dry ice.

Statement 3 - For a particular engine setup, an A2A IC in 99% of cases will be cheaper than an A2W IC designed to suit that same engine setup and provide equivalent steady-state performance at the maximum duty cycle. ie. they have the ability to remove the same amount of heat from the intake charge and dissipate it to ambient. But street cars don't spend a whole lot of time at maximum duty cycle....this is where A2W comes to the fore...refer to Autospeed article - 'Thermal Mass'.


Statement 4 - The transient performance of an A2A intercooler is more sensitive to the vehicle's road speed than an A2W intercooler. ie. A2W IC's are more efficient at removing heat from the engine intake charge at low vehicle speeds than A2A for longer periods (Thermal mass once again).

Statement 5 - When both are designed, an A2A IC will always be more efficient at it's maximum duty cycle than the 'equivalent' A2W IC. This is because heat has to transfer across two fluids (air to water, then to air again) versus one fluid for A2A IC's (air to air). Everytime heat transfers from one fluid to another the efficiency of the transfer is reduced because the temperature differential (delta T) is less.

Statement 6 - Does all of the above really matter? It all depends on whether it matters to you and how big your budget is and whether you can physically fit the IC type you want (this is the most common problem when trying to design A2W IC's). Most of the time if an intercooler looks about right it will probably provide an improvement in performance. It's just whether or not you want to know what sort of improvement you will get before you spend your hard-earned cash and have decided how many ponies you are chasing.



I hope this helps and doesn't confuse the situation. Aluminium Engineering and Radiators (ARE) provide the service of designing IC's for specific engine set-ups and their specific applications. I'm not financially associated with them but have provided professional engineering assistance to them for the past 8 years. They have also designed tube extrusions for particular applications - optimised cross-sectional area to surface area ratios. If you do want the optimal in IC performance, give Richard a call on (07) 3205 4620.

Cheers,
Danny

[16bit]

thanks mate - i will have a think. Right now I am not having problems with my intercooler i was just thinking of upgrading to a more efficient core to avoid pressure drop. A2W does sound good but i am not a huge fan of the complexity and weight of the application (also possible expense). Thanks for all the replies!

[JSE]

good write up danny. covers just about all bases. i have found that tube and fin designs work better then bar and plate.

[glen73]

just buy one that fits

[orx626]

just buy one that fits