Intercoolers for 1G ra28's?

[RAd28]

i'm putting my vote on water being a poor choice to remove heat based on a number of examples i've heard.

#1 normal car radiator uses a relatively large surface area, and drops water temps across the core by how much?? 10-20deg? perhaps it's because the air coming through is so poor at absorbing the heat? *shrugs* maybe...

#2 WTA intercooler would be friggin awesome if you could keep the water cold... remember again small core size, = low drop in temp, and again, your still relying on that air/water to remove the heat from the water, which is removing it from the air... WTA is great for throttle responce (unless you happen to get stuck in traffic... or live in a hot climate... say... Makay)

#3 human body is 70% water, when you get burnt (depending on severity) the heat of the burn stays in the wound for a long time, which is why it's important to apply ice... to cool down the moisture and prevent any further tissue damage...

blowing air through your engine water galleries would indeed be an effective way of cooling... if you could increase the surface area to that of the radiator...
remember... the water isn't removing the heat... it's moving it so somewhere that the air can easily get to it...

no matter which way you look at it... air has the last say in cooling (ice coolers excepted)


anyways, ON topic...

i'm running a PWR tube and fin cooler, i think 450mm core, 600mm outside of tank to outside of tank... fits perfectly between the heatlights, all the pipework is concealed behind the bumper, but new bumper mounts and some hacking was required... but i'm sure you could get around that if you tried...

[Pube]

I have found the water in my setup to stay a cool to cold temperature. However it is winter time and it hasnt seen summer temps. Front mounts also suffer in summer temps too. You cannot really compare an engine radiator temperature drop to a water to air heat exchanger temperature drop. My water in my setup will never get close to boiling point!!

The biggest negative with my setupo is where the intercooler is positioned - on top of the engine. Once you stop driving and there is no more airflow, the intercooler gets some heat soak. The cooler gets warm, not hot though.

[RAd28]

Pube - the intake charge from your turbo is never near boiling point, therefore your WTA cooler couldn't possibly get that hot, your engine temp however i'm sure has been around 90-100 deg C before, i've heard of a few people running 100+ and they consider that normal...

what's wrong with comparing water in your radiator, to water in your heat exchanger? water goes in hot, comes out cooler...

both WTA and ATA are only as effective as the air which removes the heat... however WTA has the advantage of short inlet tract, that cannot be denied...

[o_man_ra23]

Well, unfortunately for my experience... most people I know are far too scared of 'complexities' and 'unknowns' to go with systems like WTA. The fact that Wheels did a comprehensive test with boxing up a WRX intercooler (so the heat exchanger was identical at that side of things) and managed to gain 40hp with a very basic system is reason enough for me to try it out. My original plan was to have a topmount ATA with ducting and water sprayers... a WTA is simple in comparison... and neater too.

[RAd28]

if you wanna try something special owen... might be worth working out a system to integrate your air-con or something similar to try and 'chill' the water...

oh... and didn't Wheels award the commodore as car of the year??

nuff said

[Esteban]

No way you could chill that volume of air with any sort of vehicle mounted airconditioning unit ...

I've wanted to give W2A a go for quite some time, just never got around to it. The weight of the system is my biggest concern, that and I hate making compromises...

I haven't seen the wheels test re: boxing a stock A2A to make a W2A but I gather there are also significant gains to be made in the W2A cooler design (ie fin size, tube diameter etc) over an A2A that is boxed. I would suggest getting a proper W2A for your experiment owen...

[o_man_ra23]

one step ahead Esteban...

Gerrard... yes they did vote for the bommodore... but that is a very subjective area. The test on the rex was quantitative, not qualitative, so subjectiveness was eliminated. And Esteban is right, in a way. The gains from the cooling with an AC unit will be far outweighed by the losses of having to push the pump... so not a worthwhile experiment. That was suggested to me a few years ago when my SA23 plans began (planning stage has been long due to the financial restrictions of being a uni bum)

[timbosaurus]

The gains from the cooling with an AC unit will be far outweighed by the losses of having to push the pump... so not a worthwhile experiment. That was suggested to me a few years ago when my SA23 plans began (planning stage has been long due to the financial restrictions of being a uni bum)

haha, I don't think he got ur sarcasm RadMan!

Anyways, don't dismiss the idea Owen, I'm sure the guy who invented the supercharger (Ralph Supercharger, I think his name was) was told that the power required to drive the unit would far outweigh the power gained from the denser air! Maybe you could invent the next big thing!!!!!

[o_man_ra23]

Or maybe not... and the power required to drive a supercharger, combined with the increased fuel energy required to drive it far outweigh the minimal gains it has in terms of not having lag. Turbo system is far better in almost every way.

[Pube]

....The fact that Wheels did a comprehensive test with boxing up a WRX intercooler (so the heat exchanger was identical at that side of things) and managed to gain 40hp with a very basic system is reason enough for me to try it out. My original plan was to have a topmount ATA with ducting and water sprayers... a WTA is simple in comparison... and neater too.

From what I can tell from the 1G W2A intercooler, its th opposite to the way air to air coolers work. Instead of the charged air flowing inside the core and the cooler outside air flowing through fins, the 1G has the water flowing through the core and the charged air flowing through the fins. Hope that makes sense! But I guess it can be done either way like the WRX cooler being boxed up. The WTA systems that CAPA sells, from what I can tell, uses the same priciple as the 1G WTA cooler.

[Toy77]

hi mate,

i have the same air to air style cooler that has been sugested to you.

i have aluminium bends welded to mine opposed to silicon. 2.5 in piping does fit through the holes in the front this way. my piping was joined inside the bay with silicon straights pieces.

Cheers
Stew

[TA-022]

2.5" ?! cool!

must be the silicone thickness that makes the too big in 2.5" ... im guessing pipes are only 1-2mm thick as apposed to siliconne which are 3-6mm think in some cases.

[timbosaurus]

hi mate,

i have the same air to air style cooler that has been sugested to you.

i have aluminium bends welded to mine opposed to silicon. 2.5 in piping does fit through the holes in the front this way. my piping was joined inside the bay with silicon straights pieces.

Cheers
Stew

Hey Stew,

Have you (or anyone else for that matter) got any closeup photos of the piping passing through the front by any chance?

I've seen how well the cooler fits in, and how well it mounts up, but seeing how the different sizes and routed pipings fit would be super benificial.

Cheers,
Timbo

[Toy77]

yup 2.5 in piping - would have been even neater if my cooler didn't have 3in inlets! but hey these things can be overcome.

no pics sorry,

but seeing as there is no motor in the car i could probly sit it back in place and take a pic.

but will have to take bonnet off again first (has to come off anyway to put motor in), so if i rememberi will snap a pic for ya

Cheers
Stew

[timbosaurus]

If ya remember, that'd be cool.

If not, i'll just wait and do whatever looks good