intercooler, air or water?

[hsmidy]

hey im about to go make my car turbo, but i want to keep it looking standard if possible so i was wonding if any of you out there could throw some advatanges or disadvantages of running and air to water intercooler

cheers

[Caveman]

advantages
shorter intake
better at low speeds
just as good at high speed

disadvantages
no bling
heavier
more gear needed
more stuff to go wrong

[dougsop]

water to air
less lag
cannot support big hp
no bling

FMIC
more lag
support big hp
bling bling

[Mr Revhead]

so how come w2a cant support big HP?

[Adamal]

Seconded.

Maybe the stock sort of ones like off a Subaru can't handle big power, but if you're going to be making big power, and still wanted to stay w2a, you'd get something like one of those PWR ones which can support up to about 1200hp (from memory)

[Lloyd]

Only 1200? Like he said... big HP

[I SL1DE]

advantages
shorter intake
better at low speeds
just as good at high speed

This isnt entirely true... The w2a wont be as good at high speeds as the air to water and then water to air processes introduce another heat transfer process. Adding this extra interface reduces the efficency of the system. So a a2a is more efficent at high speed, this means more reduction of intake charge temp for each unit area of intake charge ->intercooler (ie. for the same size cooler you get more cooling )

[Mr Revhead]

Adding this extra interface reduces the efficency of the system

not in a good system it doesnt

[evil_si]

a proper water to air, none of this toyota or subby crap, like for instance a pwr system, will support high h/p, and is far more efficient,
and isnt designed for the power and type of car its for, but expect to pay top dollar for it,

a bling 600x300 cooler on your average street car imo is a wate of time, and less efficient, but got to have da bling aye!

[Lith]

a bling 600x300 cooler on your average street car imo is a wate of time, and less efficient, but got to have da bling aye!

Interesting - what do you define "your average street car" as? I have a 600x300x76 intercooler for my daily driver and the reason I decided on that size etc is nothing to do with bling. At what point do you think it is justified?? Bearing in mind that your average street car will be running on pump gas, and a lot of the modern turbo ones (ie mine) run a reasonably high 9:1 static compression ratio - its always good to be sure any cooling that can be done is.

[bluemaumau]

a bling 600x300 cooler on your average street car imo is a wate of time, and less efficient, but got to have da bling aye!

Interesting - what do you define "your average street car" as? I have a 600x300x76 intercooler for my daily driver and the reason I decided on that size etc is nothing to do with bling. At what point do you think it is justified?? Bearing in mind that your average street car will be running on pump gas, and a lot of the modern turbo ones (ie mine) run a reasonably high 9:1 static compression ratio - its always good to be sure any cooling that can be done is.

its a huge cooler man, evo ones are a mint size for anything under 2ltr

[Mr Revhead]

lith has 2.5 litres of skybargeness

[Stealer Of Souls]

My 2c...

W2A:
Normally more expensive, and not as efficient as A2A when travelling at higher speeds. But the W2A is far more consistent. It can handle sudden load changes, can be arranged to eliminate heatsoak, is a much more compact arrangement for a similar cooling capacity, can generate short term sub-ambient temps if you wanna spend the money.
Lots more to go wrong, usually more problematic to setup, heavier, for optimal operation should have some form of control system to reduce wastage.

My personal preference. Go W2A, depending on what power you're making and what you're using the car for, savage a subaru or toyota system and be happy.

[evil_si]

average street car the likes of a gtx, evo, skyline, with no decent mods


a cooler 600x300 is rated at over 600hp,
a 500x300 will support effiecently 540hp

put a 600x300 and 2.5" piping on an evo and the lag is definatly noticable

[Dragger_Dan]

a proper water to air, none of this toyota or subby crap, like for instance a pwr system, will support high h/p, and is far more efficient,
and isnt designed for the power and type of car its for, but expect to pay top dollar for it,

Case and point - DOCILE - runs 1041hp at the flywheel (last I saw). Running a T51R SPL, methanol, and a big barrel water to air intercooler.

[Lith]

average street car the likes of a gtx, evo, skyline, with no decent mods


a cooler 600x300 is rated at over 600hp,
a 500x300 will support effiecently 540hp

put a 600x300 and 2.5" piping on an evo and the lag is definatly noticable

Fair enough. Most people I know of who have gone to a front mount of those sizes have done so with intent... 500hp+ street cars these days aren't actually that uncommon.

