hiding w2a cooler

[Shifty]

hey guys

my water to air cooler is invisible from the outside, but when you pop the bonnet it will be pretty obvious

has anyone got an example or some ideas of a way to cover/hide it that doesn't look like you're trying to cover/hide it?

don't want to cut any holes, more thinking about mounting it relatively low and putting a cover of some type over it, or fitting a smaller battery and mounting the w2a cooler under the battery or something

in particular I'm talking about an ae82 engine bay

any ideas welcomed

[chris davey]

Just wondering why you want to hide it? Legal isn't it just like an a2a cooler?

[1jz68u]

yeah why??

[Justo]

I can only assume you have a 4AGTE or 4AGZE?
paint it black and if anyone asks it was a factory item.

OR

you could just get it engineered. I assume the engine isnt engineered in the car as you wouldn't care if it was hidden or not if it was.

[takai]

Its a 3SGTE from memory, not a 4AGZE

[Shifty]

I like that 'factory' kinda look. In particular, water to air coolers look shithouse.... and on top of that most of them are polished which makes them look even more faggy.

I'll have a tinker and look at making up some type of cover or putting it in the least conspicuous place possible... not that there's much room in an AE82 engine bay after putting in a 3SGTE.

[Roundy]

As odd as this will sound, can you hide it behind the front bumper somewhere?

I know that somewhat goes against the idea of the w/a by lengthening the pipes, but it could be an option.

[old_mr2]

what style are you getting?

RS liberty
Celica
PWR

Paint it black first and maybe put a misleading sticker on it..

[Justo]

why not use a celica gt4 water to air intercooler. they are as factory looking as you can get.

[takai]

Im also pretty sure he has a PWR W2A, although im scratching the bottom of the barrel in m memory there.

[BrianRA23]

Painting it black is a good start, but I doubt there are many places to hide a PWR core.

How about getting some laminova cores and making a custom unit. Potential it could be reasonably flat or a couple could be able to be incorporated into a modified intake plenum. It may be more efficient and flow better than the PWR if done right.

[Andrew162]

Let's see what you've got so far...

EDITED: AE82 with Gen4 3S-GTE conversion. BTW I found the original thread for this conversion here.

Personally I'm still scratching my head over the idea of hiding a W2A cooler. Not sure if you can cover it, and not even sure that it makes a great deal of difference thermally, but more the issue of space between the cooler and the hood. Whatever you do put in place to hide it isn't gonna look factory and will draw attention to itself. It looks very bare and like there's something missing there without it. For the sake of argument I'd say paint it black and call it a day.

[Shifty]

I've just seen a lot of tacky installs.. this doesn't look stock, tidy, or anything like it.



With some effort it wouldn't be harder to come up with a better solution than this I guess!

[Andrew162]

Ok if you got something like that then maybe I can warrant the want to hide it I guess. To me that does look a bit tacky as well, and far from factory, but it does depend which way you wanna sway. Others go for something like this just because they can, or have no factory option for W2A cooling.


This pic from your install, I'm guessing the W2A cooler is in front of the rad? Or is this the heat exchanger? Your thread doesn't say and it's not too clear from the pic.

[1jz68u]

man just paint it matte black.