WAIC design

[Stealer Of Souls]

Has anyone designed/built their own WA IC?

If so,
What did you use?
How did you do it?
What did you find out?

I'm on the path to design a WA IC for the impending future. I've looked at a couple of sites about designing AA ICs. Most of the theory looks applicable to WA ICs too. But want to hear from anyone who's actually done this to see what ya did...

[Stu-]

Can't advise on the heat exchange unit itself but if you can, find a subaru water/air heat exchange and possibly cut in in half to get an idea how they work. I've put one on my daily driver starlet and they work remarkably well. Still working out a few teething problems but already its miles better than the stock setup. Im thinking about finding an normal air/air core and fabricating a box to surround it. Might do it one day.

If you look in the latest Performance Fag Magazine there is a good pick of the water/air setup in EVLGTI - basically two skyline cores surrounded by an water/ice box. Just another idea anyway.

Good luck with it.

[GT4 20]

From my website - any good?
http://www.220gti.co.nz/chargecooler.htm
Gary

[Stealer Of Souls]

I saw the EVLGTI core on NZPC TV. was the only episode I saw... Random...
Yeah... I've saw a magazine which made a WAIC for a subie using the original top mount core encased... Seemed to work well...

GT4 20:
That was quite a good little read. I'd be keen to know the dimensions of the core you used, and possibly the mass too.

One thing I'm trying to determine is if it's better to use a large thermal mass for the air core or a low mass core.

[Stu-]

Gary,

What sort of probe did you use to check your air temps? I'm interested in doing this for my setup to see how its all going. Also, do you remember what water temps you were getting?

Thanks

[wde_bdy]

http://forums.toymods.org.au/index.php?t=msg&th=58400&rid=&S=3563eff102ed3f8477739d2935d9f691&pl_view=&start=0#msg_536495

An interesting discussion that may be of some use.

Callum

[GT4 20]

Dimensions of the core matrix are on the tutorial.

I used a thermocouple probe and multi meter - can be sourced from Dick Smiths or any decent electrical shop. Was only used as a temp set-up to check to see how it performed. I didn't measure the water temps - sorry.
Gary

[Stealer Of Souls]

How heavy was the core used?

[GT4 20]

Didn't weigh it.
Gary

[Stealer Of Souls]

yeah... didn't think so...

This is first design decision.
If I use a core with greater mass then the initial cooling should be better, but it may impede the overall cooling during continuous operation. But this will depend on the core material too. If it's got a high thermal conductivity it probably won't matter.
A lower mass core will have less initial cooling capability, but during extended use will provide slightly better cooling.

But on the flip side of all this, it might not matter depending how I shape/design everything. The easiest (and possible most effective) is to do what you've done Gary and just encase an AA IC. But I'm thinking this will have a greater pressure drop across the core, and the shape of it could be prohibitive as I stuff more stuff into the engine bay. At the moment I have plenty of room, but it's all a bit irregular.

The Toymods thread had some good points. It was talking about an off-the-shelf item, and someone was saying that they'd bought it and it wasn't working very well. I think the cooler they were discussing is the same basic design I was going to go for. But I'm not sure as i haven't looked it up yet...