I personally think air to air is fine, while a water to air is more efficient I think the extra weight and space taken up by them - not to mention costs, it doesn't make itself worth it. Realistically on the road you won't be needing the coolest possible air for the highest possible power at every moment. I ultimately am using an intercooler to release heat for reliability reasons (intercoolers don't NEED major cooling over them to cool the charge air btw, they equalise with ambient temperature around the core - its just that the bigger the differential the more dramatic the effect), my car isn't a race car so I don't need to chase every fraction of a HP or every split second of boost response.

A trend in the States currently for people pushing their street cars for every bit of power is using CO2 sprayers on the intercooler - they have been used to pretty impressive effect. If you are really concerned about all around efficiency, look into an NX "sprayer kit" or something - that'd do the trick. You don't have as much weight, expense or complexity as a W2A setup - you have the ever important bling factor some people really care about, and you have your high speed efficiency.

Just my 2c

Case and point - DOCILE - runs 1041hp at the flywheel (last I saw). Running a T51R SPL, methanol, and a big barrel water to air intercooler.

1100hp @ hubs before the T51R ate itself....

[Stealer Of Souls]

I personally think air to air is fine, while a water to air is more efficient I think the extra weight and space taken up by them - not to mention costs, it doesn't make itself worth it.

For the same heat capacity a W2A should be smaller than A2A.

I ultimately am using an intercooler to release heat for reliability reasons

This is the forte area of W2A. They provide a much more consistent charge temperature regardless of what's going on. A classic example is the street light drags, you wind it up and the core gets hot, then you have to stop. The core is already hot and without a good airflow it'll take a little while to cool down. So the next spurt from the lights ends up with hot charge air.
Or the unfortunate highway leapfrog. Overtaking a couple of slow cars and a truck (or something similar). Between vehicles you're trapped behind another vehicle with disturbed airflow and a hot core.
In both instances W2A core would be a much more consistent temp.

[Lith]

I personally think air to air is fine, while a water to air is more efficient I think the extra weight and space taken up by them - not to mention costs, it doesn't make itself worth it.

For the same heat capacity a W2A should be smaller than A2A.

I ultimately am using an intercooler to release heat for reliability reasons

This is the forte area of W2A. They provide a much more consistent charge temperature regardless of what's going on. A classic example is the street light drags, you wind it up and the core gets hot, then you have to stop. The core is already hot and without a good airflow it'll take a little while to cool down. So the next spurt from the lights ends up with hot charge air.
Or the unfortunate highway leapfrog. Overtaking a couple of slow cars and a truck (or something similar). Between vehicles you're trapped behind another vehicle with disturbed airflow and a hot core.
In both instances W2A core would be a much more consistent temp.

Look at what you quoted me at saying - I said a W2A is more efficient (but the setup will be heavier), why are you trying to argue or correcting this?? You are backing up my point. What I am saying is that yes - a W2A performs better, but do you need it?? Do you actually think it really matters that the intercooler gained some heat when you overtook some cars? If you are just cruising around on the road or doing some overtaking (at least in my car) you SHOULDN'T be going more than 1/2 throttle anyway - so whats the advantage??

The core is NOT going to heat up the intake charge when on boost - its just not logical to assume the intercooler which is constantly radiating heat is going to heat the intake charge. The only way that could happen is if the ambient temp outside the core is hotter than your charged air - and if thats the case, you have far bigger things to worry about than what type of intercooler you have gone for.

In terms of street light drags - we don't condone that, surely? There is no way you should be on boost when stationary on a public road, and vacuum (... well low pressure ...) has a cooling effect - so as long as you are just cruising or idling, if anything you should actually be cooling the intercooler from both inside and out.

Air to air intercoolers have been used for YEARS on heaps of street and race cars perfectly effectively. You'll find the people who are really getting huge gains are those who are running >20psi - where the air is REALLY starting to get hot, refer to earlier comments of overkill of having a 600x300 intercooler on a road car. As I said in the previous post, which I notice you didn't refer to - if you REALLY want a cool core right from the start get a CO2 sprayer for the air2air cooler for when you need it.

[Mr Revhead]

lets get back to the original question here.....

hsmidy: what car is it? what set up do you have?

[dougsop]

so how come w2a cant support big HP?

i was talking abt the factory one:P