water to air intercooling

[Fatty]

not so often seen on an mx5.

for a good explanation of the comparitive strengths / weaknesses compared to the more traditional air/air intercooling , see this article on autospeed:

http://autospeed.com/A_107760/cms/article.html

i think it's an interesting idea... it's mainly the shorter intake length that tickles my fancy (turbo lag and shitty throttle response is doing my head in at the moment)

anyway, what i'm interested to know is info on what oem water to air intercoolers are out there, that could possibly be put to use in an mx5. can someone post up a list of cars that came from the factory with this system? i know there was a celica, for example.

oh, and i recall someone did a good writeup about intercooling on here at some point in the past, but i can't seem to find it?

[orx626]

Hi Fatty, the two cars that I know of that had OEM A2W IC's were the 3SGTE powered Celicas (GT4's - ST165 & ST185...can't remember if the ST205 had A2W as well) and the Liberty RS turbo. In both instances they were positioned across the top of the engine to minimise/optimise the intake length and therefore reduce the dreaded turbo lag. Both had a separate ECU to manage the A2W IC system's water pump.

I designed one for my 626 (below piccie) and will be doing the same for both my NC and NA when I find the time to do so. There is a good read here....http://www.are.com.au/Inter/air_to_water.htm



Cheers,
Danny

[greenMachine]

Try the big forum, it's a perennial there.... consensus is 'horses for courses' (helpful I know, but they do have limitations).

Of course, the new Cosworth kit has w/a intercooling...

[Fuzzlet]

PWR do a water/air intercooling kit. It does seem like a great idea when you way up throttle response etc

[Mokesta]

The new TRD Aurion and TRD Hilux have superchargers and water to air IC. The intercooler on the Hilux is housed in the same casting as the inlet tract so it is very tightly packed in bwtenn SC outlet and inlet runners. Runs what looks to be a DC water pump mounted low in front of the engine radiator and a small water radiator also mounted in front of the engine radiator.

I have pics I could post but not on this computer and not at 2:40 am in the Qantas club lounge and Aukland airport!!

A trip to your local Toyota dealer, pretending to be a buyer may be informative.

While PWR do barrel coolers that lots of people use, many have taken a liking to the Plazmamann ones as they are rectangular and, I hear, more efficient. In any case, I wouldn't use the supplier's ratings, which are quoted in HP. They seem to be wildly optomistic. ARE, as used by ORX626 above, use a detailed computer calculation to size the intercooler, radiator and water flow rate. It is top notch and written by a very clever guy who posted pics above.

M