Laminova, a very different water to air cooler.

[awill4x4]

This also means shorter cooler piping, does this mean increased throttle response?

Yes, that's one of the benefits of top mount intercoolers even air to air that the throttle response is better. But the trade off in air to air is the heat soak in low speed.
Regards Andrew.

[af300e]

Yes, that's one of the benefits of top mount intercoolers even air to air that the throttle response is better. But the trade off in air to air is the heat soak in low speed.
Regards Andrew.

How much is the laminova system affected by heat soak? And, since any heat soak is likely heating the coolant in the intercooler system, does the efficiency taper drastically off during periods of heavy loadings (4x4 type situations etc)?
Or is the heat exchanger more than efficient enough to negate the effects of heat soak on the coolant?

[awill4x4]

heat exchanger doesn't need to be at the front, since it doesn't need to reject anywhere near as much heat as the radiator.
full flow air would be nice, but not necessary.
the rate of heatin gof the water is much slower than a normal air to air IC, and the cooling down of the fluid is also slower..
really worried? increase capacity of fluid in system.. should at least give more time for the fluid to heat up.
do you only get the snazzy cores and end caps? or you get the tubes they slide into as well? how critical is the diameter of the tubes they slide into?

Ideally the larger the heat exchanger the better to allow the heat exchanger to get the water temp as close to ambient as you can. The benefit is instead of trying to push the air through a 75mm-100mm thick air to air and compromising the air flow to your radiator your pushing it through a 25mm or less thick radiator.
An extra tank to increase the volume of water will also help.
We buy the cores and have the endcaps made up for us, we had them made to suit Dash 8 type fittings as then you can use swivel type fittings to direct the inlet and outlet hoses in any direction.
The tubing size is critical, particularly the internal diameter, we just lucked into finding one that suits our needs and get them machined to suit.
Regards Andrew.

[awill4x4]

How much is the laminova system affected by heat soak? And, since any heat soak is likely heating the coolant in the intercooler system, does the efficiency taper drastically off during periods of heavy loadings (4x4 type situations etc)?
Or is the heat exchanger more than efficient enough to negate the effects of heat soak on the coolant?

On Matt's car his is a competition 4x4 and his results have been really good and that's even with a pretty small heat exchanger for the water. His is a cab chassis with the radiator mounted sideways in the back with a smallish fan but the results have surprised the both of us.
The internal tubes that support the cores are basically surrounded by the incoming/outgoing air from the turbo so heat soak doesn't seem to be a problem and you always have the cool water flowing through the centre of the cores as well.
Regards Andrew.

[boxh34d]

You're right, these were originally designed for supercharging but for us "efficient cooling is efficient cooling" regardless of the mode of turbo/supercharging.
I would love to try these in one the aftermarket supercharged LS1/2 V8's like Harrop etc, as the water to air intercoolers they use are basically useless at transferring heat.
Regards Andrew.

They couldn't possibly be any worse than the thin box water to air coolers used between the harrop (or simmilar) and the LS1. Recently saw one that couldn't keep intake temps down below about 80 deg. Timing advance ( or lack of ) was terrible to compensate.

Keep us updated of any more installs that you do, as I'm sure I'm not the only one keen to see how this design holds up in various situations.

[Duk]

Yes, we have designed these for a straight through one shot water pass for each core which then goes to the heat exchanger gets cooled then back to the I/cooler. When used by the car manufacturers they use a multi pass where the water flows from one core to the other till it eventually exits the last core but we feel the heat buildup in the water means you lose the air cooling efficiency of each core so that's why we've gone one shot pass.

All (well all that I've seen and have been told about at trade school) industrial air compressors water/air intercoolers and 'aftercooler' use opposing flows. If the compressed air was moving from left to right, then the cooling water would flow right to left. This gives the greatest amount of heat absorption for a given amount of coolant flow.
So there is probably some merit in why car manufacturers do it too .

[wagonist]

So I'm guessing something like this could be used to replace a top mount air-air interheater quite easily.
How much of an issue would it be to have, say 4 "cores" in a row? I'm guessing as the air passes progressively through each core, that more heat is taken out? At least the coolant flow for each core is separate and should be consistent for temperature (at least at the "in" side)

What's the $ comparison compared to standard type cores with custom tanks?

[Jt_70R]

All (well all that I've seen and have been told about at trade school) industrial air compressors water/air intercoolers and 'aftercooler' use opposing flows. If the compressed air was moving from left to right, then the cooling water would flow right to left. This gives the greatest amount of heat absorption for a given amount of coolant flow.
So there is probably some merit in why car manufacturers do it too .

air flow appears to be perpendicular to water flow so this doesnt really apply.

edit: or are there internal tubes surrounding the finned cores within the manifold 'box' ?


P.S. awil4x4, design looks great, slap a patent on it before some forum user rips it off!

[Duk]

air flow appears to be perpendicular to water flow so this doesnt really apply.

edit: or are there internal tubes surrounding the finned cores within the manifold 'box' ?

Yeh by that I mean that the cooling water would enter in the bottom 2 tubes, come out the other end, do a u-turn an go into the top 2 tubes and come out above the water inlets (using the 2nd and 3rd photos as examples).

[The Real Roadrunner]

What's the $ comparison compared to standard type cores with custom tanks?

not sure on an exact comparison but i cant see one of these systems going into a car for less than about $2.5K if fitted by a shop. the cores themselves would be an easy 1K then add lines, heat exchanger (decent quality $450+) throw a pump and some sort of pump control into the equation and the bang for buck starts to reduce dramatically.

i personally really like them but they need to be used for the right purposes to make them worth the cost ie big boosted Mr2 or a rock crawler etc.

cheers
linden

[wagonist]

I can see that in a north-south engine, having a reverse flow for the coolant would make plumbing easier, but for an east-west engine, having cross flow would be my thoughts, as you could then have cross flow for the radiator as well which would shorten the plumbing.

[oldcorollas]

air flow appears to be perpendicular to water flow so this doesnt really apply.
edit: or are there internal tubes surrounding the finned cores within the manifold 'box' ?
P.S. awil4x4, design looks great, slap a patent on it before some forum user rips it off!

the alloy tubes around the cores have a "slit" to let air in and out, to force the air to go over the fins. otherwise, air would just pass aroudn the fins.. much easier to do that then go thru a 0.3mm space.

err.. they are already a commercial product...
could you even get a patent for a box for a particular car? and would it be worth the patent cost since they are all hand made anyway?

Wagonist, the difference in plumbing is about.. 30cm of pipe if you need to return from one end to other... surely that is not such a big problem, regardless fo the engine orientation?

[Jt_70R]

yeah i meant a patent on the custom manifold 'box' design.

probably not really much point seeing how involved and costly actually getting one is.

But its still a great idea, good to see people thinking outside the box!

[MattMc]

Here are the the Dyno results for my Laminova intercooler Awill4x4 welded up, the 1st one we made, for my 2F-ETI



Pre and Post intercooler temp




Pre and Post PSI



The 2F ETI in Red

[MattMc]

Here is where we are up to with the Mav.

Radiator is from a Telstar.





The plastic end tanks have been cut off, to be replaced with Ali ones so we can dictate where the in and out feeds are, to suit our needs.